How Do Adult Aspie Meltdowns Feel? How to Manage Them?

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I had a meltdown 2 days ago after my dx appointment. I hadn't slept because 2 days before a random drunk girl climbed into bed with me (go figure) and since my bed is like a sacred space I felt violated . the same flatmates also make a lot of noise and so I hadnt slept soundly in over 3 days. I was stressed because their presence is like an incursion into my personal space. A constant incursion.

So after the dx appointment I returned home and a flatmate was raising a hell's symphony of noise in the kitchen and I just flipped. It was very cathartic at any rate. My meltdowns are primarily sensory in nature however. If im trapped in a space with a sensory trigger the cracks appear like fault lines or something. Every sound is a perceptible tectonic shift pulverising prone and tender nerves. Ive had alot of seething time to poeticise how it feels.

I´m wondering if it is aspie meltdowns, I have, when I "overreact" to, say, something, that hurts me, - or if I am just easily triggered.

Haha, according to this poll I have meltdowns like a child!

My meltdowns are always due to sensory/social overload (I consider them one in the same, really). They will be triggered by something that's a real problem, but the problem itself will be very minor when compared to the enormity of my reaction.

For example, I had a "meltdown" this past fall... I don't even remember the problem that set me off, the straw that broke the camel's back. I think it was something about my anxiety that I liked my partner more than he liked me? Something very minor, irrational, and something I "knew" wasn't true, but I ended up having a crazy crying wailing fit over it that lasted way too long. Thankfully, it didn't evolve into a full panic attack, as my meltdowns have in the past. I've learned enough coping mechanisms that I can prevent that. Plus, my partner is really great at dealing with me when I'm upset (trying to argue with me or talk me down makes it worse, because that gives me an audience to wail at).

But, the ACTUAL REASON I had the meltdown was that we had just come home from a long weekend visiting his brother for Halloween. We drove several hours for a Halloween party... All strangers, loud music, laughing, crazy lighting. It was fun, but it was very overstimulating. And this was the first time I had ever met my partner's brother and his girlfriend, so I was super anxious about making a good impression... Then, on top of everything, we were in a place where I didn't speak the language! The next night we went to dinner with his brother's girlfriend's family, and they don't speak English! After that weekend, I was a wreck. Couldn't talk above a monotone in the car on the way home. So, so tired. My jaw was cramped up from the stress and I was in so much pain... By the time we got home and were trying to unwind, something minor that I don't even remember happened, and I just exploded!!

I was able to calm fairly quickly thanks to my learned coping mechanisms and the wonderful reaction of my partner (he quickly realized that trying to talk sense into me was a bad idea, and just held me and petted me and let me calm myself down).

But yeah, my meltdowns are always about overload. Sensory stress and social anxiety builds until it's a physical pain, my senses don't work properly, and I just can't function. And then some incredibly minor problem will rear its head (we can't go to the restaurant we'd planned on! the TV show I wanted to watch was taken off Netflix! whatever) and all that overload tension will be directed towards that minor, silly thing.

Thank god I'm good at recognizing and dealing with it these days. And I'm thankful I rarely have true meltdowns over REAL, serious problems. I'll cry and feel depressed if there's a big, upsetting problem... but it's nothing like a meltdown.

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The third option.

I just had a meltdown, about half an hour ago.

It was the first time I drove my brother's car, a Crysler P.T Cruiser....it needed petrol, so I pulled into the service station and tried to open the petrol cap and I couldn't...it's like one of those child-proof medicine bottles that will not open unless your mouth is held in the right way...I had to go and ask a total stranger to please help me and do it for me...

Then, I went to park the car and I could not remove the keys from the ignition...it's a safety feature that you have to have your foot on the brake, put the car in 'park' then turn the keys just a fraction to remove it...not enough or too far will make sure the keys will never dislodge from the barrel...it's too 'fidgety' and I just don't have the hand-eye co-ordination to accomplish it.

So, I just completely lost the plot...I went around kicking all the tyres and calling the car an 'effing bomb'...then I just froze and sat on the bonnet for about an hour fuming and cursing the car, life and the universe.

I ended up just taking the car straight back home and refusing to ever drive it anymore. My brother showed me how to do it all....over and over and over...even said that he had to do it all for his mechanic, because even his mechanic cannot do this...

Will it make me ever get behind the wheel of that vehicle again? Nope!

I just want my old car fixed, so that I can open the petrol tank and take the keys out of the ignition straight away without all this stuffing around.

So, that's what an adult 'meltdown' feels like.

Yes, so my meltdowns aren't really about 'overwhelming' per se.

I have major cognitive problems, and doing little, fiddly things with my hands (that I know I cannot do, but I need to do), frustrates the total hell out of me after trying over and over to do it and failing.

What do I tell my niece when she asks me to thread a needle for her? What do I say besides 'please ask mummy or daddy to do it because I can't'...then she asks why? *I don't know why she cannot do it either (she is 13)...maybe I should ask her...

.....but anything like this I simply cannot do...very EASY things that everybody else just takes for granted they can do...another, is using a manual can opener to open a can....folding a fitted sheet...any form of craft, knitting or needlework...

I tried to put a key on a keyring the other day....pffft, that won't work...doing up jewelry and bra clasps etc

ALL of that stuff is totally beyond my capabilities of doing them, even though I try it over and over and over...

Then when I realise I cannot do it and I am sick and tired of trying, my brain just totally switches off to everything and I go into a silent, vegetative state for hours and just rock.

I am still wondering about meltdowns and if I ever had one.
As a kid, I was called the angriest, most hot tempered kid north of the alps, but then, both my parents were afraid of aggression.
I have damaged a few doors and made the plaster fall off the walls, even as a young adult.
I remember vaguely, that I had long rages as little, when things went against me, and long crying "sessions", where the emotional pain just escalated, but I don´t think, I ever really lost control and didn´t know what I was doing. I would have liked to be able to allow myself that, because of the pressure, but then it would have been a concious act and an outlet more than a meltdown.
The emotions were just so intense and I learned to control them by turning inwards and scratch myself with needles and scissors or beat myself up or bang my head on something. My parents didn´t know that.
I never saw grey/red bands or was triggered by too much light or anything. I just got tense tired and grumpy by too much environmental stress.
I could go into chock by strong sounds, and even today my first impulse is to run away, when subjected to it.
But I don´t know if I ever had a meltdown or if I just had/have too intense emotions.

Today people tell me, that I am too patient. I never act out in situations, where they would do it.

I'm in the process of having one right now. They usually last hours. I end up chain smoking to calm myself down.
Usually they're triggered by stress and then being belittled by my parents because she doesn't understand how I feel, so just end up shouting and crying. Doesn't even put any effort into reading up about what it feels like to be an aspie so she says everything that causes me to have the said meltdown.

My meltdowns and near meltdowns occur when I am being pressured to do to many things all at once or in a in a short period of time. I run around trying to do everything at 1000% speed. It has been a few years since the last Executive Dysfunction meltdown but they happened into my 50s every once in awhile. I still get close to losing it sometimes.