Shutting down

Shutting down is your body turning its energy down when something feels like too much. Your mind goes blank, your voice goes flat, your face stops moving and the world seems a little further away. In our model it is the body's side of the strategy we call Hide.

It is not your body giving up, and it doesn't mean you don't care. It is a way of getting through a moment by feeling less of it.

What it is doing for you

Some responses rev the body up: a racing heart, a clenched jaw. Shutting down does the opposite. Energy drops, muscles go heavy, thinking slows. When pushing back didn't feel possible, turning the feeling down and drifting a little further away was a way to get through, and to stop a feeling from flooding you.

It is close to freezing, but not quite the same. Going completely still on the spot and waiting for a moment to pass tends to belong to the strategy we call Fold. Shutting down is more like leaving while you are still in the room: you go quiet, numb and far away.

What it often travels with

Shutting down often comes with numbness on the surface, and fear or shame underneath.

It is common in the Hide Templates. In Safety × Hide, if I stay out of sight, I'll be safe, you go quiet and pull back inside yourself so as not to be noticed. In Connection × Hide, if I don't need anyone, no one can leave me, it can arrive just as a conversation gets close. In Expression × Hide, if I hide what I feel, I won't be hurt, it switches a feeling off before it can show.

A flat white going cold

It's Saturday morning in a busy café. Your friend of ten years asked to meet, which is unusual. Halfway through her coffee, she puts the cup down.

"Can I say something? I've felt like you've been pulling away for months. I miss you. Did I do something?"

Your mind goes white. You can hear the coffee machine, but her words seem to arrive from a long way off. You hear yourself say, "No, it's fine, I've just been busy," in a voice that sounds flat even to you. She asks again, gently. You look at the table and say, "I don't really know."

She changes the subject. You feel relief, and then, on the walk home, a heavy, sinking feeling. There were things you could have said. You just couldn't reach them.

What you shut down around wasn't her. It was the exposure of being asked, kindly and directly, what you feel. Understanding that doesn't make the conversation optional. It means you can come back to it more slowly, and send her a message tonight to say so.

One thing to notice

The next time you feel yourself going blank, start with your feet. Press them into the floor and feel the weight of your body in the chair.

Then say one plain sentence out loud: "I'm shutting down a bit. I need a minute." That sentence keeps a thread between you and the other person. It tells them you're still here, and it gives you a small way back in.