Advice For Meltdowns During Conflicts

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I'm sure this topic has been posted a million times.

I have trouble with anxiety during personal conflicts that can sometimes lead to meltdowns. I want to learn how to prevent a meltdown before it happens.

I am working closely with my boyfriend, Roland, on this problem. We are also in couples therapy to help us learn to communicate in less stressful ways, but our counselor isn't really experienced with autism in particular. She's helping but I want advice from people who may better know what I'm going through.

The anxiety is always there during a disagreement. I'm always at least a little tense, waiting for something bad to happen, and most of all, afraid I won't be able to express myself or that I'll forget very important things I want to say, or that I'll betray myself, or that I'll get railroaded or won't be able to stand up for myself. The anxiety is compounded by triggers from all our past fights. Like if something during the present fight reminds me of a painful issue from our past, that will really work me up. As if I'm dragging all my past pain around with me and it just keeps building up.

I've noticed my anxiety peaks if I feel trapped. Sometimes I feel physically trapped, like if someone is blocking the door and I don't feel I can run out of the room. Usually, though, I feel logically or emotionally trapped. Like I *know* what I want, what I feel, what is right, but there is no solution, or no way to be heard, or no way to say what I want without making things worse, or any number of other mental traps. I can become trapped by his words.

Of course he doesn't like the fact that I might suddenly meltdown. It helps now that we're looking at the Asperger's angle, because now he can better understand why I get so emotional. Right now, we're experimenting with a system where I state a number from 1-10, with 0 being totally mellow and calm, and 10 being meltdown. If I get above a 6, I notice, he notices, and I guess the goal is that if it goes any higher, we focus on calming me down instead of on the topic of the fight. He's also learning how to help me feel listened to, which helps a great deal. It's hard to feel trapped if I know he understands what I'm trying to communicate. I'm also learning how to stand up for myself so I don't feel railroaded. There are certain ways of saying things I don't let him do anymore, because they're not fair and I know they will escalate me.

I'm really looking for some advice on other things I can try. My goals:

* Learn how to be more calm in the presence of any type of conflict.
* If I'm close to a meltdown, say an 8, what things will calm me down? What things can I do to calm myself down? And what things can he do to help me calm down?

Hello, jamgrrl
I can't give you any advice, sorry, but your post is very interesting.
My girfriend has the same problem. I think she's a high functioning autist. Her meltdowns are getting worse in the last two months, and I'm thinking is time to go to couple therapy...
Altough I'm sure I'm an Aspie, I have never suffered a meltdown. After seeing my girlfriend, I know it must be something unbearable. I mean, she loses control, and all of a sudden communication is IMPOSSIBLE. Nothing I say calms her down. And she won't listen anything.
Please, tell me more about you. I'm new here.

preventing a meltdown is hard to learn, but a very useful skill once mastered.
that said, you seem to already have the first step down: seeing one coming.

if you are at, as you say, an 8 on the meltdown scale, it might be enough to take a break from the argument and go do something else for a bit (retreating to a toilet cubicle is what i do; those are available almost everywhere).
if you notice too late, and get to, say, a 9, the only thing you can do is to remove yourself from any and all anxiety-provoking situations and immerse yourself in a special interest.

what i myself usually do to limit the chances of overloading in the first place is to put some kind of 'meditative shield' around me any time i enter a potentially social situation, although it wont protect me from an argument, it will lower general anxiety of being around people, at the expence of a little specific attention, the tradeoff becomes more favourable every time i use it.

I have a similar issue.

For me, what helps is if my parents (the usual targets of my meltdowns) start going on and on about my good qualities and how much they care about me, and offer a hug and if I don't say no they hug me (sometimes I can say no but not yes). Do not try to argue with me or use logic or reason, that will just get me more upset.

Ironically, the one who is best at helping me during a meltdown is my cat. If I start crying, she makes this concerned mew and comes up to cuddle with me. She may be a temperamental cat at times, but she's also very sensitive and caring.

Not an aspie but plenty of experience with relationships and communication.

NOBODY does well communicating during a heated conflict.

I think that the first thing you need to do is explain to your BF that he needs to imagine his anxiety that he gets during or leading up to an argument and multiply it by 100, that is where you are at (wife is not aspie and I have to multiply mine by 10 to get where she is)

Next, you need to explain that you can't talk when you are into a meltdown so don't bother. If you need to walk away for a minute/hour/day so be it.

As for the anxiety around feeling like an argument is going to happen, I can't say for sure but once you are communicating more effectively I think you should find that settles down a lot.

Seeing a counselor is great, I think that everyone should see a counselor for relationships even when things are going really well because it will just make things better.

Best of luck and hope I was some help!
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If my husband and I get into an argument and I start feeling like I'm going to explode, I have to leave. Most of the time I go for a walk until I'm calmed down and then we can talk about what happened in a more reasonable manner because we've had time to think about it. I have a hard time communicating properly when I'm calm, but when I get upset it's like I can't find the words at all, so it's impossible to get anywhere unless I calm down.

It's true. It is unbearable. It is so unbearable that I often want to die while it's happening. I can't think. I can only have one thought in my head at a time. It's a fight, flight, or freeze response designed, in the wild, to live through a life-threatening situation, but in the modern world, it's maladaptive. My instincts are usually to turn that bad energy inward. Like, I feel like the worst person in the world and I just want to hurt myself or disappear or anything to make the pain stop. So I'll have some phrase repeating in my head, like "I want to disappear, I want to disappear". If I turn it outward, I'll say something over and over (aloud) like "f* you, f* you". People don't tend to react well to that, and as soon as they react poorly, it adds to the bad feelings and I turn it inward again.

