What does a meltdown look like in an adult woman?

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Don't mean to be inappropriate, but "ET go home" I could never watch that movie past the first 15min or so, it made me cry so bad.

[/quote]I think I'm going through a burnout currently, noticed that I've been crying again at random for the last couple of days (not related to hormonal oscillations), even though I'm going to bed really early, I still wake up really tired and when I get to work, I just wait for the shift to end so I can go home and be alone and sleep. Had a huge fight with parents over nothing. Sunlight is making me anxiety even worse and any idea of human contact is also worsening it.[/quote]
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(purplemoongirl)
Especually to do with hormome fluctations i used to blame my severe mood swings on them but... there is no pattern. my menstrual cycle has no definate cycle but sometimes i get no mood swings at all and no pms at all.

With anger its more fustation and it feels like liquid fire that you have to get out somehow.
And i break down into uncontrollable crying or cry at the smallest problem for weeks.
Anyone elae had this? i can sometimes link it to stress.
Is it just hormones? I feel like i cant control my emotions when this happens its so strong.

I am a door slammer , I will yell and throw things, but only in certain situations, otherwise I hyperventilate and shut down and ignore everyone.

Yesterday's meltdown as an adult woman:

I was forced to go to a pub by my sister, despite the fact that I'd told her that I wasn't feeling well.
Sister had a friend with her with a bunch of mental problems of himself who got obsessed with me and tried to talk. After sometime he was so pushy that I got into a shutdown and stopped talking. This time he started to push even harder and kept telling me to look at him and say a word and I started to cry. He took me out to the autopark near the pub to get some air and he kept telling me to look at him and if not he was going to think that I wasn't sane and do sth else. 'Look at me, talk to me, look at me, talk to me, look at me, talk to me...'
I started to scream while crying my eyes out, fell down on the floor and started to kick him while scratching on my eyes furiously. I also kept shouting 'why' and 'don't!' at him, while he tried to hug me and calm me down. A lot of people gathered around us. I couldn't talk for a couple of hours afterwards until I got home and hugged the cat.

I don't think as an adult I meltdown much, I used to a lot as a child now I think I just shut down. I dissociate and everything feels strange and loud and horrible and everything goes fuzzy and I just have to wait it out.

This is so helpful reading. I'm not diagnosed yet (I've had 2/3 of my appointments (one chat, one childhood digest) for diagnosis, but psychologist said she can't see it going any other way). I had no idea there were other people in the world with my particular brand of restabilising.

For me melt downs always come when I've been pushed by other people beyond my social capacity (either for too long or too many people, or forcing me to just try harder to be normal) or when I'm caught in some kind of emotional uncertainty (e.g. I'm unable to know whether my husband is telling me he's not mad because he's not or because he wants to not finish the conversation - I can't stand leaving things unresolved, but my inability to read the situation makes me like a doggard interrogator, which inevitably makes it worse). First I just start to get agitated, physically and i stutter, all my hand flapping and pacing etc starts to get worse, then i become like a fountain of raw emotion just trying to find any semblance of logical stability. The only way from here is to cry and rock and/or talk it out. I don't need/want anyone else to talk but really need to be heard so that I can refind my way back to logical thinking (if no one is listening it's like I just get caught in a loop) and eventually it dissipates. It's like a horrible emotion storm that once it hits there's no way except through it. It's utterly exhausting and when it's over I just need to be alone and sleep for a really long time. I'm learning that if I am allowed to do what i need before it gets to this (be alone in the quiet, or just get an honest answer in the second example) then all that needs to happen is for me to be alone to get what I need and no one else is needed. I hate needing to involve anyone else so I prefer that to happen.

I also get an overwhelming desire for everything to end. For years I thought it was suicidal, but I don't think I want to die, I just want my mind and my body to stop feeling and thinking. I always loved when Leia switches c3p0 off because I've always identified a little with c3p0 and I just wish I had an off switch!

I had them for the past 2 days. It was basically me balled up rocking back and forth and sobbing.

Luckily my kids were really sweet and kept hugging me.

When I was married I never ever displayed a meltdown in front of my husband. I would go into an empty room maybe or taper it off in the day when he was at work.

Going on walks in nature is something that keeps them at bay but it’s really hard with such tiny kids... one who stumbles n falls and needs a specialty stroller/wheelchair

Well, that sounds familiar! My meltdowns tend to be crying fits. When I was little I was a lot more violent when I had meltdowns. I would throw things and scream and generally cause quite a scene. But now that I know how to bottle up my emotions my meltdowns are usually very unexpected fits of tears and crying and me babbling insensibly. I tend to have more shutdowns than meltdowns nowadays, I think, probably since I keep my emotions inside more often than not.

Too hard to explain usually much more tired than think when things start going wrong ,
Usually by outward appearances i freeze . Wait to feel impacts on my body .or worse.

For me, my meltdowns involve screaming, crying, and hitting myself or hurting myself in some other way. I rarely have meltdowns right now though, especially not in public.