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Anatomy of a Multi-Meltdown Session

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MasonJar
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09 Oct 2007, 10:36 pm

Does this sound familiar to anyone?
I served some frozen blueberries to my younger son (21 months) -- he loves chomping on frozen blueberries. I asked my older son (we'll call him B -- 6-year-old Aspie) if he would like some blueberries too because he LOVES eating frozen blueberries. "Yes," he says. I get him a bowl and pour in some frozen blueberries. "Can you get me a spoon?" he asks. "Yes," I say, but as I say it he gets up, walks to the silverware drawer, gets a spoon, and starts to walk back to the table. "I would have gotten that for you," I say nonchalantly. The next sound is B sitting back down and...
...cue meltdown. He starts crying and screaming, and I mean screaming so that his voice is straining with rage, and he keeps going like this for 15 minutes or so. I finally get the reason: He was upset because he didn't let me get the spoon for him.
By this time his chicken nuggets, which are in the shapes of dinosaurs, are ready. I get B calmed down, give him some refreshing cold orange juice, and bring his chicken-o-saurs over to him. He takes a bite off one of them and...
...cue meltdown #2. Apparently the dinosaurs are far too cute to eat tonight. A few nights ago he was a savage predator and they were OK to eat. Tonight, they're just too cute to eat. This meltdown lasts only 5 minutes or so, but there will be no eating dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets tonight.
Are these pretty typical AS meltdowns? The duration of his meltdowns is definitely shorter than when he was younger, but he can still melt at the most trivial of things. I'm thinking that the pressures of school just sort of got to him and he needed to blow a head gasket.



iceb
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10 Oct 2007, 12:38 am

Ouch!

))))hugs((((

hope things become less stressful.


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laplantain
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10 Oct 2007, 1:43 am

I remember having meltdowns like that when I was little!

Well, something I have noticed in my son is that he is 4 and having all the classic signs of the terrible 2s. Everything, I mean, physically, socially, emotionally, he is doing everything a 2 yr old would be doing. So all the things my mommy friends were talking about 2 yrs ago, we are finally seeing now.

I know that the meltdowns will decrease. Mine did anyway. My husband doesn't have meltdowns, but he certainly mopes around the house and is very moody a lot. I read somewhere that people with AS make less serotonin/melatonin? Plus with the hyperfocus on minute details, it's very easy for the tiniest of things to be disturbing. My cure is exercise, when I can get it.



girl7000
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10 Oct 2007, 5:13 am

MasonJar wrote:
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
I served some frozen blueberries to my younger son (21 months) -- he loves chomping on frozen blueberries. I asked my older son (we'll call him B -- 6-year-old Aspie) if he would like some blueberries too because he LOVES eating frozen blueberries. "Yes," he says. I get him a bowl and pour in some frozen blueberries. "Can you get me a spoon?" he asks. "Yes," I say, but as I say it he gets up, walks to the silverware drawer, gets a spoon, and starts to walk back to the table. "I would have gotten that for you," I say nonchalantly. The next sound is B sitting back down and...
...cue meltdown. He starts crying and screaming, and I mean screaming so that his voice is straining with rage, and he keeps going like this for 15 minutes or so. I finally get the reason: He was upset because he didn't let me get the spoon for him.
By this time his chicken nuggets, which are in the shapes of dinosaurs, are ready. I get B calmed down, give him some refreshing cold orange juice, and bring his chicken-o-saurs over to him. He takes a bite off one of them and...
...cue meltdown #2. Apparently the dinosaurs are far too cute to eat tonight. A few nights ago he was a savage predator and they were OK to eat. Tonight, they're just too cute to eat. This meltdown lasts only 5 minutes or so, but there will be no eating dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets tonight.
Are these pretty typical AS meltdowns? The duration of his meltdowns is definitely shorter than when he was younger, but he can still melt at the most trivial of things. I'm thinking that the pressures of school just sort of got to him and he needed to blow a head gasket.


I can only speak from my experience as an aspie, and also from the other aspies and auties I know. Meltdowns vary from person to person, although what you've described is a fairly common manifestation of meltdown - particularly for a child.

The thing to remember (and I know that this is a lot easier said than done) is that things that seem trivial to some can actually seem HUGE to a person on the spectrum. This is certainly the case with me (although now that I am adult my meltdowns manifest differently from screaming etc.) and with other aspies I know.

The wierd thing is that in more 'major' situations, like emergencies where non-spectrum people panic, I tend to be quite calm - so am often the one to help out during a crisis. So for me, at least, there is a positive side.



MasonJar
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10 Oct 2007, 11:07 am

girl7000 wrote:
The wierd thing is that in more 'major' situations, like emergencies where non-spectrum people panic, I tend to be quite calm - so am often the one to help out during a crisis. So for me, at least, there is a positive side.

I am quite the same way, which is another reason I'm thinking I'm Aspie. The big things usually don't phase me. My wife slices the sh*t out of her finger and needs to go to the hospital for stitches -- no problem, I'm calm. But if I get stuck in a traffic jam or my computer locks up or I overcook something...while I may not fully blow a head gasket anymore, these smaller things upset me quite a bit.