No meltdowns

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I don't understand this concept of meltdowns. I don't think I had meltdowns. I was very argumentative and oppositional to my mother as a child because I didn't like how she treated me. We used to get into lots of fights. I would yell at her and tell her I hated her, tell her she was mean, and make faces at her. She would hit me and it would just go back and forth until she finally got to me and I would spend hours in my room crying. But I never had a meltdown out of the blue because I heard loud music or was in a crowd. I might have gotten really disoriented but that's about all.

I remember I would get very cranky and argumentative about the itchy ugly clothes she made me wear. I would blow away her cigarette smoke that blew in my direction because I hated the smell and she would get mad if the ashes blew all over, and then she'd blow smoke directly in my face in retaliation. I would hate her viciously and we would fight over things like that. However I don't remember melting down out of the blue to general sensory issues. I only remember complaining a lot and becoming argumentative when my mother tried to get me to shut up. Sometimes she would get mad enough at my obstinacy and try to slap me or hit me with a wooden spoon until I "shaped up".

So given I didn't experience meltdowns, maybe I'm not Aspie after all?

I've had meltdowns several times as a child and I think it has more to do with self-control but I'm not too sure. Either way I really don't think having a meltdown or not should determine if you're an aspie.

Sensory overload usually causes me to shut down not meltdown. I very rarely have meltdowns and when I do they are milder than most I have read about. Usually when i get stressed, i get close to meltdown but not full blown. i just feel the stress building up until it feels it will overflow. If I do have one it is caused by being overly stressed to the point that it does "overflow". Usually I will cry and make some stressed out sounds I don't know how to describe. Sometimes they involve pacing rapidly. these are very rare for me but I did have one last night. It was triggered by feeling overloaded with stress. Honestly the thing that triggered it was very insignificant, or at least most people would say that. I told a fellow Aspie I know in real life and she understood.


For me, sensory overload causes me to shutdown. For me that means my brain feels like it is turns off. It then is harder to talk to others and interact with my environment. For example. If at a store while shutting down, I will see the things in the store without processing anything about them.

Yeah I'm in the shutdown camp too.

Although I do remember a full on meltdown as a kid where I actually lost my memory briefly, suddenly the few kids my Mum had invited for my birthday weren't there anymore and my beloved wooden blocks were strewn all across my room. Mum stopped inviting other kids over for birthdays after that.

I used to have meltdowns a lot when I was still living with my parents - my dad liked to drag me out of my routine without warning a LOT. Now I'm more of a "shut down" kind of guy. I still feel very uncomfortable when people spring stuff on me (and when they get all funny with me when I say no, even though I've told them numerous times not to spring stuff on me) but I've learned to kind of dissipate it... sort of.

I don't have meltdowns in front of people. I just go to my room, get in bed, and hide under the covers and don't come out for several days. I do the thrashing around, repeating one word or phrase over and over, that kind of thing - but only if I'm alone. they're debilitating to the point I've dropped out of school 10 times and they keep me from most kinds of work, but they're still almost always private.

I've only had maybe a dozen events in my life that resemble the stereotypical meltdowns. Most of them happened before I turned 12. Usually it was when someone was trying to manipulate or blackmail me into doing something I didn't want to do. Which is one of the very few things that would make me display physical violence (usually towards objects, rarely towards people)

Shutdowns are more common for me. When I get like that, being around and talking to people is very hard and stressful and I just need to go somewhere to be alone. Sometimes I'll spend all day laying in my room not doing or thinking about anything in particular.

luckily i'm in the shutdown camp as well; if even half of my shutdowns were meltdowns instead i could not live any normal life...
i have had a few meltdowns where the overload came on too fast, but i was still able to hold myself back. that experienc emade me afraid of actually having an all--out meltdown though; i do not want to have one happen...

I think an actual meltdown usually looks alot milder then the stereotypical one usually shown by the media. I know I have mostly shutdowns aswell, I also know I have near perfect self control when compaired to the media stereotype of autistic people.

Has anyone ever compared the meltdown or shutdown to the fight or flight response?

