Celebrating One Year of Blogging as Sundial: Heartfelt Thanks; and the relief of recognising Autistic Shutdown

Recently, I had a couple of email notifications advising me my hosting provider and my domain name are up for renewal. IT’S BEEN A YEAR!! A whole year since I began my Sundial blog adventure.

It was really daunting at the start, I had absolutely no experience in website design or creation; it was a huge and, eh I have to say it, sometimes extremely frustrating learning curve. It took me a good few months of snatched time to build my website and get it going.

I’m proud of it, but so very careful about tinkering. I’ve broken it a few times since, and spent panicked hours checking through everything I did, to fix it. I’ll have to work out how to back it up some time heh.

In November 2023, I finally launched it, coinciding it with a new guest post; Threesome Erotica – Just Feel and Breathe, on the website of the fabulous girlonthenet. And of course, as luck would have it, my host provider went down that evening, and people couldn’t access the site. A friend told me I’d broken the internet with my filth haha.

It was such an exciting time for me. Especially when my very first ever subscriber sent me an email about a technical issue they had with subscribing. I had my very first subscriber! I can’t tell you how great that made me feel! Shout out to you, very first subscriber <3

A look behind the scenes, I discovered what the issue was and fixed it, then wrote to my first ever subscriber, to explain, and of course to tell them that they were my very first subscriber, and how happy they’d made me!

They replied, and me being the tech-savvy person I am, I only noticed they had a few weeks ago when I cleared out old email. Sorry, first ever subscriber, for not getting back to you until very recently.

A year since I started, eight months since GoingDownWithSundial officially launched, and I’ve just extended my hosting and domain name for another year.

I don’t monetise it, just get off on the thought I might be paying to give someone, somewhere some wanking pleasure. I’m reminded of this hilarious post from girlonthenet.

The Thank Yous!

Firstly, thank you dear reader, for reading my blog 🙂

I see the stats on my site. I know, especially in the last month, since girlonthenet launched the first of five (though I will only be reading four of them) collaborative pieces of audio porn on her website, that the traffic is growing.

She’s been such a confidence boost to me right from the very start, when I sent her my first tentative piece of writing, the Over The Knee Punishment scene in the gym.

She’s been extremely supportive of me during my venture into the world of audio porn too. She helped me set myself up and took the time to personally give me tips on recording and editing. I’m so very grateful, because that was another needed confidence boost and it gave me a place to begin, so I can dirty your ears with my own audio filth. I think she’s heartily sick of hearing me say this by now, but: thank you girlonthenet!

I’d also like to say an extra special thank you, to those of you who’ve made comments on my posts. You have no idea how much your comments mean to me. I do see the stats and it’s marvellous to see them rising, but that personal feedback makes me feel like I’m actually touching real people, and that they’re touching me back. And that is sooooooo lovely.

I get such pleasure in pleasing people, and I get great pleasure in being told I did something right, part of the good girl thing I have going on, which you can read about in more detail here.

Joining Mastodon Freaked me Out!

Years ago, I had a Facebook account and though I wasn’t using it to share myself with other people, I was using it to keep up with what the many people I knew, most of whom I wasn’t even close to, were up to. I was a Facebook lurker. I shut this account down about five years ago.

If you’ve been keeping up with me, you’ll know I recently opened a Mastodon account. At first I was thrilled, the community were super welcoming. But then it got scary and I got tongue- (or should I say finger-) tied.

I don’t really know how to be, in the social media scene. I talked this over with my man, said I wanted to delete the account again. But he said, “give it a chance.” Reminded me that I just need time to adjust to newness.

I suspect I’ll always be more of a lurker than a poster, which goes against what I feel I should be, as someone who would really like to reach more people with her smut, her rants, and her truths.

I had a reaction to this scared feeling I had. An autistic shutdown. The fourth kind in what I describe below.

I want to share with you my experience of what shutting down is like for me.

