My wife takes my meltdowns hard...how can I help her?

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Not in the way you'd expect, either. I have managed over the years to learn to make sure she's not in the line of fire so to speak when I have one. I have even learned to be vocal with her during these meltdowns, and at her insistence, tell her how I think I'm feeling. The problem isn't that I treat her poorly in meltdown. Rather, it's that she's very empathic(BPD confirmed, also possibly on spectrum herself), and when I get depressed or panic, she feels it also. She also has expressed helplessness because she has never been able to find a way to pull me out of a meltdown. She compares it(perhaps unfairly to herself) to her own BPD attacks that I can at times pull her out of, and I think she feels guilty in not being ale to reciprocate. The thing is, when I'm in a meltdown/depression , the best thing for me is usually solitude. And of course, I tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve around her, especially in meltdown. I can't put on a brave face for very long.

I love my wife very much, and I've tried telling her on many an occasion that just knowing she loves me and cares how I feel helps. I wish there was some way I could find to lessen the impact of my meltdowns on her. It doesn't help that knowing they upset her in turn makes me feel worse.

Is this one of those cases where it's her that needs to change her line of thinking? Or is there something I can do?

I struggle with this in my relationship, as I am the BPD/ASD partner, and he is HFA (he gets shutdowns, I guess, he gets in a really dark mood and nothing can "touch" him). So here is what I do:

When calm we have discussed how we'll approach either of us having a shutdown/meltdown (mine are mostly meltdowns combined with BPD nonviolent rages); there was a compromise made where each of us would respect what the other wanted (I want to be comforted and spoken to when I have a meltdown and he's the only one that can pull me out of a BPD episode; he wants to be given space but not made to feel like he is bothering me with his mood (which is the case, but I try really hard to not go down that road -- BPD can make me think he doesn't love me anymore because he's unresponsive to my kindness during his black moods and I basically have to realize (and keep in mind) that he does love me and won't abandon me even though he's "away" for the time being.) ALso, he has promised to not to push me away during his shutdown if I give him space and time to come out of it on his own.

If I can be of more help or this was too vague, feel free to pm me.

Edit: to answer your question directly, yes, she needs to change her line of thinking and both of you need to meet each others' needs in those situations, reach a compromise where both of you can go through what you have to return to baseline and not come away feeling anything negative. If you want to be left alone to deal with your meltdown, she needs to understand that is what you need and has nothing to do with your feelings for her or regard for her concern for you.

When my boyfriend gets meltdowns it worries me a lot (I'm worried he'll accidentally hurt himself badly), and I stop being able to function well.

However, he needs to get out of the situation and if he can leave and walk anywhere then he functions far better.
My reaction despite knowing this is to need to try to help him, and to be incredibly worried about him being on his own.

We were talking to my therapist about this on Friday, and we came to the agreement that we'd try that when he starts meltingdown then he leaves, tells me that he's leaving (even if not verbally) and sends a text message that he's okay with where he is to reduce my worry.

Maybe something like that would work better for the two of you? You need a way to let you be alone when you need to (like my boyfriend does), but without it causing your wife to take it even harder. Just expecting something different suddenly is going to be a lot for her. Giving her something that helps, while still giving you a way to be alone, would work far better.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. We'll see what strategy we can form from everything here.