Difference between a meltdown and sensory overload???

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I was wondering what the differnece between a meltdown and a sensory overload is.

If anyone can answer that question,I'll be most grateful to you.


-SpaceCase

You may find this article helpful:

http://home.att.net/~ascaris1/overload.html

Well I think I know the difference between the two of them. I beleive that I have gone through both. A senory over load would be that your are in a small restruant there a lots of people talking. Music is playing. Trying to keep calm you talk to your family but the noise gets louder. Some how the lights seem to be screwing you and all you want to do is scream shut up to everyone. A melt down for me is when all your emotions that you are packing in and that you're parents are confronting you on and on about one thing that you thought was true but as the arguement gets heated you suddenly fall to the ground and start crying that's what happened to me.

Oh,okay. Thanks.

-SpaceCase

Yeah, you described it really well. For me though, a meltdown also usually includes rage and sometimes throwing things - now I realise that's because it's a way of getting people to back off, leave me alone for a couple of hours at least.

Thank you Kosmonaut for the link. The article describes my experience of sensory overload accurately. My challenge is to monitor my sensory 'resorvoir' so when it reaches 75% I get out of the situation. I'm learning to watch it. Fewer overloads lately.

Did not read any the links so I'm making an uneducated guess

Sensory overload is a likely precursor to a meltdown. A meltdown is merely getting upset. People get upset over negative factors. Sensory issues are merely just another
brick in the wall of negative factors that can trigger a meltdown.

For me to step outside into the sunlight can be an overload. Getting in a car can be an overload. Going into a grocery store and seeing the cycles in the lighting and add in people invading my space and I'm near a panic attack.

An example of a melt down for me, would be... Thinking about veterans and their problems in the real world. I'm one and have some insight to what happens when they have to get into the "system". Couple that with my memorys, past friends deaths, current friends dying, post tramatic stress, self destrutive life styles, having to deal with the only system I can afford (VA), what I know is coming with the war and all, politics over money and care and the list goes on. I'm going to be a crying raging basket case. God help the person near me and I need a break after writing that.

postpaleo

I think sensory overload and meltdown overlap (like a Venn diagram). The former is more physical (I think) but when I became saturated with stimuli I become frantic. Then I cry uncontrollably & sometimes feel faint. I become extremely withdrawn and cannot speak. Then I need to lie down. I don't really know if there is a clear dilineation between SO and MD.......?

as far as I'm concerned Sensory Overload almost always results in a meltdown... so the defenition makes no difference to me.

I've never had a sensory overload (those things just don't really bother me), but I have meltdowns frequently, and I mean the voilent ones. For example, yesterday this immature boy named Jeremy was dissing my favorite thing in the whole world. I was already beyond stressed out so I completely lashed out on him. Let's just say his throat was bleeding in the end. Although I didn't really mean for *that* part to happen, I still felt like he deserved it.

Acording to the descriptions here, I get a sensory overload everyday. Like yesterday I was at work and doing really well, I wrote up a new register for people to use, and this guy Alex (37 with 7 kids, somehow I adore him, he's an author just like me and he plays guitar and I play the saxophone and we listen to the same music and we get along so well) said he found it great and useful (I know I shouldn't eavesdrop), and suddenly I'm happy and I'm working and it all builds up and next thing I know I've lost control of my hands and I can't really speak and I'm pretty much useless.

LOL silly me.

I'm a mom and when my kiddo was younger picking him up from school events like class parties and school assemblies was like picking up a meltdown waiting to happen! The school was good in that he could have opted out but he wanted to participate so we had to find ways to help him cope. On times like these when the overload is fairly unavoidable we always plan time afterwards carefully so he has total downtime at home. We also use sensory distractions or sensory release activities--sometimes a very simple strategy like having a soda with a straw right after or 20 minutes of swinging by himself make the difference between coping and meltdown.

I know this is secondhand info but it was so hard on him that we were desperate. Our game plan had to have both prevention plus some coping strategies to account for the times when prevention wasn't possible.

For me the difference is how many people are lying on the ground afterwards.

I've experienced Sensory overload and meltdown up until about 13 but after ageing it's converted into pent up rage controlled but welling up consistently inside me.

In my case, the sensory overload usually leads to a meltdown.