meltdown???

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I was wondering if someone could elaborate on what a meltdown consists of. I know i never lose it in public because i dont like the negative reaction from people. Does that mean that you throw a tantrum or does it just mean you want to get the he#@ out of wherever you are because it is either exhausting or overstimulating? I know i have done that a few times. Iknow that if things are out of my control i kind of lose my self for a while. COuld someone tell me what a meltdown is?

hmm...just that life gets on your case so much, and you've held so much back, that it all just explodes out of you. Yelling, shaking, etc. Did it once in the early 90s, and got pulled off the account I was working on. Nowadays they would just fire me.

It seems to me being bottled up emotions, and think of you body as the "bottle," and each little bit of stress or trigger as the "carbonation" in the bottle being shook. The more stress upon you, the more life gets on your back, it's like shaking that bottle until it explodes. Usually the stress is not let out because of the introverted trait of aspies; they don't just let it out.

It's the closest you could get to a nervous breakdown, without actually having one.

meltdown means different to different people.
Some experience inner meltdowns only,whilst others experience self injuring meltdowns,injuring of others,or combination of some/all.
Am have seen the self injury type MDs happen more in auties than aspies,am think this could be part to do with pain threshold as feeling little or no outer pain is more common amongst auties.
It is thought to have input from the chemicals that cause the fight or flight reaction,meltdowns aren't the same as tantrums,as tantrums are more controlled and usually used for a purpose,meltdowns are loss of control,when the body can't cope with the input,it's not used for manipulative purpose like tantrums.

I have mini-meltdowns on a weekly basis. Periods of high stress, everyone wanting something from me NOW and being dissatisfied with me, not enough time... Usually it's the things I have no control over that push me over the edge, like if I get a call from my kid's school saying he was throwing things or hitting.

I have been known to swear loudly, throw things, knock stuff to the floor, slam doors, lock myself in somewhere. But those are rare. Generally I'm content to just shut down and kick everyone the hell out of my head. A sort of "f**k it ALL" manuever where I will gleefully burn my world to the ground, or at least as far as it will burn. Self-destruct mode.

But then, inevitably, a few hours later the storm passes.

When a meltdown occurs, do you remember everything that happened or do you forget alot of it? I was told once by my kiddo's ped that if he starts crying after a meltdown is because he feels that he did something wrong because someone reprimanded him, and therefore, feels bad...but that when this meltdown happens (she also thinks it is almost like an epileptic seizure), your brain goes crazy and you don't really remember what happened...

vs. a tantrum you are angry, but after it is all over, you have no remorse because you were "conscious" and knew what you were doing, just angry...

any thoughts?

oh, well if thats what it means, then i have those almost every other day.

I'm trying to understand if what I'm experiencing lately is a meltdown or something else. When I come back from work (selling things) I often feel all dizzy, like I have no direction, I basically can't do anything, neither playing videogames, it feels like my mind is just blank, the only thing I wanna do is just lay on the bed. I usually wake up after about an hour feeling like it's almost another day and I have control over myself again. What is this ?

Last edited by Rainbow-Squirrel on 23 Jul 2009, 12:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

double post

"Life" in this context is a euphemism for "other people". I think a solution to a lot of my problems would be achieving financial independence early, flipping everyone a bird, and moving to an isolated property somewhere, preferably a beach house.

Yeah I sometimes, but not always, forget what's happened in a meltdown.

Here's one possible scenario. Got up feeling crappy and tired, went to work, someone at work was being a jerk, couldn't wait to go to lunch, took 10 minutes standing in line to get my coffee because someone was arguing with a barista over 5c change, traffic sucked so I had no time to get food, went back to work, jerk was still there, boss was asking for something unexpected, go home after work and I find that the neighbors are cooking something that smells really bad and someone was playing loud music with a lot of bass.

MELTDOWN!

Generally speaking I'm willing to put up with nagging needy people and put up with sensory overload, as long as I have some sort of a plan of escape and I know I only need to endure X more hours. But if the escape plan doesn't work then I melt down.

It happened one time when I went hiking in the mountains to get away from everything. There was a group of 3-4 young people and they were somewhere just below me on the trail, yelling and screaming and laughing all the way to the summit. Damn it!! !! !! !

I define meltdown as a tantrum.

I define a shutdown as quitting everything withdrawing unable to do certain things etc.

Maybe I do experience meltdowns, but I think mine may be a bit different. I have endless patience with other people. I tend to be very forgiving when others offend me. I am always striving to see others behavior through their eyes, to try make sense of it. When someone is complaining about someone else's behavior, my innate response is to try to see the issue through the perpetrators eyes, and attempt to justify his actions. I have problems accepting that a person would actually intentionally be a pain. There has to be something else at work that is not obvious to the observer. I want to see if I can discover that motivation and reconcile the conflict in the light of full knowledge of what is happening from both points of view. This can make me a tad unpopular when someone is venting their frustrations about another person to me.

On the other hand, I have very little patience with myself. I loose patience with myself often, because of things like not being able to recognize things that are right in front of me, or forgetting to finish tasks but I don't loose my temper over it. over it very often. But sometimes when some attribute of my absent mindedness has huge consequences, I can get very pissed at myself. Last summer, while I was on vacation, I checked my email at work to check the progress of a project that was in QA, and discovered from an email from my supervisor that I had been written up for insubordination for failing to set the automatic out of office email response in Microsoft Outlook. This has never happened to me in my life, and I was very upset, but to discover that because of my forgetfulness, I had brought it upon myself, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I screamed and beat my head several times with my fists until both ears were ringing. Sometimes I get so frustrated with this part of me, that I wish I could step out of my skin, hang it on the wall, and beat it to a bloody pulp. Of course I know that won't really accomplish anything. I need to find a way to be as forgiving with myself, as I am with others.

I did since discover that this impatience with oneself was not uncommon among members of the INFP forum I sometimes hang on.