Meltdowns

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I went through the same thing you guys are describing. I was suppressing my meltdowns (which had been happening more often than normal because I was burnt out) and felt so distant from my own body and emotions for awhile. I didn't have anyone to help me out of it unfortunately, I did it on my own. Once I found out I was autistic I worked to stop repressing my meltdowns and let myself recover properly afterwards. It helped improve my mental health a lot! I feel like myself again

Meltdowns are an outwards expression of overload, or 'fight' mode. The brain is trying to make the overwhelming things stop so it can catch up to what is happening. Meltdowns usually come with intense emotions and lots of people feel as if their actions are not their own during one.

Shutdowns are when the brain 'tunes out' what's happening to protect itself from more overwhelm, or goes in to 'flight' mode. Any kind of input usually becomes harder to process during a shutdown, as well as responding to this input.

I hope this helped.

It depends on the type of meltdown.

The typical meltdown would be a slow build up meltdown, with that I can have anywhere between 5-30 min or so of really knowing I could meltdown at any moment, and I may likely lose speech during this time, if I don't it will be difficult. Full recovery can take up to two days. The bulk of it should be dealt with by the next day. The worst period of recovery is the next few hours.

My "Trigger" , which are caused by a severe singular stimulant, most commonly smoke, I have no more than 5 seconds to respond, at best. The meltdowns themselves tend to be shorter, more damaging to myself and recovery tends to be done within 2 hours, so much quicker.

Shutdowns can last a few days to a few months and are weird as heck, recovery is situational and it can take time to regain lost skills.

A temper tantrum is a choice a child makes, where as a meltdown is the result of a combination of frustration, pain, anxiety and confusion. It is a flight or fight reaction that you have very little control over and that hurts very badly. You may hurt yourself or others, or just fall to the floor and start crying. The response is individual. It's like your brain overheating, and needing to release the pressure.

A shutdown is a freeze response that is prolonged, generally caused by not having the skills to handle a situation. It causes regression of skills that contentious until the situation changes. Some people go almost comatose.
For me it causes horrible mood swings, intense hyper focus sometimes to the point of forgetting to eat, my entire body going numb, general numbness of everything and a feeling of not quite real, along with significant regression of speech, motor skills, and memory patchiness.

I also suppressed meltdowns when I was a child in the 1970s and early 1980s. I know this because my Mom told me how I would often come home from school and explode to where I'd frequently need an "after school spanking" as she put it. I blocked out both the after school meltdowns and the apparent frequent spankings and I really don't remember either.

I wish there was a time when I saw a meltdown coming. That way I could come up with some sort of preventative maintenance.

My meltdowns tend to come on very fast, within seconds or minutes. Sometimes I can be aware of triggers building up for hours or days before one tiny thing makes me snap, other times, I'll be perfectly fine one second, and screaming and banging my head on the wall the next. I came very close to having a meltdown of the second type this evening. It was only my ability to get home and hide in my dark, quiet room under my weighted blanket until I calmed down that kept things from escalating.

My recovery typically takes many hours, often the rest of the day. I can't speak for hours after the event, and am highly susceptible to having another one triggered by something minor. I get very tired and usually just need to sleep.

It really depends. Sometimes I can feel a meltdown coming for a while and I can avoid it and sometimes a meltdown happens suddenly. My meltdowns can last from 30 minutes- 2 hours.