Adult Aspie Meltdowns

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I can decompress arousnd something innocent and harmless, mean no ill will toward anyone.

Any tips for NT loved ones who may be present during the meltdown or have unintentionally contributed to it?

I had posted that very video on my blog awhile back. It describes so much about sensory overload so concisely. My meltdowns aren't quite like that, but I am definitely bothered by certain sounds. I'm also bothered by schedule changes at work. (I work 7am to 4:30pm, Tues-Fri, and it changes on holiday weeks, so I end up working 8:30-4 on those days. When that happens, I stress out so much because I feel like I can't get anything done. I get into a funk and actually can't get anything done. So that's kind of a week-long minor meltdown.)

Yesterday I was overstimulated at work (the guy I was working with was non-stop with the chatting! And then another staff member I knew came in and also started chatting! Questions and questions!!), and when I got back to the office from where I was working (I'm a field PC technician for libraries) I literally couldn't function. I held it together while I was at the library, but I was never so glad to get out of there. I felt like I had socialized enough for an entire week! I spent the rest of the day feeling drained, confused, and couldn't talk right. I even fell asleep early last night.

Sometimes, if my wife and I have a huge fight (which hardly ever happens), I'll be so emotionally overloaded that I'll literally just walk out of the house and just walk and walk until I regain clarity again.

Once, when I was a kid, my mom and I were at her friend's house and she turned on the radio. Something about the music resonating in a particular type of glass she had on a shelf (a sound no one but me had heard) hurt my ears enough that I actually punched my mom's friend hard enough in the stomach to make her double over. I was no older than 3 or 4.

Sometimes hubby will nod and hasn't heard a word, he even answers sometimes, but it's obvious later he hasn't taken any of it on board. Maybe he does something like that too MjrMajorMajor. I don't know. Compared to how I naturally am I have learned to be concise and not emotional at all when I try to discuss something with him that's important to me...but even innocuous things, it is like he has a 'one track mind' as my granny might've said...and if he is doing or thinking of anything else, nothing else gets in.

Does that ring a bell?

(He also will leap to his feet to go do something in another room, even if it's in the middle of a conversation, because "I will forget it if I don't." I have suggested he write himself a reminder note, but ah well.)

I still have meltdowns from time to time. Most frequently, I have them when I've run into problems and can't find solutions. There's been a few times when people have sent me into meltdowns. I can usually feel them coming on, but it happens very quickly. It's like I can feel chemicals in my brain. It's a strange feeling.

A recent meltdown was at a hockey game. I was already feeling anxious over an argument I had with my gf. I was walking to my seat and a guy flags me down and asks, "have you gotten your raffle ticket yet?" Not wanting to be bothered, already being anxious ,just wanting to get to my seat, I told him something along the lines of "Yeah, I'm good." He stopped me again and asked, "Oh yeah? What's your ticket number? You didn't get a ticket, did you?" I started to feel that feeling. I responded nastily towards him, went back to my seat and threw my program on the ground. And I just sat there for a little while until I calmed down (nobody else was around, it was when the building first opened), and just felt bad about the whole thing after the fact, yet, I couldn't control it once the meltdown came on.

Oh, I rage about that all the time!! Irks me to no end!

I hit myself in meltdowns
I go to a respite home so my mum can have a break

I described meltdowns to my NT mom as telling her it was like playing Tetris. At first, you can handle everything, and you're having fun ... then things speed up, you can't put the blocks into the slots quite fast enough, one blocks another, which blocks another, which starts a pile up that is too fast to stop, no matter how you try to rotate the blocks.

And then you lose.

When I have meltdowns, I almost feel like I'm having some sort of seizure, but not shaking. I feel like it's a psychological/emotional seizure, if that makes sense. It's embarrassing, I can't make it stop once it starts, and it's generally scary to people around me. I have banged my head on a concrete floor and almost fractured my skull doing it during one, I slap my hands on things, I scream, I cry ... it's ugly.

Things that trigger them:

1. Being away from home. I've had a meltdown on just about every trip I've had away from home, just too much of a change. Especially when you add to it that I'm on schedule with the people I'm traveling with and not myself, plus locations like Las Vegas and Disneyland which are massively overwhelming ... meltdown city.

2. When people pile demands on me and I don't feel I've even accepted the first demand yet.

3. Being very very tired or very very hungry makes them come easier.

4. Anything involving a hurt animal.

5. Feeling cornered in any way at all makes me go into meltdown mode. I don't just mean physically cornering me (not a good idea) but manipulating me into something, etc.

6. People invading what I think of as my space, either my personal bubble (which I can usually fix by moving away) or worse yet, if they come into my apartment without me asking them in or decided they were okay. I have had serious issues with landlords sending repairmen in to fix something when I'm home alone, and I am so uneasy at someone being in my space that I've had to leave so that I don't have a meltdown because they came in.

Ugh. My brain.

I can so relate to this thread. I always thought something was really wrong with me, I've always known I can't handle too much, if I try to do what others do I end up flipping out...screaming yelling cursing crying. What sucks is its happened in public too a few times.

Now that I've realized I have autism and read books on it I feel better. The problem is, like many have said, no one believes me & thinks it is just an excuse - because I can manage to have a normal conversation with people one on one for a short period or go to work for 8 hours. They don't realize that 8 hours trying to act normal sucks the life out of me & lots of times I barely make it in the door before my rage flies loose.

Social situations drain me so badly & too much going on at once....so I try really hard not to overwhelm myself & do things in small doses but my husband is very social & keeps forcing me into these social situations & dumps more & more on my plate & then when I lose it & end up flipping out he acts shocked & makes it seem like its my fault & I'm overreacting & I'm just a crazy person.

It is scary not to be able to control your temper, I won't have people stay at my house for this reason.