You can control your "meltdowns"

Post Reply New Topic

Yes, that sums it up pretty well.

And I probably didn't say this, but in my case I am not talking about something that happens on a frequent & regular basis.

A full-blown rage attack would probably happen to me only a few times in a year.

And I haven't killed anyone yet So I do not think of myself as a danger to others. The worst consequence is having to live down the embarassment of having made a complete idiot of myself.

At the time, that doesn't matter - my irrational thought process "in the moment" is to try and FORCE others to see how unreasonable they are being through the sheer strength of my anger.

It is trying to impose my will on the world by blasting it into the state I want it to be. And there is no reasoning with me when I am being like that.

Okay, let me try to describe it in detail. Whether it is my own work or someone elses, I just *know* when it is right and when it isn't. And please don't ask me to define quality, I don't have the capacity to do so verbally. It is something I *sense* and when I see it, I have absolutely no doubt, and when it isn't *right* it just isn't. But as soon as I say something, colleagues either assume that it is an ego-issue (how far from the truth) or that I have a personal agenda, because I seem so intensely *sure*. They think it is just my personal opinion. I wish it were. It has nothing to do with my opinion. It is a complete and utter, full-sensory reaction to whether a piece of work is *right* in and of itself. Am I making any sense at all? Probably not. I've never tried to articulate this before.

When it isn't *right* I have a bad reaction to it, and when it is, I know it within a second - I don't need to evaluate it or explain. I am often attacked for this, and people assume the reasons I mentioned above. When I try to explain, and I am rebuked with an attack (the non-emotional verbal attacks given in a calm tone are the worst), my insides turn to jelly. My pet hate is when people try to "reason" with me without using reason! I shake from head to toe and start crying. Then, if I'm not able to get away, and the verbal grilling continues, chances are I will feel so frustrated at being so misunderstood, that I literally implode from the inside and release it by banging my head on the wall or tearing my hair. No - I don't get aggressive towards others - can't imagine doing that!

If I could ensure that I'm never in a situation where the inside shakes start, I need never have a meltdown. But once my body has started to do that, I can no more "control" it than someone can control taking their need for the next breathe when held underwater. I have learnt, with age, that I have another indication that a meltdown is starting...my head literally starts to prickle. Its a feeling of pins and needles on the back of my head. I guess, thinking about it now, the way an animal would raise its hackles. If I feel that starting, I know I need to get away. If I'm sitting in a business meeting, I can't get up and walk out. So I go quiet and try to release by tapping my foot or sometimes even rocking in my chair. That usually is enough of a signal for the meeting to end and I can get away.

A typical autie meltdown involves severe emotional distress, frequently an inability to think logically or communicate, and feelings of fear that border on terror. If you are speaking of rage attacks, that is entirely different from an autie/aspie meltdown. That sounds, perhaps, like a symptom of bipolar or another psychological disorder. Rage is not typically an autie/aspie trait per se...but how many have bipolar or other disorders that would indeed show itself in rage. Either that, or it is the issue many have of showing to proper emotion with the proper situation.

the rage type of meltdown [if that means the physical type-attacking self,anything etc] is quite common for kanner/classic auties in am experience,am have them and every other autie have lived with had them-there can be less understanding about the situation,less understanding about what are feeling, and have a very high pain threshhold,all of which can add to it,and because of the bigger lack of communication with kanners/classic,things can get out of control easier.
it is mostly situation based [like any meltdown],in that there was a cause,and the body could not cope with it.

That sounds horrific to me. I would have passed out.

.


If you would read to the original post, you will see that i refer to WP posters using the term "meltdown" to justify a tantrum. If you have another definition of the term "meltdown" that does not include tantrum-like behavior, that is fine by me, but it is not what i was talking about in the OP.






Once again, what are the implications of such a condition as regards employment, love, friendship? If I were an employer I would not feel obligated to continue employing someone who may as well be a ticking bomb, may or may not be able to complete the day's work if I reorganize the office floor, etc. Similarly, I would not want to date or even befriend such a person, or trust him around children, or allow him to serve in the military, or possibly even walk free. Isn't it true that to admit to having no control over this "meltdown" behavior is to admit that you are not fit for for society?




