For a long time I didn't realise this was catatonic episodes. I thought it was ~autistic shutdown~ or that they might be the same thing.
I am still really not sure what autistic shutdown is! There's this comic though: https://introvertdoodles.com/comic/shutdown/ Shutdown seems... less unpleasant?
@cassolotl I get much the same thing, almost always stress triggered
I've found when the vocal subroutines crap out I can still write things down on paper or switch to a language I only half know
@troubleMoney Yeah, sometimes I can still write. But sometimes I can only write the things I can say, and I can't write the things I can't say. I haven't worked out the pattern for identifying the things I still have access to yet.
@troubleMoney Like, being non-verbal is for me quite a different thing from being catatonic. It's just that catatonia often starts with words going, but I think that's just a coincidence! And non-verbal is totally fine, because I can just write things down. One day I hope to learn BSL so I can talk without my mouth.
@cassolotl with me the non-verbal is always a prelude for going catatonic if I don't get some diazepam in me so I'm assuming they're linked in me
and the "switch to a second language I don't know well" is just bizzare but it seems to work for me, idle speculation is that my brain stores languages I'm not good at in a different place than speaking my native language but 🤷
brains be weird
@troubleMoney Yeah like you have to go through atypical bits of your brain and think in a different way so it's a different system, kinda thing. That is the case with me and being non-verbal. It is interesting that you *only* go non-verbal when you're pre-catatonic, then!
@cassolotl that's what one of the docs said when I first went to them for the symptoms, on my records I think they listed the whole catatonia thing as "non-epileptic attack disorder" which I believe is code for "nope, no idea, but it's kinda funky and we wouldn't mind poking about if we had the time"
@cassolotl the meds I'm on certainly do the trick
and even if I do have one then the witnesses are lot more concerned than I am
"ARE YOU OKAY?!?!"
"huh? yeah, where's nearest cup of tea?"
"YOU WERE OUT FOR AN HOUR!"
"oh yeah, does that sometimes, again, where's the tea?"
@troubleMoney Meds! Good good. :) And tea, and people caring about you and stuff. 👌