Not sure if I had a meltdown or what.

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playgroundlover
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30 Apr 2020, 8:36 am

On Friday I had these intense negative emotions due to stress and anxiety about someone. I didn't feel like I wanted to die or anything but I just needed a way to numb the pain even if it it meant some temporary physical discomfort. Anyways, I had a plan. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was going to eat some meat that was not thoroughly cooked. My family saw that it was raw and they told me to cook it more. Having my plan foiled, I lashed out and swore at them and became intensely angry. I was shaking. It was upsetting because I felt as though if they knew how much emotional pain I was in, they would want me to stop it somehow. Later that night, I cried a bit as I went to take a few sips of something I shouldn't. Again, not for lethal purposes but just to do something to stop the pain I have no control over. Suddenly, I felt just a little bit better. Not great but I wasn't crying anymore. I felt a little "numb" inside. It also made me realize that as bad as I feel, it's not quite bad enough to warrant what I did that night. I guess you could say, if it never happened, I'd never know. Anyway, I'm not sure what to make of this experience. Was it a meltdown or was it a shutdown? Are these feelings normal?



timf
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30 Apr 2020, 9:28 am

For Asperger people having a plan that gets frustrated can alone cause a meltdown. If you add emotional intensity to the mix, it can really step things up.

Some people latch on to patterns of behavior (such as not eating for anorexics) that become a coping strategy that provides some relief from anxiety through imparting a sense of control. The particular action may not even be related to a particular stressful event. However, there can be a danger of having potentially harmful action become the "go to" action.

Teenage girls can practice cutting their arms as a coping action. You want to be careful that you do not select coping strategies that make additional or even worse problems.



playgroundlover
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30 Apr 2020, 4:38 pm

I was just mad because the thing I thought of the ease the pain, someone stopped me from doing. It felt like the pain was going to last forever.



Mountain Goat
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30 Apr 2020, 6:09 pm

It is not a shutdown. It may or may not be a meltdown... I am still trying to work out for sure if I get them or if the experience is just not coping with the frustrational emotions.
One thing for me is that such events start off in what could be called a meltdown, but then the intensness of the event pushes me into a shutdown... So I am not 100% sure or not if the first event I experience is a meltdown or not, but the shutdowns are without doubt identifiable to me.



dragonsanddemons
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30 Apr 2020, 8:19 pm

That sounds like probably some form of meltdown. It definitely at least is a state of mind or whatever that I sometimes get into. Usually I want to punish myself physically and immediately for something when this happens, and then I will become focused on getting a chance to slip off to my bedroom and cut myself. If someone interrupts me on the way there, I do get very upset. Sometimes a few good, hard scratches on my arms when no one is looking will do if I can't get to my bedroom. Seeing myself bleed creates a sensation that I cannot describe for me, and it's way better than feeling horrible depression, or the kind of numbness that is another type of depression, and it let me take out my work-related stress (back when I had a job) on myself. It doubled as being a way to both punish myself and make me feel something besides whatever emotional pain/numbness I was experiencing.

timf wrote:
Teenage girls can practice cutting their arms as a coping action. You want to be careful that you do not select coping strategies that make additional or even worse problems.


I feel the need to point out that it's not always teenagers, not always girls, not always the arms, and not always even cutting. Self-harm can be done in a variety of ways by a variety of people. In fact, deliberately eating uncooked/undercooked meat with the intent of making yourself sick and drinking something you know will harm you would probably both fall into the category of self-harm.

Do be careful, though, OP. Self-harm can literally become an addiction (as it did for me for several years) and can be very hard to stop doing once you've started (I still to this day have to occasionally fight the urge). Any kind of self-harm is dangerous even if you don't intend to kill yourself.


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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"


playgroundlover
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30 Apr 2020, 9:09 pm

I think for now I am safe. Or at least, I hope. I don't want to drink nasty things anymore. I just want to get rid of this pain and guilt that I feel. I try and push the feelings aside and tell myself to focus one day at a time and not to worry about anything right now, but I know my time with my special buddy is coming to an end at an expedited pace and that's when the real pain is coming. Reminders continue to pop up everywhere all the time and there's only so much crying a person can do before there's no more tears and a bunch of tissues are wasted. It doesn't actually make the pain dull.



cron