Do aspies have melt downs?

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What describes your situation better?

A melt down is defined as an uncontrollable burst of emotions that causes one to either "shut down" or "explode" in a situation. There might be better definitions in this thread. It is not the same thing as "being angry" or "controlled anger", it's an overwhelming sense of being unable to cope and lashing out or shutting down. As far as I know, it's not the same as 'breaking down' and crying for an hour because you're sad or frustrated.

There's anecdotal descriptions of various meltdowns at http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt174298.html (CLICK ME!) .

I have aspergers and have meltdowns a lot[shutdown kind] but that's because i have a lot of stress a lot of the time.

What describes me is DXed with AS and had meltdown. Put that verb in the past tense. Or, you can say, "diagnosed AS and no longer have meltdowns."

Do bears sleep in the woods?

Is the Pope Catholic?

Does the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergers say that aspies have melt downs?

(Hint, no it doesn't.)

Actually, as far as I can tell, it does.


As far as I can tell, my meltdowns are essentially my body going into fight-or-flight and me fighting that urge, causing me to utterly collapse because I can't support it like other people can.

I think you're missing my point and Fnord's though, I was talking about my personal self and I believe he was too.

I'm not diagnosed AS, but that was the closest option. I definitely have meltdowns, though how much of that is AS and how much is PTSD is a constant guessing game.

I suspect if you push anyone past their ability to cope you'll get pretty much the same kind of behavior. But since our society is designed for NTs and not autistics, NTs seldom get pushed to that point. (That's why meltdowns are common in PTSD, because an NT with PTSD has been pushed past their ability to cope, to such an extreme degree that the experience broke something inside them.)

No he wasn't. It's pretty clear I was referring to the whole group of aspies and it's not exactly immediately obvious to me whether or not he has "melt downs"(assuming he's aspie), and I'm sure his ToM is well enough developed to realize that I wouldn't know that, so his response was directed to answer the question for the group instead of solely himself (His answer is phrased to suggest "DUH, it's obvious", and his own situation obviously isn't obvious to me).

Anyway, rereading that part of the wikipedia's page, I guess it does *suggest* that aspies have similar coping behaviors as normal autistic folk but it doesn't come out and say it, that's for sure. We need a more explicit authoritative source of information.

I picked that I don't have aspergers, but I do have meltdowns. I have classic autism (not aspergers), and really just wanted to see the results to the poll.

Why do you have PTSD?

It seems I'm the only person so far who suspects AS and doesn't have meltdowns.
I'm a little discouraged...

is the pope catholic?
and did he defend pedophiles?

The jury is still out on whether he's Catholic. I mean, look at him. He clearly reads Satanic texts in his free time.
(bad joke)

Picked "I am suspecting I have aspergers and have melt downs"

I definitely can be in a state when I can not control my emotional outbursts, anger or whatever. Severity of this state is inversely proportional with my ability to control it. There is a spectrum just like ASD for each person. Sometimes you just have to let it out, otherwise you couldn't cope with your flooding emotions.

This is always seen as an overreaction from the outside and so is by my conscious mind, but emotions and will walk different ways during this kind of meltdown.

Did you have any in the past?