What do you consider a meltdown?

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I always read about people with AS having meltdowns. And while I have broken into tears or thrown a private tantrum or to (both of which I can to some degree control), I don't know if I've ever experienced anything that I would label a meltdown. But then again, I'm really clueless as to what one entails. What kind of things do you do/experience during a meltdown?

don't know if it's best classified as a meltdown, a breakdown or something else, but in January this year I shut down completely. Everything became too much. I cried for several days, then basically spent a few weeks on the sofa watching crappy TV and cuddling the dogs before I was able to function again. It was all down to an anxiety overload - one panic attack too many.

I lose the ability to speak, I liken it to the feeling you get when you know you are about to fall, get hit by a car, sustain an injury. Fight or flight kicks in and it takes hours to calm down. That's my experience anyway. I get shutdowns as well, which are usually due to frustration and inability to communicate, or understand what someone is saying to me. During shutdowns I just can't talk, meltdowns make me feel like the world is ending. I don't really have "triggers", and most of the time when I begin to shutdown or meltdown, initially I'm not aware of it.

It's that moment when you're walking down the street and, suddenly, a big unleashed dog shows up in front of you. Your heart leaps into your throat, your blood pressure rises, and you're looking for a car to jump up on or a fence to leap over. Then, when its master comes casually walking down the street as if nothing is happening, you yell at him at the top of your lungs about his negligence. But of course, your words don't come out right because you're angry and stuttering, your face is red and your arms are flapping all over the place.

That's happened to me a few times. It takes a while for me to come back to normal, too. Maybe an hour or two.

Yeah I get shutdowns like that, where I just can't take in any more information and I struggle to speak in anything more than monosyllables. It's a weird feeling.

it feels like something suddenly hits me in the gut and then in my entire body. I retreat into a thought loop in my head. I panic. I want to get out of wherever I am. I see and hear only enough to survive. If I am at work I just do the absolute minimum like a robot in pain until I can get home and crawl into bed in the dark, have sweats. chills, don't eat, and just pray for the thought-loop to leave me.

This is probably the closest explanation that I've read that explains what happens to me. I always sort of lumped it in with sensory issues but it's something else completely. There are many things that can cause it. I think it's part of PTSD, too, though because I almost always get it when I see a familiar face. Whether I had a bad experience with them or not, this overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety hits me like a tidal wave.

Also when something scares me, it feels as if I have literally just leapt out of my own skin and need several minutes to center myself again.

If what I'm experiencing is indeed what others would label a meltdown then mine encompass many different emotions. They are all extremely powerful and terrifyingly debilitating. So much so that I can't physically express them, which in turn conceals it from most people. And allows me to move on from them at my own pace without anyone (most of the time) detecting any of it.

However it can't be healthy to hold that much intensity inside...

double

Last edited by Jensen on 11 Dec 2013, 11:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ok. Then I have had them. Thought that I´d only had shutdowns.

A psychological and emotional nervous collapse; a panic attack combined with a major depressive episode.

If pressured by external provocation, it can explode into a physical lashing out, to push the offensive assault away.


Definitely NOT a 'tantrum.' A tantrum is a fit of pique, intended to exasperate an opposing party into appeasement.

This entirely, I can relate completely.

This entirely, I can relate completely.

Like Willard, I also have the rage event. Usually for me the meltdown goes something like this:

1. Breathing becomes fast / heartbeat fast (This is when I am supposed to start using my grounding tools, remove myself from the stimuli, and try to prevent the meltdown which can happen VERY rapidly)

2. Body starts to feel hot inside as if someone poured acid inside my blood and set every single nerve ablaze
( This is the stage when I can explode in rage - I call it internal combustion. Sometimes I wonder if I will actually catch fire the way some people have in history!)

3. Senses start getting mixed up more than normal - seeing sounds and hearing colors- the world around me gets too bright/intense and feels like it is closing in on every side of me. If it gets to this point, I no longer have the ability to think straight enough to ground or do much of anything. If I am lucky, I can get my body to sit down and close our eyes, cover our ears, and rock to stop the meltdown.

4. If I make it to this stage, my brain shuts down totally and I tend to dissociate. I have dissociative identity disorder and I have alters who have been known to come out in times like these. The therapist said it is my brain working on a backup. I will remember nothing about the events that follow. I have "woke up" in other states before with no clue as to how I got there. Thankfully that has not happened since starting therapy several years ago. But I have been in a meltdown at work and had an alter come out and drive us to our therapist for an emergency session. After talking with my boss after the event I found it very interesting to hear his description of things. He said I will be having obvious issues such as slurred speech and about to fall over and then I will "snap out of it" suddenly and tell him something like "I need to take her to the doctor. Thank you for understanding." Then we just walk out.

The mind has such an amazing way of trying to figure out what it takes to keep us alive and sane.

5. The final stage of the meltdown is the recovery. For me that includes processing through all the shame I felt at having a meltdown. I go see my therapist and we work together on that part. He tells me to be kind to myself. He lets me know the things I did right (such as go to his office). And we go back to the trigger and see if we can find out why the meltdown happened. We see if there is anything we can do differently in the future if that situation comes up again. It feels hard to do this step and I tell him I can't stop the meltdowns because they can be triggered by so many tons of things - from my PTSD triggers to the AS overloads. But the more I practice being aware of the first two stages, the better I am getting at stopping the meltdown at that point.

I don't know what a meltdown actually is either. I wouldn't say breaking down into tears is a meltdown because it is very common in people (especially women). When I get too overwhelmed or frustrated or too stressed, I have what we call ''outbursts'', where I shout, swear, verbally abuse, cry, and hit my head angrily. I very rarely have outbursts when I'm on my own, because, I know it sounds mean, but I like somebody I know very well to yell and cry to. Usually feedback and reassurance often helps reduce an outburst.

I have noticed another thing with me is if I get an overwhelming or distressing thought and/or emotion, and I'm with close family, I have a bursting feeling to want to cry out how I'm feeling, and if I can't do it due to inappropriate times or environment, I get all panicky inside. I think that is so not Asperger's because I thought it was common in Autistics and Aspies to NOT express their feelings to others.

My brain becomes snowblind and overloaded with so many thoughts and feelings at once that it LITERALLY just turns off. I'm left feeling dizzy and scared and have to immediately leave the scenario and go stim in a dark room. This happened two days ago... I got called into work because someone called in sick and I wasn't mentally prepared for it (not a hard job, working at a pet store) but when I got there it was busy because Christmas shopping and I wasn't mentally prepared to be there and I just zoned out and stopped talking, went completely flat and dialated eyes and just stared into nothing while my mind shut off. I went to the back room and turned the lights off and crouched down covering my face and rocking back and forth until I decided I had to leave. I grabbed my stuff and told no one and walked directly to the door and left and quit. So I'm now unemployed again, thanks to my Autism.

Poor emotional regulation. Being emotionally overwhelmed and loosing control. It's part of an executive function deficit. It's like a strong adrenalin rush that you have no control over.