Meltdown Triggers

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What triggers your meltdowns?

People telling me things like "grow up" or "stop moaning", when I am not really acting like a baby or moaning. I feel like it's a personal attack. But I don't always have a meltdown, it depends on what mood I'm in and what the situation is and also who said it.

Something that frightens me but is beyond my control, like media scaremongering about terrorist threats or nuclear bombs. It sends me into a panic.

Seeing my peers succeeding socially, especially my cousins.

These don't always send me into a meltdown, and since in on Sertraline I have meltdowns to a lesser degree.

Sensory overload, especially overheating and other tactile overload. If I encounter a secondary stressor (physical touch, misophonic trigger, not being listened to, low blood sugar) when I’m already having a bad sensory day, that increases the likelihood.

Also, exhaustion if I’ve been masking for too long and I haven’t had time to recharge or be alone.

Sensory overload, which can build up over time or come on instantly depending on the stimulus (ambulance sirens set me off pretty immediately). I also have meltdowns when I get super irritated like when people crowd my space, or I’m stuck in a crowded area. Extreme emotion like anger, sadness or fear can trigger them too. I was approaching the meltdown zone yesterday while I was at a work experience site shelving books at a library. I was getting frustrated that I couldn’t find the book I needed, and my brain was spinning in circles and I couldn’t get unstuck and move on to the next one. My job coach had to jolt me out of it by distracting me then helping me move on.

Sensory overload, but particularly repetitive crinkly sounds. I was in a shop where they were restocking an entire display of snack food products in crinkly bags -- removing the old ones generally by tossing them into a trolley cart, and replacing them with hundreds of new crinkly bags before rearranging and puffing them. Of course there was fluorescent lighting and extraneous muzak to complement the scene. I literally lost my mind. I had to sit on the ground with my hands over my ears, hyperventilating.

The ones I can think of off the top of my head are:
-People crowding my space, or just being in the middle of a crowd of people
-Tiredness
-Being too hot
-Noises that won't stop (this is really situational, but it can include anything from music to pen clicks to people's voices)
-Being accused of things that I didn't do
-Sick, dead or dying animals

Smokers trigger most of them, but I also have a lot of long build up meltdowns without just one cause.

Meltdowns are mainly a thing of the past for me.

When I was younger, my anxiety levels were exceedingly high and I had a lot less control over my emotions. I could go from 0 to 10 within a second for even the smallest reasons. Generally, the meltdowns included loud crying and screaming. I was also extremely fearful of loud noises, especially the sound of a gas tank's valve opening. (I'm talking about the sharp hissing sound of helium tanks being used to inflate balloons.) I tried to avoid these sounds as much as possible, but my ABA therapists forced me to listen to them WITHOUT HEARING PROTECTION. While I was in ABA, these far-too-frequent meltdowns were labeled as tantrums and nothing more. I was ignored for "tantruming", which actually made the situation worse because I wanted to be helped, not to be ignored.

I don't cry often anymore because I've learned the hard way that crying won't get me anything when I'm older. If I do cry, it's a sign of severe mental distress such as when I had a mental breakdown a few months ago.

As a child?
Likely none as a toddler... Unless denying gratification counts, which is an entirely different thing.
Sometime around since 2nd grade, certain words and name calling.
Around 5th grade, noises and certain touch.
At high school, possibly certain people and combination of anything else above.
At 13 or so, doing anything else other than staying on my computer nonstop.
At 16? Only whenever I'm really exhausted and overwhelmed at frustrating things I had to deal with. That's the closest thing I had for a meltdown then.
At 20? Only the more overwhelmed and with the piles of stress and exhaustion I have, the closer I could get into meltdown -- which it hasn't since around 15 or so.



As of now?

Extreme fatigue, combined with constant pain, emotional stress, irritability, instability/disregulation and unable to get a damn break from more active kinds of overwhelm (instead of passive ones like piling), something I want to resolve -- like headache inducing constant sneezing that doesn't allow me to sleep, breathe comfortably and/or focus for every half a minute, or the never ending pile of laundry that barely any of us in the household bothered to get rid of, or someone nagging too loud and too long and never letting me speak.

That's the closest as I could get. I've yet to have an actual meltdown for years.

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Several things...

Certain kinds of clothing, lots of stimuli over an extended period, too many verbal requests and demands, or too many confrontations, though I can handle some of these things if I have to. Long term would be the buildup of anxiety and other emotions at times or places where I don't have a means of processing them.

The simplest answer for me is stressful situations. Most commonly, it results from sensory overstimulation or being emotionally overwhelmed.

Sensory things especially temperature of the environment, noise, lighting then smell.

sensory or emotional overload, stress, anxiety

It's usually a combination of more than one thing or a buildup of agitation over time. For example, sensory overload, sudden change, emotional overwhelm/stress, exhaustion. I usually have shutdowns instead of meltdowns but when I have them they're either very intense where I'm crying and screaming and biting myself if it gets bad enough or I'll have a "mini explosion" and yell about something then be okay. I'm lucky that they're sparse but they suck nonetheless.

There is not "a meltdown trigger" for me.
I also almost never melt down.
In the very rare case it does happen, it is always a combination of longer periods in which I'm sleep deprived, combined with extreme stress levels. I you keep putting more stress on me (social, sensory, work), I always physically distance myself. If you prevent me from doing that, things might not end up nicely...