Good Meltdown website/info?

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I can't seem to find anything good on the web about meltdowns. Doesn't have to be autistic meltdowns, cause honestly I don't know what's causing them in me, I had severe ones almost everyday as a kid, and now I am starting to get them again and it's annoying me.

Also wanted to know if there is some kind of list out there of different conditions that could cause meltdowns. I don't totally fit anything I know of.

I want to bring this up more with my therapist and stuff, because I'm annoyed they don't want to diagnose my childhood problems but I wanna know why I was the way I was. :?:

I've written quite a bit about meltdowns - follow the links on this page...

http://sites.google.com/site/gavinbollard/about-aspergers/What-are-Meltdowns

I don't think I've written anything about the triggers though because different people have different triggers - and a different times. The one thing that I know about meltdowns is that the trigger for the actual meltdown isn't entirely the cause. They occur because of pent-up feelings/frustrations, of which the triggers is simply "the last straw".

If you don't find what you're looking for, ask me some specific questions and I might be able to help.

By cause, I sort of meant what conditions, like for example ASDs or Childhood Bipolar or ADHD, if there is anything else. I feel I haven't been diagnosed very well, and I am trying to narrow down the choices.

Good description of a meltdown there, very good. I wonder how common to have them as severe as I did, I had meltdowns almost every day until I was 16 and occasionally as an adult, just like the ones you described.

Just wondering however what an adult can do to prevent a meltdown, I am getting very stressed over a situation and melted down over it a couple times in the past two weeks, not good, at one point I was hitting myself, hard, because I didn't want to damage anything else.

If you are hitting yourself, maybe try a placebo effect. You WANT to stop, maybe forcing a food sensation or ritual can be a less destructive way.

I'm in a similar place. I am trying to figure out how to do it better. I just picked some "Bach Rescue Remedy Pastilles - Natural Stress Relief - Made in Switzerland".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_flower_remedies

Also consider that stress is bad for you physically. may not hurt to take a low-dose aspirin that is often advised for men to use daily for heart attack prevention. You can get them in chewable form like children's one. Cheaper and available anywhere. Might slightly increase the bloodflow to your brain and clear those nasty built up chemicals

I turn to drugs for almost nothing in my life. It is out of trying to be more open minded that I'm looking at these two options. I'm nearly 40 and I need to improve my self responses to what I now understand the underlying cause. I am a foodie [food lover], so I'm hoping the physical sensation of consuming food (the Pastilles or the Low Dose aspirin) might be powerful enough to get my own attention


P.S. In the past 18 months, before my major AS realization/discovery 3 weeks ago, I had reached for a drink of hard liquor when at home and having a pre-meltdown sensation. This just made those around me more fearful ("now he will be drunk too!"). But it wasn't about getting drunk. I had really enjoyed the TV show "Mad Men" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Men and it depicts men who have a drink at work any time they were stressed. Ultimatly, I don't want people around me to be scared, so this week I came up with the new solutions I just outlined for you. Using something labeled "Stress Relief" on the package may help those around me respect that I'm trying to help myself instead of add tension.

P.S.S. to add to this "it's an emergency, give me a pill" mental theme. How many movies depict the scene of "I'm having a heart problem, get me my pills!". It may add to the mental impact. One of my favorite movie's is Contact. There is a dramatic scene where the young girl's father dies of a heart attack. And at the wake service, she is rather detached on the front porch (Hum, is that character a possible Aspie, I'm not kidding, this just crossed my mind for the first time) - and she fixates on the aspect that she was late with the pills. She later becomes a scientist and is the main character of the story. If I try to focus on that scene of a favorite movie while popping my own pills, maybe the positive enjoyment can come to me.

P.S.S.S. Coming back to add one more point with an edit. I looked it up. The word placebo originated from the Latin for I will please. Maybe a silent internal chant of that might add to the ritual and get the intellectual mind back in control.

I've never had a melt down.
I feel lucky.