I did one thing in the middle of my last meltdown and it really helped me. (I'm sure everyone is different tho). My boyfriend and my girlfriend (I am polyamorous) were both starting to realize I may be aspie and that my meltdowns were not in my control. That information helped them, so that even tho Roland didn't know what I needed, I was able to say, "Help me", and he came rushing over to hold me. I really wanted my girlfriend to hug me, since I was still a little scared of him, so I asked for her, and she held me and told me to breathe slowly. The meltdown ended pretty quickly after that.

So in that case it was a combination of me reaching out with what limited brain-power I had left, and their awareness that I needed a certain type of comfort. Now we're try to figure out what types of comfort they can offer when it happens. For me, being held in a full way, like a full body hug, seems to be the best. Some people don't want to be touched at all in a meltdown, but it works for me. It physically feels comforting, and it also lets me know I'm loved. It reminds me that the people around me are safe, and not my enemies, that they love me even though we've been fighting, and that I'm not actually in a life-threatening situation.

Thanks izzeme. That's along the lines of what we're thinking of trying. I'm a little scared because sometimes I can go from being a 6 or 7 to a full meltdown in seconds, for instance if suddenly the conversation turns in a certain direction and out of nowhere I feel trapped. It's helpful tho.

A funny thing is I have a really hard time concentrating when I'm upset. So a special interest wouldn't help. I can't seem to read or do anything serious. But I could turn to a relaxing repetitive video game. So that's a good idea.

That's a good idea. A couple of times I've been walked back from the edge of the cliff when Roland tells me he's on my side. That's the message I really want to hear, I think. That he loves me and still cares for me even though we're fighting. That he doesn't want me to be hurting.

Yes, logic and reason when I'm upset like that doesn't work. Because it sounds like an attack. Like a dismissal of my feelings. Like, here is the logical way, so you shouldn't feel upset. That leads to me feeling more trapped, and might even cause me to feel stupid for being upset over such a "little" thing. I'm often struggling during conflicts to take *myself* seriously. I'm struggling to not beat myself up and go on a self-hatred campaign internally. If what the other person is saying reinforces that urge, then that will feed a meltdown.

Yes. This. I believe this will happen. I can't count on it 100%, so I'm working it from all angles. :)

But yes, I believe that as he and I figure out the problems in our communication styles, and learn how to more effectively communicate and listen, that a lot of the stress from conflicts will dissipate. Neither of us got effective modeling from our families of origin - he came from an extremely abusive background, and my parents were on the verge of divorce most of my teen years. So we tend to trip each other's triggers. There are a lot more dynamics than just Asperger's and meltdowns, and we are looking at all of those. It helps that both he and I have been in individual therapy and other forms of personal growth throughout the years.

We've also identified that we approach communication with different thinking styles. I am concrete and he is abstract. I think a lot of our conflicts have been unnecessarily messy because he would be aiming for some larger point, and I'd keep addressing the minutia of his examples. Now that we understand that dynamic, things seem to be going more smoothly. I'm also learning to ask him for specifically what he wants, so I don't feel lost and confused trying to decrypt what he's driving at. I think all these things are helping to keep the entire conversation at a sane level, which reduces stress overall and prevents the amp up. Once we have a whole series of conflicts that never escalate, I'm sure I'll stop feeling so anxious around the whole thing.

I feel exactly the same way! I can feel like a deer in the headlights. Here's this truck coming and I can see it coming but there's no time to dodge out of the way. I've been observing myself lately, and in some situations (even fun, social situations), my perceptions are like a DVD on fast forward. It's hard to not feel helpless in a conflict.

Through most of our relationship, he's been resistant to me sending him emails over this sort of thing. Now he's open to it. :) For difficult thoughts and feelings, I much prefer to write it down. Spend an hour getting the wording and flow just right. Afterwards, I'm fine with talking about it, because I feel I expressed the most important bits clearly. Or even writing it down and reading it aloud off the sheet works for me. It seems stilted and awkward and fake, and it's not the "best" way in an NT world, but that's the best way *I* communicate. So I'm getting more comfortable insisting that if I want to write it down and send it or read it off a sheet, then that's the way I should do it. And he's getting more comfortable reading my emails without the chance to immediately reply face-to-face.

The things we do for love. :)

I deal with it by avoiding conflict like the plague.
Not the healthiest way to do things!

Yellow, there will always be conflicts because people have different needs and values. Conflict avoidance can lead to worse conflicts later - or things worse than conflicts. I know this well, because I fear conflict, and as a result tend to avoid more of them than I should. Part of being healthy is learning what should be brought up, and the best ways and times to bring them up, and the best ways to talk about the differences so that both people feel heard.

P.S. I'm defining "conflict" as talking about any kind of difference in opinion or perception, or issues with behaviors, that impacts people in the relationship. This could be a low-level, calm talk that results in greater intimacy and love, or it can be an all-out fight with lots of yelling, or even worse. Any of those things is a "conflict".

jamgrrl sorry to go off topic but is that your picture?

I was thinking about replacing my shark maybe.

I try to avoid conflict. If I were in a relationship where fighting or conflict was happening often I would disengage from the relationship. I can't be in a position of constantly having to defend myself.

I think your coping techniques are good. As other posters have said, if you reach 6, leave and have some time to yourself.