What do you consider a meltdown?

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From what you have described here, I have experienced what you call meltdowns, though mine are rare, and it is usually me being very angry at myself, and I do hit my head with my hands, I'm ashamed to say, and I have bitten myself on the hands very hard, but it doesn't seem to me like it is something that occurs by itself, or that I have no control over. It's just me reaching the end of my rope, and still things are going badly wrong, and I only have me and my idiosyncrasies to blame for it. Its not like a response to bright lights, or excessive noise, though it almost does when our dog gets right in my face and barks repeatedly, though I have gotten to where I just hold my ears and ignore her. I assumed mine were adult tantrums, though I'm not trying to get my way so much as being at wit's end.

I don't know. I have the rare incidents where i'll get some kind of criticism or get in trouble at work, and then that combined with everything else i'm thinking and and sensing at time will overload me and i'll go crazy-ish for about an hour. Hitting myself, kicking things sometimes, babbling incoherently, crying, a lot of stuff. Then sometimes i'll be in a situation like, for example, my parents are both yelling at me about something and it's too much so i explode in one really loud demonic-sounding yell. Then sometimes i'll have something where i *almost* explode, but get a hold of myself. For example, a couple days ago i spilt my drink at work and then flapped my arms up and down really quickly for a few seconds in frustration without thinking about it, and then got calm and cleaned it up. So, i don't know if these are meltdowns.. But i have a few different odd behaviors when i get stressed or overloaded. Usually if i've had enough of people or noise or whatever i'll just shutdown and get quiet, though.

Oh, and my parents say that ever since i was a baby i would shake a lot. I don't even notice it, but i've had people tell me that when i get nervous or overloaded or anything that i start shaking. I don't know if this is common or not.

I don't know what to call what I get. I can't tell if I have tantrums or meltdowns or if they are the same thing.
It usually follows this pattern:
Something really irritates or frustrates me, like being yelled at by my mum or something's not working out right
I get upset or angry then I either shout or I start crying or both
Sometimes I hit my head (in private)
Then I get extremely angered and fragile and anything can make me start crying again
Basically emotional control goes out of the window

What is that????? I just don't know. I don't think it's just a temper tantrum because I don't do it for attention or to prove a point it just happens. But it's not quite the same as a meltdown is it.

My meltdowns... as I can describe them, and have in the past, is like everything being fine at home one minute, then a tornado sweeping through and tearing things apart. I'm grasping for pieces of information, trying to force them to fit back together, but not making sense of anything at all. I can no longer speak coherently, or am so enraged or frustrated because I cannot understand that I will yell, cry, or simply shut down and watch all the chaos go on around me.

After the tornado calms down... I have to get my body back into comfort before my mind will follow suit. I rock back and forth, shut down from everybody for at least 10 minutes (with kids it's hard to get that time to chill out after it), and then.... I just avoid any real social contact for the rest of the day.

It's like my mind goes into a sense of turmoil when something changes (even if expected at times), when information doesn't make sense, or when something unexpected happens. I'm too busy trying to sort it in my mind while more information is being thrown at me at the same time, and I essentially snap. Once my mind can't make sense of things anymore, my actions follow quickly behind it (i.e. the screaming, the crying, sometimes laughing uncontrollably while crying). My whole world feels turned upside down during these, and it takes a long time for me to be able to flip it back the way it's supposed to be.

I guess I kind of think of it as emotional chaos taking place of logic-I cling to logic, or try to as best as I can usually, and I don't do well with emotional response, because it's impulsive and doesn't make sense. So that adds on top of whatever I'm not understanding to begin with, and makes it that much worse, because I cannot just shut off the emotional response that is taking over everything.

Did that make sense?

For myself

1) Become skittery
2) Start doing repetitive things while being skittery with increasing lack of clarity and focus
3) Sometimes catatonic stiffness