What do your meltdowns look like? (If you have them)

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I've read people on here saying theirs are more of a depression-type state that can last for days, but mine are usually pretty quick and messy and come when I get really overwhelmed or frustrated. They usually start with hand-flapping (although I also sometimes involuntarily do that when I'm excited) then repeating a phrase over and over, e.g. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do!" and if they go full-blown (occasionally I can calm myself down beforehand) end up with me screaming and sometimes going down on the floor. Then it's usually over pretty quick and I just feel embarrassed. Sometimes I can feel them coming but past a certain point I really don't seem to have the power to stop them.

Your meltdowns sound exactly like my twins' meltdowns. They are 23 and the meltdowns are becoming less common, but they do happen. When I have them, which is now an extreme rarity at age 50, I scream out panicky sounds and words of despair and slam doors. I remember a meltdown I had when I was about 40. I came home and my husband had switched my room with one of my daughters and had moved all my stuff while I was at work and I was not asked permission. I FREAKED! I thought I would pull my hair out!

Fior's look like a 5 year old's temper tantrum. Not pretty when you are a male and in your 50s.

My meltdowns typically involve a rapid, sharp decline in my mood (which sometimes happens so rapidly that my loved ones can pinpoint the exact moment it happens by reading my facial expression). Then my mind starts racing and is flooded with negative thoughts. I start voicing these negative thoughts and repeating them over and over. After the initial racing of thoughts, my mind goes almost completely blank, and I will have trouble identifying exactly what I'm feeling and exactly what's bothering me. This will manifest in my dialogue as some variation of (to quote Derpy Hooves) "I just don't know what went wrong!" No amount of advice or consoling can comfort me. These meltdowns usually last about an hour.

As uncomfortable as these meltdowns are, they're better than the ones I used to have as a child/teenager, which were more intense and typically involved crying. Thankfully I cry much less as an adult, though I still have my moments, particularly when I'm on my period.

It takes a lot of stress or a sudden surprise to trigger a meltdown for me, as I tend towards a more depressed shutdown instead.
But I had a minor meltdown today so I can describe it for you. Today I was also crying while it happened.

My head feels like it's going to explode with the pressure and my thoughts crush together. I start shaking my head in little jerky twitches, and make some weird strangled sounds, sometimes breathy grunts or a long low-pitched whine.

My hands tense and my fingers curl, and then I have the impulse to bash my head. I hit the sides and back of my skull with the palms of my hands hard enough to jerk my vision away. This usually makes me feel better and blanks out my mind but it's not nice for other people to watch. I'm trying to replace it with less damaging actions, but the compulsion is sometimes too hard to ignore.

If I calm down a little I pace or rock back and forth, depending on if I'm standing or sitting. I tend to touch my face a lot. Sometimes, if my thoughts are spiralling and I get stuck on one repeating, I slap my face and body. If I'm calmer I tend to flick my hands back and forth or flail my arms.

To calm myself down more I tend to blank out most of my thoughts and focus on a repetitive action until I'm able to distract myself with something else. Afterwards I find myself unable to really look at anyone for a while.

I guess mine go in stages as I shut down first or tears come to my eyes, then if I can't remove myself or somebody keeps trying to talk to me or make demands on me then I can yell, swear, slam doors etc and if they then get upset with me and won't let me go to a quiet place, I then shout for them to leave me a lone while I slap myself in the face and head.

But the last as an adult only happened when I was married and my husband would follow me all over the apt and bust through locked bathroom doors or block the door to outside while he called me crazy. Usually I just shut down or tear up and then I can hold it in for a limited amount of time until I can get to a quiet, low sensory stimulus environment like even the bathroom if I'm at work. But if I've only been able to have mini breaks over a period of time, I do sometimes have to "hibernate" for a couple days on my own or I would meltdown at work.

I don't have meltdowns often as I am prone to unresponsive shutdowns. When I do have meltdowns they are usually the result of a massive sensory overload when I have a lot of stress. My meltdowns usually start with a pounding behind my eyes. As the pounding progresses and I can't get out of the situation that is triggering the meltdown, I start pushing the heel of my hands into my eyes. Full blown meltdown occurs when I start yelling/chanting NO over and over again. By the time I get vocal, I am usually curled up somewhere banging my head against a wall and/or hitting myself. My meltdowns usually only last a few minutes and are so draining that I have been known to fall asleep directly after I calm down.

Also, I come off of a meltdown quickly. One minute I'll be yelling and thrashing, the next I'll be sitting silently trying to control the oncoming headache. I really do prefer my shutdowns to my meltdowns since my shutdowns are internal and aren't disruptive to others. I hate having meltdowns, they are so exhausting for me and disturbing for others around me.

I don't really remember, but I remember shutting down and feeling bad afterwards.

It's like everything is melting around you (HAH! See what I did there?!) Everything you know is collapsing and you don't know what people are saying anymore. They try to talk to you or make eye contact to you, you get this crushing feeling like your head will explode any minute. It gets worse and you want to get them to be quiet but they won't.

I scream, I cry, I bang my head into a wall or rock in a corner. My vision blurs and I can't think anymore. I can only focus on everything collapsing around me. I want it to stop. Things are dissolving into numbers and I hate numbers. Don't touch me or talk to me. Let me fix things myself.

They look like a very angry outburst.

Know the Tasmanian Devil from the Loony Toons cartoons? That's me, in full meltdown. The aftermath is horrible too, migraine, joint and stomache pain, depression, nausea.

Barrage of nihilist criticism, music up, air guitar, then a slow shut down at zero degrees.

rolling on the dirty floor screaming and banging my head.

For me meltdowns are usually triggered by prolonged sensory overload followed by an emotional trigger or sense of injustice. My head starts pounding, my motions become jerky and even more unco-ordinated than usual. I feel pressure in my chest head and arms. I get sparks across my vision. Sometimes it looks like everything around me is made of pudding. If someone is being aggressive towards me I might start shouting, but language usually stops making sense and so I might be shouting the same thing over and over. My skin becomes extremely sensitive so I become hyper-vigillent because I can't stand to have anything touch me or even brush past me close enough that I can feel the displaced air. I sometimes start trembling. I move my fingers around more and might start rubbing/putting pressure on my arms in an attempt to make them less uncomfortable with the air touching them. I might want to throw down anything I am holding or bang my hands on the ground to try to get the uncomfortable sensations out of my body, but I usually go outside to do this in private. I might lash out at someone if they are being aggressive, prevent me from leaving, and try to touch me, but this is rare. I usually want to get away from people to where I can ground out what I'm feeling. Eventually the fear of having things touch me causes me to be very still, usually at that point exhaustion takes over and I have a shut down. They were really bad when I was a teenager, now I am averaging one to three, in a cluster, every two months or so, often, but not always coinciding with my period. If there is only sensory overload and no injustice/emotional trigger I might have some of the same sensory experiences and language stop making sense but it will progress much more quickly to the being still part and I will likely sing to myself and pace in a circle rather than yell.

Mine are mostly self-injurious; I never have them in front of other people, but they involve a lot of jumping, stomping, slamming and head-banging. To keep from breaking things I'll bite down as hard as I can on the inside of my index finger. It's developed a callus from the number of times I've done it so it doesn't hurt any more, it mostly works like a pressure valve, draining my energy just to the point where I don't feel like smashing all the stuff on my shelves or kicking a hole through my door. The last pretty bad one I had was in May, and it occurred because of something stupid I'd done. I repeatedly slammed my fists into my legs as hard as I could and left bruises for a few days afterward. Every time I saw them, it made me mad all over again because it reminded me of the stupid thing I'd done, and the stupid way in which I handled it.