What is a meltdown?

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I'm still not entirely sure as to what that is and I want to know what an Aspie experiences when he/she goes through a meltdown.

Because everyone is different, I would assume that there is no universal definition.

However, what I consider having a "meltdown" is when I become so incredibly overwhelmed with stress, anxiety, overstimulation, or other means (usually due to being in social situations that I want to be a part of but don't know how to participate or respond) that just become very very upset and can't help but start sobbing, even though no specific harm has been done to me. Commonly, the urge to just run away or hide goes along with it. I generally retreat to the bathroom if I don't know what else to do.

It's usually over my inability to cope or understand, not that anyone else was trying specifically to hurt me. It usually confuses other people because they have no idea what I could possibly be upset about. I've gotten a little better about voicing my discomfort or anxiety the minute I start to notice it rather than let it consume me and drive me into a meltdown, but I usually can only do so with certain people such as my best friend. I have found that it helps to get it out, even if it's dumb or can't be helped. Just letting someone know that I'm feeling that way makes me feel less isolated and diminishes the need to escape.

For me, it's the mental equivalent of a fire drill. An alarm goes off and I must extract myself from the current situation and find an exit. I can usually do this in an outwardly calm and ordered manner. I then just need some degree of alone time to recover.

I'm more of a shutdown person than a meltdown. I'll retreat.. I'm too big to fit under beds any more, but I might sit somewhere I can't easily be seen or hide under the bed covers. I might pretend to be asleep, which I do a lot. Or stick the headphones in and go for a drive, often just pulling in at layby.

Oddly enough apart from a few infrequent and completely out of character outbursts at authority in school.. This wasn't that noticeable when I was younger. I do remember spending a lot of time under my bed though. Most of the time I had plenty of space and my parents rarely took me anywhere.

They were quite happy to leave me home alone while they went shopping or whatever, I should ask them why now, it would be good to understand why they left me home alone at 7-8. They didn't do this with any of my other siblings. This would be unthinkable today.

Jason

For me? It is an exosion of anger, or maybe grief. Much like a temper tantrum. Property insurance rates can go up when I am in the area!
OK, partly kidding there but... It can get ugly fast. Harsh words or inanimate objects my fly.
Fortunately these are rare. And if pushed to much, I shut down. Or maybe flee the situation.

Sincerely,
Matthew

It's a kind of "freak out", and not always over things that are obviously important. It is always stress based, but other things contribute to it. Sometimes the other cause is being forced to endure something one is hyper sensitive to, like loud noises, bright lights, things that irritate ones skin, etc. Other times it is caused by the usual cranky inducing fatigue, still other times it is caused by having to deal with social situations we are not able to handle.

The actions in a melt down can vary with each incidents. They can be tears, raging, ranting, screaming, throwing things, breaking stuff, physical activities such as pounding ones head against wall/floor/or with hands, lying on floor and thrashing ones legs, etc. It can appear very much like an out of control tantrum, and not just in children.

Older kids and adults can often escape an impending melt down by removing themselves from the situation, and going somewhere where they can calm down.

There is an alternative reaction other than a melt down that some of us have referred to as a "shut down". I think that term fits well. In a shut down we get depressed and/or angry and tend to retreat into ourselves. We don't want to engage in a lot of our usual activities, or have much to do with anyone. Sometimes there is also crying and ranting about things that bother us, but not at the freaked out tantrum level of a melt down.

Again, if we have a chance to calm down, we can reduce the severity of a shut down.

There is a third "behavior" that some of us have. I call it the "hermit" phase. Those in the hermit phase are not melting down, or shutting down, but have gotten burned too often in dealings with the "normal" world, so they have turned to living a primarily solitary existence. Those in the hermit phase are in a kind of semi shut down all the time. We may not be in a major depression, but are not inclined to interact much with the rest of the world.

I am a hermit myself. My life is much less stressful now that I live alone.

We are not all subject to these meltdowns, and shut downs. Some have more problems with this than others. I hope this clarifies things some.

For me, meltdowns are all about loss of control caused by overload, hoooman or sensory. I tend to eggsperience them in a haze of rage. Sometimes, there is not rage, but more like @$$plodey feeling that needs to be released. The rage meltdowns are usually caused by hoooman interactions gone wrong, while the @$$plodey meltdowns are usually caused by sensory stimuli too much. I used to have more @$$plodey meltdowns when I was little, ones involving unshuttuppable high-pitched screeching and uncontrolled Tasmanian Devilish behaviors.

Shutdowns are more about loss of function, as in can't speak, can't understand what people are saying to me, can't move from here to there. There aren't any emotions during shutdowns for me. Add can't feel and can't think to the loss of function list.

I don't meltdown, I shut down. Everything around me starts to become really, really intense and I want to close my eyes, clamp my hands around me ears and just pretend the stressful situation isn't happening. I go extremely quiet, and I may appear as if I'm frightened about something/paranoid. If people try to comfort me, that's usually when the tears happen. When I'm in that state, I usually just tell people it's best to leave me alone until I'm over it. I get an immense, dark sense of foreboding and fear, like I'm going to die or somebody is going to kill me. It takes about 10 minutes on average for me to get over a typical shutdown these days, however I used to have meltdowns that lasted up to an hour when I was younger.

Inwardly, it's a feeling of intense despair, anxiety, and being overwhelmed.

Outwardly, I'm either totally silent or blubbering.

I found this video does an okay job at explaining it general terms if you don't read too much into that in this example, it's the autistic person having emotions whereas the normal person does not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh26B9n9tRE

I was going to start a thread about this as I'm still somewhat confused about meltdowns but I see this one is fairly recent. I'm not sure if what I experience would be classed as meltdowns or not. I know they feel different to a panic attack because I've had those for quite a few years. For me it's often sparked by getting overwhelmed when I try to do too many things, too much noise, interaction for too long or just tiredness, which is what I think happened a couple of days ago. I seem to get them more often now than I did for a while, (althoug there's lots of uncertainty right now so I'm not surprised.)
I feel it building up and then I either feel angry and swear quite a lot (people seldom see this as I can usually remove myself from the situation) or not being able to stop crying.
The other night felt like the worst though for a while, crying uncontrollaby, feeling quite angry aswell and also very anxious and scared, kind of felt like a panic attack happening at the same time. That was Thursday night and I still feel a bit embarrased I think about it because my mum witnessed that one happening.
From what I've read on WP it seems people experience them in such different ways, it's confusing.

I had meltdowns much more when I was younger... either would be very angry needing to yell and scream, or just sob crying (much more frequent)

eventually I learned to only have crying meltdowns

now as an adult... I mostly just fear the heck out of the idea that it might happen to me again at random... I came very close when my bosses boss demanded something of me and I popped off at the mouth... he then shut down the conversation and I freaked... when I went to apologize I had to fight sooooo hard to keep calm...

I went for a walk around the building and kinda let some of the tears out... then regained composure... but yikes...

For me I mostly have the whole shut-down experience... which may or may not become a full blown panic attack (more dramatically physical than just typical anxiety as well as mental breakdown)... Generally what happens when I am in shutdown mode is that I cannot focus on anything or operate at all in the current situation... my only concern is exit... I am thinking about where the doors are, where I will go to get out of the situation or away from the over-stimulation... It's all I can think about and if like I am in a grocery store and still have shopping left to do, generally forcing myself to continue to try to shop is the worst thing I can do.