Meltdowns: Would it be beneficial to be diagnosed?

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My most severe symptom I have and always had are severe meltdowns. I am currently diagnosed as schizoaffective, anxiety and borderline. There current "therapy" for the meltdowns is photocopying sheets out of a DBT book.

If I was diagnosed with an ASD, would the therapy get better? Not sure what they can do for me.

I used to be put in the psych ward for them and numerous med changes, they now know med changes do not help nor does the hospital, I feel like THEY don't know what to do.

I don't know of any meltdown therapies for adults. What are DBT sheets and how does copying them work as therapy for anything? I don't underatand that. As far as meltsowns, I just have them whenever I need to. That's what I found works for me.

They think I can learn techniques for controlling them from the papers. It doesn't work. '

It might, and it might not.....

A lot of it depends on the person doing the therapy....just knowing the correct diagnosis for someone is ASD doesn't guarantee that the therapist knows anything about ASD or how to work with autistic people (and, unfortunately, not every therapist will go out and learn about it or refer you elsewhere if they lack knowledge -- sometimes they are unable to/don't know where or how to find resources, sometimes it might not occur to them to do so, sometimes maybe they just don't want to).

Some of it also depends on individual factors...what works for you, as an individual (what your specific needs and issues are and what kind of therapy would benefit you, personally) as well as whether or not you and the therapist are a good match -- whether you communicate effectively and have good rapport.

All that said, if you have an ASD, I think it's more likely you'd get useful therapy if the ASD were diagnosed....I think that because therapists often see everything in terms of how it relates to a diagnosis, and that has a huge affect on how they interpret your behavior and the things that you say.

Also, if someone has an ASD plus a lot of other things, the ASD side of things is often going to be important for working on those other things because it can affect fundamental cognitive and interpersonal stuff -- for example, it can be important even to just communicating effectively with your therapist about what your problems actually are because of the communication impairments that are a part of ASD. (There is that common example of an autistic person being diagnosed with psychosis because they answer "Yes" to questions like, "Do you hear voices when nobody is in the room with you?" -- the autistic person thinking of how they often hear people talking in the next room or next apartment or outside or whatever, but even smaller and more subtle misunderstandings can like that can still have a big impact on communication and whether or not you and the therapist understand each other.)

Do you know why you have meltdowns? And have any therapists ever tried to help you identify patterns to figure out what triggers them?

The "why" of meltdowns is really important, because the best way to deal with meltdowns is to prevent them from happening in the first place.....so if sensory overload is causing meltdowns it's important to find ways to manage and cope with the sensory environments you find yourself in (e.g. if you have auditory hypersensitivity you might always carry earplugs or the kind of ear-defenders construction workers wear to cope with painful/irritating sounds, and maybe try to limit the amount of time you spend in noisy environments).

If you can't prevent a meltdown, sometimes the best thing to do is harm reduction (e.g. try to train yourself to flee to safe locations you identify specifically for when meltdowns happen and/or to direct any aggression towards objects, ideally specific/safe objects to avoid property damage -- or have others help you to do these kinds of things when meltdowns are happening).

No, the only treatments for any meltdowns are Medication and Behaviour therapy.

Even my borderline personality disorder sister has meltdowns, and the treatment was fundamentally the same as my treatment for meltdown. Taking medications to regulate mood and learning skills to escape a situation and react appropriately.

Of course my meltdowns are caused by different things than my sister, her meltdowns are caused by other people judging her and her own internal struggles, mine are usually caused by not being able to communicate and schedule and setting changes. She must learn to not interpret other people actions as "out to get her" and i must take a moment to breath and analyze a situation rationally.

Primary cause of meltdowns is stress, secondary is sensory. I had meltdowns since childhood.

I had a therapist that worked with ASD people, I originally gone to a regular therapist who refered me, and she was going to give me therapy for it, but my mental health doc didn't like that because it wasnt them that decided i had AS and convinced me I needed DBT. Later when I tried to go back to the other therapist, I discovered she moved to another city.

I live in a small town, there is an autism center, but it's for children.

Not worth it.
Female Aspergers is often misdiagnosed--you need to find a specialist for both Adult and Female presentations--unless you have a kid on the Spectrum.
Once you turn 18 mental health services often disappear, even for those who need it.

This is one area in which self treating is your best option--if you describe your issues you may be able to find someone here that has come up with a solution.

Getting a diagnosis is very stressful--why add to your main problem?

What psychologists and therapists can do is limited especially for older people with mild meltdowns (when i say mild meltdowns i mean they do not involve severe self harm and potential danger to those around) they just do the bare minimum and keep the meltdowns to a manageable level.

If sensory is the biggest problem then it can be managed with stimulation therapy, which is not used by standard care and its mostly up to the subject or the family of the subject to find different forms of therapy which are often pricey.

I recommend deep pressure therapy, often cheap, easy and extremely helpful. Its basically just getting a hug from an inanimate object. Usually very successful in autistic subjects and even non autistic subjects, you can research this, Temple Grandin is a great person who benefited greatly from deep pressure therapy and even is one of the first persons to introduce it to psychology at all.

I have meltdowns involving throwing things and screaming. Being married is stressful and they even suggested in the past ending my marriage... with huge protest from my husband. He says he can't get rid of me because he recognizes the behavior as abnormal and not who I am. Hes getting better at stopping it.

I have severe challenging behaviour problems. I've been arrested by the police and locked in secure units many times for challenging behaviour / meltdowns. The only thing that has ever helped me is haloperidol. And preventative measures. I set aside time every day to relax with my sensory stuff and weighted blanket. Saying that though, I was recently sectioned and put on the secure unit and only got out less than a week ago. It's difficult.

I am lucky enough to live in a house with a yard--I de-stress by working in the yard after work.

Have you read the book "Too loud, too bright, too fast, too tight" by Sharon Heller? It's specifically written for adults with sensory processing difficulties -- my OT recommended it to me and I found it useful.



Have you ever contacted them? Sometimes places that are set up for children will see adults if there are no other services for them in the area, and even when they don't see adults they sometimes know of other service providers that do work with adults.



Do you mean your husband is getting better at not doing something that triggers meltdowns? Or do you mean that he's getting better at helping you to stop/not have meltdowns?

If you want to be married, what about couple's therapy?

He's getting better at calming me down, he's figured out really well how to distract me.

That's good -- sounds like at least you have good support from him, even if your therapists aren't helpful when it comes to meltdowns.