Personally I have many more shutdown type of events, becoming non-verbal and distance myself from the situation.
There have also been a number of times when the stress has been much greater and could not be avoided, this caused what i think is a meltdown.

Mikassyna, if you have avoided having meltdowns then I think that is a positive for you as there are no benefits of this trait that I can see.

It's something about our poor emotional regulation; our brains overload or shut down more easily, and our nervous systems get over-stressed more quickly.

I struggle with them, but I don't see why every single autistic person should necessarily have major ones. It really depends on your particular wiring, the exquisite detail of such wiring, and of course any environmental stressors.

Like you say, your reactions to your mother were more likely normal than exceptionally overblown.

They're not enviable in any case!! I worry about bursting a blood vessel or becoming violent when I get really overloaded
The latter I of course do try to avoid.

I think I have had these and shutdowns, too, if I understand them correctly. If I have understood, then I would say:

I have shutdowns, more than meltdowns, though usually I get to a place of refuge before it gets too bad--someplace quiet and empty. My wife is used to me needing to duck out of certain situations.

I once worked at a fairly stressful graphic production job in ad agency and I used to go into the area of the floor that was under construction because no one was in there--I would hide out and meditate in the quietest area and then go back to work and carry on. Sometimes I would practice Tae Kwon Do forms until I was lost in the repeated movements, then I would be fine again.

When I was a child I had meltdowns--rarely. I remember my parents used to read a lot of myths, legends and fairly tales to us, and I heard a story about Cuchulain--the story described the hero going berserk in battle and his head was surrounded by a ring of red fire. I completely identified with this--both the berserk part and the ring of fire. My sister had this more often and while I did punch holes in walls on two occasions without really being aware of it, she punched out a glass door and needed multiple stitches to her hands. The difference between this state and a tantrum is a matter of degree, I think and a sense of depersonalization at the height of it. You are there all the time in a tantrum, but you come back from somewhere when a meltdown ends.

The thing I see the two states as having in common is the precursor state of everything becoming too much--simultaneously overwhelming and also sort of receding away into an indistinct distant state--like being out of the world, a bit, looking at reality through the wrong end of a telescope. This is very different than fight or flight. Maybe what happens next IS fight or flight though: when you are way down/off in that place, you can fight (meltdown) or flee (shutdown)... but I don't think there is much in the way of choice about it.

It doesn't happen much anymore because I try hard to ameliorate the triggering conditions.

I shutoff when I experience a meltdown. The severity of my shutoff determines how bad the meltdown is. In other words, I will completely shutoff if I am in a club and I feel like a a million fire alarms are going off and I can't think clearly. I become quit and disorientated. I don't go clubbing anymore for that reason only.

I have had feelings of depersonalization, but they were experienced separate from any identifiable triggers that I can remember.

I have had rage attacks and trashed my room when I would fight with my mother and have kicked holes in my walls with my bare feet.

I once had a feeling of being on verge of mental breakdown and during that episode I ran away from home because I couldn't take my surroundings anymore. I felt like I was being suffocated and needed air and if I didn't leave my body or brain would explode.

I have become a basket case before when having to perform (music) publicly. I get severe performance anxiety where I can barely think straight and I alternate between pacing back and forth maniacally and huddling in a corner all nervewracked. But I don't consider that a meltdown.

I once was rendered standing in a near-catatonic state due to a man I thought a platonic married friend nearly attacking me in my apartment. I froze and couldn't move, just staring at him, and into space, unresponsive. Even after he left I couldn't move, my thoughts and the world had frozen. He thought I was nuts and thankfully I never heard from him again. That sounds like a shut down perhaps, I don't know.

I wonder though, if I hadn't fought with my mother, would I have gone through a rage attack anyway. I wonder if I was escalating due to other stressors and she was a convenient target. A lot of times she was annoyed by something I was doing or something I wasn't doing. Since she hated my outbursts and back talk, she would try to control me and discipline me, and this would lead to big blowups. Neither of us would back down. After screaming and crying and the hitting I would feel zombied out afterward.