How do you tell the difference- adult tantrum v meltdown ?

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At one point when faced by negative/stressful stimuli my anxiety would ramp up, I would become emotionally volatile, verbally very heated, and increasingly irrational and paranoid.
It was not behaviour I did with the expectation of getting anything but more a reflex reaction. Afterwards I would feel really drained.

I think my pdocs/other mental health staff thought it was me having a tantrum and being manipulative but as indicated above there was nothing purposeful or planned about it all.

Since being on risperdal injections I've been a lot less emotionally reactive and the episodes mentioned above have virtually ceased.

Looking at that - a) a reaction to lack of understanding b) when feeling acutely stressed c) In full rant mode and need to express feelings -no consideration of how much attention is being paid d) Often no audience due to seeing a solitary staff member e)No conscious goal . Very much a knee jerk emotional reaction and overwhelming need to sound off.
Like that until the emotional storm breaks.

Given the lack of replies I am not sure whether this was an irrelevant question, or perhaps people think that Ezra's response was sufficient.

I'm not qualified to answer but by going by EzraS chart it have appears more like a meltdown although it depends how you interpret the Venn diagram i.e your answer to a) is lack of understanding but you could look at it that you want clarification therefore your goal is to understand b) you want less stress etc etc.

I find it really difficult to answer question like this due to interpretation , even when I answer questions in the Aspie test I'm not sure how to interpret some questions and get different scores depending on who scores me ( me or my GF )

I know services have put things down to anger outbursts./bad behaviour Apparently you are supposed to react to abusive and poor treatment with a smile on your face. A lot of it shows how lacking in intelligence and understanding a lot of mental health professionals are.

Ezra gave a good answer, but it was basically the same as the answer you gave yourself in the OP.

The staff projects motives into your behavior were there are no motives.

You break down and make a scene because you cant help it (like a seizure). You dont make a scene on purpose to get a response.

Thank you all for your responses.

Some of my worst-ever meltdowns were at least partly fueled by the fact I did *not* want to make a scene or cause any discomfort or disturbance for anyone, and that is something I try to keep in the front of my mind today. Sometimes even the smallest of the challenges I face can easily point me toward overload, but I can now usually shift my focus to how I believe I *should* act in the face of the challenge...and then either step back a bit or even move completely away from it.