What Causes a Meltdown?

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It may be a question that has been asked before.

I am not asking what can cause someone to have a Meltdown? I am more asking is it something that happens to our brains like an imbalance or someone I am more thinking of the medical or the physical cause of it.

Good question. Obviously it's the brain going into sensory and or information overload. But it would be interesting to know the exact mechanics of it.

A meltdown happens when the brain is not longer able to process information coming in. Everything you come in contact with, what you see, hear, feel, understanding speech, and everything your body has to do takes a certain amount of energy. The brain has to take in all of this information and interpret it and process it and make sense of it and then tell your body how to respond to it. All of this information comes in, is processed and then dealt with and the brain sends information to the rest of the body on how to respond to all of this information in a matter of nanoseconds basically. So there is a lot of information coming in all the time at very fast speeds. Now someone who is neurotypical, meaning their brains and neurologies have developed in a typical fashion, can receive and interpret and process information much more quickly than someone who has an Autistic brain. Autistic brains have slower processing speeds. That is one of the things that makes us Autistic.

So think about what happens when you are driving down a highway. The traffic is flowing very smoothly. Now what is a couple of cars all of a sudden drive really slowly? Then you end up having a traffic jam and the whole highway gets backed up. Now what if more cars are trying to get onto the highway but they want to get on a full speed? if they try to get on at full speed while the traffic is backed up, they will cause a big crash. That is kind of what is happening to our brains during a meltdown.

A better analogy is like when you try to get your computer to do way too much at once. It can't input and process all that information at the same time so it crashes. So because our brains process information much more slowly than neurotypical brains do, when we continue to have all kinds of sensory and informational stimuli thrown at us, our brains simply can't keep up and just like an overloaded computer, they crash. When the brain crashes, you lose emotional control and your neurological system and your body and mind just kind of go ballistic. Eventually, once the brain resets itself the meltdown will end.

We as Autistics don't shed neurons as babies like NTs do. So we have many more, maybe thousands more sensory neurons than nts do. So we are so much more sensitive to our environments. All of this information is coming into our brains all the time and since our brains can't always handle all of that information at the speed at which it comes, the brain just short circuits. Kind of like how a surge of power short circuits an electrical system.

Physiologically?

Fatigue, lack of sleep, low blood sugar, hunger, pain ... I think there may be some neurotransmitters involved, but I'm not sure.

Yes all of those things that Fnord mentioned are very important because they cause your to be depleted in your energy levels. When your energy levels are low, your brain is much more susceptible to having meltdowns. It takes a lot less to trigger one when you are drained or fatigued.

Here's a good article about it:
http://snagglebox.com/article/what-are-meltdowns/

An interesting thing it mentions is that it it is, in fact, entirely possible for NTs to have meltdowns - just much, much, much less common.

Apparently, according to the article, anybody can have a meltdown if they are if they find themselves trapped in a situation that their brain can't cope with, especially situations which involve frustration, sensory overload, pain or confusion. Since those with ASD are much more likely to be trapped in such a situation and unable to escape it, people with ASD are much more likely to have meltdowns.

Everyone has meltdowns whether nt, Autistic, or not. We just have them much more often because we are so much more sensitive than nts. I am sure that those of you who are nt parents have meltdowns more often than you would like.

SlendidSnail, was it you that posted an article recently on the different kinds of sensory sensitivities. I wanted to share that article with a friend but i am not able to find it again. Are you able to repost it? I would really like that. If it was not you, than whomever posted that, could you please repost it? Thank you so much.

The meltdown article is excellent as well. Thank you for linking it.

These comments do make sense.

Especially recovery. I very rarely get them but if I do the recovery does take a very long time. I also know when I am prone to Meltdowns. Sometime I overcome it at other times don’t. My first Meltdown was in adolescence I don’t remember having any before that.

But it is interesting to find out what physically and what medically happens.

Imagine a speaker. One that's loud enough to cause you extreme discomfort when at full volume. At it's lowest volume you can barely hear the sound coming from it. As it gets louder the sounds become more distinct. At around mid volume you start feeling a slight discomfort in your inner ear. At 3/4 volume you are covering your ears. You are still aware of the world around you but you can't help but try and block the input coming from the speaker. At full volume you are doing whatever you can to block out the sensory input: Covering your ears, yelling, etc(full meltdown).

The connections between neurons in the brain are different for us on the spectrum than the average NT. It causes what many have described as a feedback loop of sensory input that makes that speaker that is playing at 1/4 volume to seem as if it's playing at 3/4 volume. God forbid it starts playing at full volume. This is why many of us pick up on sounds that NT's don't even register(one of the major things that triggered a red flag when I was considering that I might be on the spectrum).

One word FRUSTRATION .

The brain gets over whelmed by to much sensory information to process, and so the brain is thinking you are in danger. It's the amygdala doing it's job and trying to protect you, by having you go into fight or flight.

The same thing happens if a person is being chased by a bear, or having a limp cut off.