what is a "meltdown" ?

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Could someone explain what the difference is between meltdown anger and 'ordinary' anger? I am a quiet person, but if someone really, really infuriates me, I get what I call the roller coaster feeling inside-it is as if I have reached the top of the track and am about to race down the other side, as if a wave of anger so deep overcomes me. When this happens, I am later unaware even of what I have said to the other person. Is this meltdown anger or just ordinary anger?

A meltdown is the point when we lose control of our ability to suppress our deepest emotion. It is what tends to happen when we become extremely stressed and reach the point where we just can’t take it anymore. This breakdown, when it comes, is basically unstoppable. It can occur anywhere from at home, to the grocery store, to the middle of a school day.

This is generally how the process is for me. I will suppress my negative emotions for months. Then, there will be a few days when I’m feeling extremely stressed and everything just seems to build up inside me rapidly. At this point, I can sometimes be aware that it is going to happen and try to avoid people during that time period, until the episode passes or, occasionally, I manage to recover myself before I breakdown. When the breakdown finally happens, I am usually hit by this huge wave of sadness and fury which causes me to feel weak and cry uncontrollably. There have been a couple of times though, when I was in high school, where the expression was through anger and I had a shout out with a classmate who I disliked (sadly, it was in the middle of class when this happened). Then the episode passes and I feel refreshed and am able to handle the next several months without another incident.

I have heard that, for some people with more extreme cases of Aspergers, the breakdowns are much easier to trigger and much more intense than what I experience. If you have never experienced these before, consider yourself Lucky

I used to have them often, especially in my 20s. I didn't know what they were at the time. I just thought I was a bad person. I would unexpectedly go off in a rage and curse at someone who angered me or made me feel disrespected. I was never violent, though. I think I burned a lot of bridges and did some damage to my reputation because of it. I regret this behavior tremendously.

About ten years ago, I started a daily meditation practice to help calm my mind by focusing on the present moment. I don't think I've had an episode since, though I have felt the intensity building up several times. I just know how not to act on it now. I think meditation might help a lot of aspies with meltdown issues.

I've gotten a lot better at knowing when I'm about to have a meltdown and remove myself from the situation, but it's like that energy just builds up, doesn't disperse, until I eventually can't control it anymore and I explode. I'm trying to figure out a better way to deal with them...

meditation is good, it's like a computer having a defrag, always good to have some time to put your mind in order. I've recently stopped listening to so much radio and sometimes just playing music in the car instead of the radio and I feel better for it as I was reaching overload and just not knowing if I was coming or going.

Meltdowns left me crying and screaming and caused me to destroy irreplaceable photographs, break my brother's Beatles album, completely destroy a hotel room while at another brother's wedding, have boyfriends think I was a raging lunatic, and resolve a problem at a local IRS office (they told me nothing could be done about a levy on my wages but when I started throwing things around and screaming, they fixed the problem immediately and brought me a cup of tea).

Those things happened years ago. I don't have meltdowns any more.

I have been having them over the past few years because my life is generally quite stressful. The worries build up and up until they become a huge confused mess in my head and I start to visualize getting a handsaw and cutting my own head off just to make it stop. I might imagine myself hitting my head with my hands, even though I don't physically do it.

Sometimes I sit in my car or in the dunny, where no-one can see me, and have an emotional breakdown. I cry uncontrollably for sometimes over an hour. I might do it several times in a day if things are really bad. I never let anyone see me. I don't know if anyone even knows, but they can sometimes 'tell I have been crying'. They don't realize how bad it is though.

I have learned to hide it pretty well. I actually sometimes 'contain' the emotion under a veneer of total calm, and engineer an opportunity to let it out in private. This could be crying, or shutting down or raging to myself.

My husband is a major source of stress, and if he sees me upset, his anger gets even worse, which hurts me even more, so I have learned to carefully mask my face with a neutral expression and let him rant, while I put my entire energy into murdering him in the most brutal and cruel way I can think of, in my head. I don't even hear what he is saying anymore, because I am busy savouring the pain I am causing him in my head.
Then later when I know he can't hear or see me, I have a breakdown. I makes me feel so alone that I have no-one to help me when I need it, and I have to resort to these kinds of measures to manage my emotions.

Occasionally, rarely, I snap in front of my family, but these are always anger, not tears, and I can see fear on their faces. I HATE that I ever do that, so I guess that may have prompted me to evolve the mental murder technique instead. As long as it stays in my head, right?

I think I have meltdowns occasionally, but I'm not sure because mine are so quick. I would think a meltdown would have to last several minutes to qualify. Y'all tell me...how many of these are meltdowns?...

* I threw the hamburger I was eating at my mother during one of her nag sessions.

* When I was about 6, I broke down into tears because the waiter in an Italian restaurant was putting a bib on me. I kept screaming "I don't want a bib! I'm not a baby!"

* During a fight with my brother, I slammed my bedroom door so hard that the door pushed past the plastic door frame and protruded outside the door frame.

* When I've reached my limit on the teasing my mother's boyfriend inflicts on me, I'll suddenly throw out a thunderbolt of rage in his direction (usually happens right after I've told him "I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT ANY MORE."

* Was so sick with bronchitis that I broke down into uncontrollable tears in the doctor's office.

* When I was 9, I nearly tore my mattress off the bed while gripping it for dear life. My mother was trying to drag me to the living room to break me of my fear of clowns, and there was one on TV. I was also screaming at the top of my lungs.

* Had a series of petty crap happen while I was trying to get ready for a job interview. When I was finally ready to go, I got the car stuck in a mud hole at the edge of the driveway. I got so mad that I was screaming and kicking the car.

* I forecefully threw a magazine across the counter of a convenience store because the cashier was ignoring me.

* Nearly tore off my car steering wheel in rage when I drove up in my driveway and saw that my mother had cut down a beautiful clock vine growing on my house. She thought it was a weed; in reality, I had been trying to get the vine to bloom for two years.

* I was late to my best friend's wedding because of unexpected road construction (a 45 minute road trip ended up taking 3. 5 hours). I got to the reception, went to the bathroom and began to cry hysterically.

I also have panic attacks, but they are different in that I KNOW what sets off meltdowns, I have no idea why my panic attacks start.

I am no meltdown expert or anything, but it seems to me that you build up stress and snap with an unreasonable overreaction (Webalina).
I don't think that is tied ONLY into autism. Some people are not taught self control, some have other issues, such as hormone problems, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
But I would not rule it out that it is due to autism. It's the rest of the package that will tell what it is.

A lot of NT's I know NEVER have that kind of reaction to such things as you did. So something must be different.

It is pretty impressive that you have such clear memories from your childhood. I have a very good memory, which is why I have noticed that most people don't.

And I think your mother did the wrong thing to try to force you to watch clowns like that. She probably added to the terror.
I would not have don't it that way, although I probably would have tried to help you not be afraid of them some other way.
Mothers!