I was just thinking back to when I was in junior school....
I got bullied a lot, and was struggling so much with the school work, and general high level of stress both at school and home...

I was briefly talking to one of my friends I had as a kid for a year or two - I hadn't really spoken to her since.
I don't know how this came up in conversation - but she said I used to "switch off" or "shut down" a fair bit....

She said that we would all be having a conversation, then all of a sudden I just stopped responding, just sit there. They said they would wave their hands in front of my face, call my name a few times.. that didn't seem to help, so they even tried shouting in my ear, or pushing/shaking me... and still nothing...
I remember I wouldn't be aware I had missed anything, one day I just asked them why they were just sitting there staring at me, and another day asked why they never seemed to have conversations which included me - when I was just sitting there, they'd be chatting to each other as if i wasn't there - one day I remember my friends told me; "you just turn off - we try talking to you, shouting, pushing, shaking you and nothing works - you just still sit there blank - so sometimes we just make a game of it and make bets on how long it takes you to come back, other times we give up, we just say "oh - she's gone again" and keep talking.

i'm not sure how long these blank states lasted, but i think I remember her saying about 30sec up to 4 minutes...

They only seemed to happen from about age 7? to age 12 ...

Its definitely not a shutdown or meltdown - I used to have those as a kid too, and still do... the "shut down" as they termed it had me completely unresponsive and unaware.
I used to dissociate as well... but again, it seems to be a completely separate thing from that.

I know this is not an SPD issue... but I know many problems can overlap for people who have SPD... I was wondering if anyone ever experienced anything similar... I had one person suggest it could have been some type of epilepsy... cant remember what they called it.. however they weren't a medical professional ... I'm not looking for any diagnosis, just wondering if others had experienced a similar issue in the past.

I'm not concerned - as I don't think I have that issue any more.-
Thought I'd put it out there.

Meg

The type of epilepsy you're looking for to research is absence seizures.

Usually those don't last as long as 4 minutes though from what I've read.

Hi tuttleturtle
Thanks for your reply.
Im really not sure on how long - it was years ago now, I know they said about 30 seconds at least ( I think) .. maybe only up to 1 minute... I would have to message them at some point to fond out - but it really doesn't worry me, I was just thinking back to junior school and it was a little odd..

Thank you for the info though tuttle - I will have to look into that some time.
I appreciate the reply