I think the kernel, the central thing, of any meltdown is frustration.
Oh yeah, I've had several meltdowns in my time. Dealing with my addict mother or dealing with the pressure of marrige have led me to have a few stress related meltdowns over the years. And like I said, it has to deal with this frustration that keeps getting more and more concentrated the longer I went without being able to adequately deal with the stress. And in time the stress and frusrtation would build up until there was no way I could deal with it any longer. And it's like filling up a balloon. There's only a finite amount of something you can fit into a balloon until it bursts. And that's what a meltdown is. You become as full as you can get with stress and frustration and then you just pop. You just explode.
And when I have a meltdown, I'd get very mad and cause a scene by throwing things around, punching the walls, cussing up a storm, yelling and storming away in a huff. But what I'm not trying to do is to hurt anyone else. I'm literally just trying to vent all the frustration out of my system. And frustration comes out as anger in me. Or a bothersome emotion. So I get really angry. And once the the cork's out of the bottle, what's inside has to go SOMEWHERE. So I have meltdown, make an ass out of myself and go away until I can regain my compsure enough to go sulking back to apologize. Because having a meltdown is very embarrassing to me. It's like making myself out to be an ass.
And the relationship I had with my mother was an ugly one. When I got very, very frustrated (which was most of the time) I would kind of come unglued and act as if I've come unhinged a bit. And she would just pounce onthat and make the situation worse for us both. I would get more and more stressed out and she would begin to make fun of me. And then after I had a full-on meltdown, she would ridicule me for making myself out to look like an idiot. And that was also very embarrassing.
So I just try to stay away from all the elements that cause me a lot of frustration. Which has changed a lot about how I do things, who I see or where I go. I try to stay in an environment that is safe for me. So I won't have another embarrassing meltdown.