These are very familliar feelings. And yet i think that we are both ultimately in control in these situations. Let me propose a thought experiment.

You are in prison. Your cellmate is a seven foot tall, 400 pound mound of muscle and stupidity. As you feel a "meltdown" coming on, he informs you that if you don't keep quiet he will kill you without a second thought.

Are you now able to control your tantrums?




Don't know if it's a meltdown for sure, but I do release my anger in private. ie, I am in control of my anger.




I experience my own "meltdowns," thanks. Perhaps your son has simply found a way to manipulate you by pitching fits.

C'mon peeps, take a hint, he has 'I am mad of poison' in his avatar. He'll 'prove' his POV any way, this guy is only here to feed.

I'm pretty sure I have aspergers, but I've never experienced anything as bad as the meltdowns you guys are describing. Sometimes I get really nervous/flustered/embarassed/upset, but it's never been that bad and I can always deal with it. I can't imagine having to deal with the stuff you guys are saying, and I don't know how I would be able to handle it. So I just wanted to say, I give everyone big props for living with something that sounds very difficult!

Yeah, that's probably what it is. He's found that he can get his way by losing all reason, becoming completely inconsolable, biting his arms (which leave bruises) and occasionally his legs, scratching his face, hitting his head, screaming at the top of his lungs until his voice is straining, all the while looking around with eyes that are at once filled with rage and horror behind all the tears.
Thanks, beautifulspam, for your brilliant insight into my son's (and, apparently, every AS child's) fictional meltdowns.

Ain't dat da truth.

Last edited by MasonJar on 20 Oct 2007, 7:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, yeah, that's what autism is [to state the obvious].



Taken from the DSM-IV-TR on autistic disorder; Asperger's can be just as severe concerning violent meltdowns. 2-14% of the whole spectrum goes on to function “normally” in society (that's not a lot).

If you can function well, lucky you.

wow. thanks for posting that and sharing. I'd never read it described like that, and it puts it in persepective for me. I can definately relate to my emotions either being a one or two or esclated to a 9/10.. Usually I'm moving about at a one/two.. I rarely if ever get rageful or angry (in fact I often find myself not experiencing anger at all even when I probably should be. ??) and am never dangerous to anyone, but I do experience extreme high, intense emotions with intense crying, severe frustration, etc. though most often it doesn't get to that, and I just experience the shut down..

I almost go into fetal position when that happens.

Meltdowns aren't very much about rage in my case. Only as a response to sheer, overwhelming fear and helplessnes, if at all.

When it comes to the control of pure rage, I don't even go yell in my basement, so maybe the poison-man needs to learn selfdiscipline more than I do...

Funny. I have occassionally been successful in stemming impending meltdowns exactly by getting angry and yelling at people. This may just be one of my own peculiarities, but I have been angry and had meltdowns. A meltdown is more like a chemical straight-jacket than anything else, and it is nothing like anger.

Often, there is no situation. That's the thing.

It already seems pretty petty and trivial while we're having the meltdowns. I think that most of us are aware that the circumstances under which these fits occur are the trigger, not the cause.

There is no waiting. It doesn't work that way. If the meltdown can be stemmed, it generally doesn't appear later. They're non-transferable. If I can avoid rupture, which I have gotten amazingly good at in the past couple of years, I usually feel like a million bucks later in the day.

Last edited by Griff on 20 Oct 2007, 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

perhaps poison man vents his uncontrollable energies at other aspies rather than finding productive ways to accept and deal with what he's been dealt..

sounds like most people here are aware of what happens and how they react, and take the necessary actions to do what they need to when it happens.. i don't think there seem to be many here that use the spectrum as an excuse to go into the fits of harmful rage he is speaking of..

I don't yell at people either especially in work places. I just try really hard not to take out my frustrations on others BUT that doesn't mean others can easily do it. It took years and years of figuring out how to respond and I am not sure right now if I'm still having meltdowns but respond differently like now if I'm placed in an unfamiliar situation with little information, I don't have angry outbursts but I shutdown. Is that still having a meltdown? What is a meltdown? Is it just having angry outbursts?

I would suspect a similarity.

An uncontrollable attack of paranoia, anger, and panic, often accompanied by crying and usually followed by a deep sense of emptiness and futility. The power of darkness is helpful in controlling them, though.