Are Meltdowns Always "Violent"/Physical?

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Mine are usually shutdown type. I can only think of one or two violent meltdowns in my whole life. As an adult my shutdown/meltdowns are far less common than they used to be.

I've never really had violent or emotional meltdowns, but I do tend to "shut down" if under a lot of emotional stress. The "shut down" feels as if I've lost control of my body: I can barely speak and my entire body feels frozen in place. I don't know if this is due to Aspergers or being subject to emotional and physical abuse when I was growing up, but either way, if someone gets in my face and starts yelling/screaming at me, I will most likely "shut down."

After something like that happens, I just need to be alone for a little while to get back to normal.

Doesn't have to be violent, can become all sorts of hurt without throwing fists. But hey let's hope none of us have any breakdowns soon eh?

That is exactly how my meltdowns are, just uncontrollable crying- it's rare that I feel the need to hit or throw things.

While I've never been physically violent towards others, I have thrown things and hurt myself many times. Crying comes with the territory, though I haven't cried much for the past few years. Now, when I become annoyed or overwhelmed I start to get dizzy and have a hard time walking. Talking is near impossible and I could easily lay in my room all day without once getting up. Sometimes I start to depersonalize too, which is very annoying.

I get rage. Total, gut wrenching rage. I don't get physical but I do shout.

Then sometimes I cry.

And sometimes I completely shut down and hide under my douvet for a few hours.

When I have a meltdown it's like I lose control and my body goes on auto pilot. When I have have a meltdown I tend to throw myself into walls and objects. I'll also bang my head on objects.

Most of the time I just scream at everyone nearbye (I often cant talk for a few days afterwards) and sometimes try to break stuff around me. Only rarely do I attempt to hurt a person.

I once pulled down the shades, crawled into bed and had a quiet meltdown... but they usually involve yelling.

As a preadolescent I punched, kicked, bit and pulled hair of my triggers, once I stabbed a classmate in the shoulder with a pencil (let's ban them). One of my high interests distracted me from most episodes enough to become the school hero for the rest of my time there. That, and being switched from Ritalin to Cylert. Middle school brought on crying spells and excessive fatigue, and trying to express my struggles to the school counselor led to a hospitalization. High school I managed to avoid most fights, but for a friendship with the kid across the street that I royally turned to crap and morphed into a neighborhood feud, I spent about a year hiding in a barn every day on the way home from school. Presently they moved away and there was just a minor scuffle or 2 with a cousin. My mother began dating a guy just a few years older than myself and he played Jekyll&Hyde on me that I isolated a lot. My younger brother stole my savings and I held a pillow over his face just to the brink of 'what have I done?' That's the closest I've ever come to murderous rage, after that incident I felt so disgusted at myself I didn't feel deserving of anything good ever, to the point of being a doormat. From then on I've never laid hands on another person, I punched walls and the floor, breaking bones in my hands. I'd gone about 10 years solid not striking out at anything, instead taking benzos and random painkillers, chasing them with alcohol

A new high interest came into my life and I spent a lot of time exploring my newfound freedom it allowed me . The creepback I've noticed a lot more that when I am not just able to jump on and go, I'll be down to desperately trying to get 1 machine back to working order and something that should have taken 2 minutes to tighten a bolt becomes half a day extracting the broken bolt, if I'm lucky and haven't incurred worse damage chasing the original problem. I feel a lot like the story of slapping the tar baby these days.

So of course my hopes for 1 simple request ends up with my world collapsing, So the most rational thing I can do at that time? Shove the rebellious object of my interest, say some colorful words to it under my breath, rip my shirt from the collar down, ruminate again on how IT failed me, I failed me, God failed me, I failed God, I failed it. I suck. It's a POS, I'm a POS, it's a POS because I made it that way, thought I could do better than some engineer in China. FML, F-me, F-you, F-you very much, F-,me, no you've already F-ed me, at least KISS me. F-s a lot. God I'm SUCH an idiot...Gut wrenches, face burns, redding out, somebody please beat me up, guess I'll have to do that myself. Not always the same script and I'm probably not saying anything nobody else knows, but I haven't tried to add staying in a safe zone to ride it out to the mix, not having known of that until I arrived here. At this stage the hitting is the only thing I've seen on my own that seems to make it all go away sooner. Obviously I need an alternative for fear of eventually being found out and resulting in not being able to lurk or post for a looong time

Certainly not. All my meltdowns are essentially acts of withdrawing from the world. No violence whatsoever.

Definitely not all physical!
I feel for you, just being diagnosed. I didn't find it a nice time, realligning my considerations of why I was so different.

My 'meltdowns', as such, range from the physical (screaming, running around the house crashing into things trying to stop my head from exploding), to the absolutely frozen stiff, to quasi-anxiety, to depressive.

There is no set definition for a meltdown, its pretty much (for me, anyway) just when everything is completely overwhelming, usually sensory or not being able to compute social stuff. Hope this helps

And PM me if you want to talk