Four Types of Shutdown

There are four types of shutdown I’ve identified. One of them, I’ve known about a long time. It’s the sadness shutdown where I seem to slip into something akin to a mini depression, although it’s clearly not the same thing. I didn’t know why it happened, just that it did. My man and I have a coping method for this that works for me, I’ve written about it before.

Then there are the big-fry shutdowns, I have had six of these in my life. They probably fall under the category of autistic burn-out and they lasted for months. But that’s a heavy topic, for another time.

The next type of shutdown is like an instantaneous storm in my head. I’ve only experienced this when arguing with someone and I get completely emotionally overloaded. And it’s the scariest.

The clearest way I can describe it is: It’s like a complete shutdown of my immediate short-term memory. I forget in an instant, what we’re arguing about, and what we’ve said to each other since the argument started.

I would feel acutely embarrassed and confused by it; I couldn’t understand it at all. And how do you explain to the person you’re arguing with, that you have just completely forgotten the reason why you’re arguing, and what you both said to each other even.

I’d either lash out verbally (what I now know is called a meltdown) or just shut down completely and become unresponsive, leave the room, and cry to calm myself, while trying desperately to remember what it was that had upset me so much in the first place.

I’d be left with this severe emotional response, made worse by my embarrassment and confusion. And I’d have no idea what the narrative was that had caused it. I can’t begin to tell you how distressing this is.

I really did feel in those moments, like I was going mad.

My man and I rarely argue. It’s not that we agree on everything or walk on eggshells around each other, it’s just how we are together. He’s very peaceable, he listens without being confrontational, so I rarely get these instantaneous head-storms now.

My most common type of Shutdown

The last type of shutdown has only very recently become apparent to me. It’s subtle in comparison to the other three types of shutdown, it’s not dramatic and most of the time, I can still force myself to function through it.

We didn’t know what it was before. All I knew was there were times when I wondered what the fuck was wrong with me. I couldn’t deal with the simplest things. A little example; going to the shop to buy bread would seem as hard as walking across a bed of white-hot nails. It was the thought have having to be out there, to be seen, to have to (oh dread) interact with another person. I’d sooner go hungry than go out.

Most of these types of shutdown are small-fry, usually only last a few hours and are caused by any number of factors, like overstimulation, over-excitement, fear or stress.

I didn’t know what was going on before, but now I can identify and draw lines under why I react the way I do. And it’s so fucking liberating to know I’m not just being sulky or dramatic (these are labels from childhood that have haunted me all my life), when I become unresponsive, when it becomes too much for me to make the effort to communicate, or when I’m only able to communicate monosyllabically (what a joke of a word that is heh).

I don’t know if this will make sense to you, but something that really helps me is having a label for what’s going on with me in those moments, I can categorise myself in a factual way. I can identify what’s happening early, and I know that it is perfectly normal and okay to be in that labelled state, I can take the pre-planned path of action; isolate and recover.

This takes away the mental confusion, the questioning of my sanity, the unknown, wondering if I am being dramatic or sulky again, and the pressure of punishing myself by trying to behave normally through it.

Knowing what’s going on and why is such a relief, it calms me and helps me recover faster.

And In Conclusion: Celebration, Positivity and the Thank Yous!

This is a post of celebration. And some truths about me. So let me conclude, because that’s what I’d like to do 😉

Firstly, though I talk about autistic shutdown, and it seems like a negative thing, it’s actually not. It’s just my brain’s way of telling me to take time out. To give myself the time to re-find my equilibrium. Though it used to be scary and confusing, now that I understand it and can categorise and label my behaviour, it is so much more peaceful, it’s liberating.

Secondly, the thank yous!

Thank you to all of you, for reading my filth.

Extra special call outs, in no particular order, to:

My Very First Subscriber
All those who have made me feel like I’m touching real people, by commenting or liking posts, especially Steve, my most prolific commentor 😉
Girlonthenet for being so supportive and kicking me off on this journey <3
My Man, who is so supportive of me, in so very many ways 🙂