On the way back from the nudist beach, we stopped at Costa for a coffee.

I made the damned-fool mistake of asking him why he was so quiet today – and, as a result, I am now fighting to reconstruct what happened through the fog of an ASD shutdown.

So, on with the coffee…

He is feeling low because he worried that no longer find him attractive.

I tell him that he’s a good looking guy, with a lovely body. But I did stop short of telling him that I find him attractive.

I want to hold and be held by him, which I told him.

But all the difficulties between us I just don’t feel that I want to be with him sexually yet – I cannot relax around him. I didn’t mention that ever time I’m with him that I need to take migraine medication to help cope with the stress and anxiety.

He is so clearly upset and I cannot find the words to console him, so I teach out and take his hand. I have tears in my eyes. I feel distress when he is upset. I do not like to see him in hurting and in pain, and I want to do it say something that will make him feel a little better.

Then he switched to attack, my shields are down, I take a number of emotional hits and then go into shutdown.

Shutdown is hard to describe because my memory of the situation I am in becomes disjointed, as though seen from a distance. My thoughts start by racing, then grind to a halt, leaving me blank but not peaceful. Does time stop as well? It feels like I am in some kind of suspended animation. I first lose the ability to communicate or understand complex sentences and my vocabulary becomes limited, before I finally lose the ability to speak as well. I will also become paralysed and unable to move. A sudden shock can force a flinch like movement, but is unlikely to restore mobility – it certainly won’t restore any ability to communicate.

This the classic drama triangle: he moves from victim to persecutor, I move from rescuer to victim.

I know that I was tempted to go on the attack. I refused to do that: I was not going to move into the persecutor role – I have done that nice to death and what pain I have caused in the process!

But what was it he said? Something about trying to fill in the gaps between the things that I do say. He is looking for reassurance or some kind. Beyond that, I cannot say.

I don’t remember very much else about what was said. I remember saying that he’d often tell me how he felt about something I said before I’d worked out how I felt. Essentially that there is actually no room for me to find and express my own feelings with him.

I was dimly aware that he got up and left.

I was frozen there. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.

After a while, I did get up and staggered down to the car.

He wasn’t there.

I did find him sat on a hillock smoking. I pointed in the direction of the car.

I went and sat in the car.

Somehow, two and a half hours had passed when he came to the car, having realised that he had a two hour walk home if he didn’t let me drive him back.

The drive was on autopilot. I don’t remember it much, except that I wasn’t really present. I almost certainly wasn’t safe to drive, but neither was I really making decisions any more.

The dog really woke me up when I got home: animals are insistent and have their needs. Their innocence can wake the sleeping mind.

I fed her, walked her, then watched some comfort TV and went to bed.

Eleven hours later I woke up, feeling crushed.

This was supposed to be a period of recovery for me.

How many more times can we do this to each other?

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And the irony here is? After the beach I had planned a nice tea, a cuddle on the sofa, and a cosy night in bed – who knows what might have happened?

He might have got an answer to some of his questions.