Anyone else feel embarrassed/ashamed after a meltdown?

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Wow - exactly right.
Wish I'd read that before posting,

Too any people talking can't cause me to have a meltdown. It sometimes annoys me when the bus is full of people chatting really loud to eachother and I've got my MP3 on but can still hear the chatting over my loud music. But that would annoy anybody. But mostly I laugh when everyone's chatting at once. It just makes me grin, and I try to listen out for the most interesting conversation and then join in. Usually when I'm talking I can block out the sound of everyone else chatting, but if I'm talking to people across the room in a busy environment, I can't hear them then.

The things what cause me to have a meltdown are:-
-If somebody in my house announces he/she has a virus
-If the internet won't work but the internet icon at the bottom of the screen still says ''connected'' (ohh, really annoying!)
-If snow is forecasted, or when it says in bold letters ''Big Freeze Is Back''
-If somebody mentions that the world is ending in 2012
-If somebody intentionally irritates me
-If my envy of ''all my family being normal except me'' flares up (but usually this flares up along with something else what has made me angry).
-Being told to sshhh/being reminded how embarrassing I sound whilst in a meltdown (this makes me start swearing about how judgemental people are and that it's so hard to keep up with being conformist. IT'S BLOODY HARD TO BE COMFORMIST WHEN HAVING A MELTDOWN!! !) LOL

I don't know if these cause me meltdowns though. I just seem to get angry and shout and swear and cry, and badly put myself down, and sometimes go into hysterics - which make my family either laugh or cry with worry. (I'll rather them to laugh).

What does a typical adult Aspie meltdown actually involve?
Does all this what I've explained sound like a typical meltdown, or do they just sund like major panic attacks and/or anger?

I used to, when I had meltdowns. I felt terrible afterwards.

These days I rarely have meltdowns. I think my movement disorder finally reached the point where all of the "meltdown stuff" can't get out. I can feel the pre-movement part of my brain trying to move my body and scream and slam around and stuff. I can feel the exact actions that are trying to happen. But they don't get past that pre-movement stage into real movement, or if they do they're a feeble imitation of the real movement they were trying to be. So mostly I don't have external meltdowns these days. I have weird, intense shutdowns where I can barely move at all and yet my brain is trying to make my body scream and flail and everything else it does during meltdowns. It's much different than a regular shutdown because a regular shutdown doesn't have my brain trying to move my body and failing, it's just, well, shutdown. This is more like an "meltdown that didn't get out" rather than a regular shutdown.

Yes, I always feel very ashamed and embarrassed after a meltdown. I've had meltdowns where I've collapsed on the floor and couldn't get up, meltdowns where I've screamed, and meltdowns where I've attacked people. It is completely out of character for me to behave that way, so I always feel terrible afterwards and it takes me a long time to forgive myself.

Who doesn't?

I hardly ever have meltdowns any more and I am so relieved. I can feel one coming on, too, but it never reaches that intensity anymore. Usually my mind acknowledges inner frustration and the meltdown gets capped before it erupts. I've altered my lifestyle to such a degree the conditions do not exist that cause me to have them. I do shut down, though. I'd rather shut down than meltdown.

I also have meltdowns when someone announces they have a cold.

Most of my meltdowns these days involve yelling at the computer for not working properly. I used to beat on it, but I've stopped doing that since I broke it from excessive beatings and had to get it fixed.

Often, I feel embarrassed and ashamed after yelling at my computer because I feel like some kind of crazy, insane person who needs professional help.

My NT friend broke her telly in a temper because the signal kept cutting off.

But, yes, I've yelled at my computer before and kicked the hard drive thing aswell. Luckily it isn't broken. Yet.
I've especially got annoyed when I write a really long post on this site, and I press ''submit'', and after I pressed it a page comes up what says ''too many users on this sight - technical difficulties'' or something like that, and then when I press ''back'', the post I wrote has gone, and it isn't already submitted on the thread either. Ohh, that gets me so angry!

Yeah, NTs get meltdowns too, just not as many. And often they're seen as "more understandable" although they're not always.

I hate it and I can definately relate. I have not had a meltdown in almost a year. As of february it will be a year.
I have alienated friends with meltdowns.

What I have done is avoid situations that are likely to cause them, and to clearly communicate to people the situations that will cause them, and what should be done. For example, there is no social obligation for me, I have veto power over anything. In addition I know when to communicate to leave. As much as my partner dislikes avoidance, he rather not deal with the meltdown or its consequences, and avoidance is often the only thing that really works.

I feel bad for kids whose parents force them to go to parties, funerals, and other NT "social obligations".

Hmmm... is it the case that ALL aspies have meldowns like anger and screaming? I know that I do not. Not that I am not capable, only that I use reason and logic and lots of managment to prevent these sorts of things. I make sure that I get proper nutrition, exercise and rest so that anxiety and stress things are held at a low rumble. I use ear plugs and sunglasses and keep my surroundings calm via using systems like checklists, etc.... It takes a LOT of effort but I think having meltdowns is NOT something that we must all surrendor to. I am also wondering if some of you are suffering from comorbid conditions such as depression or General Anxiety disorders. If so, treating THOSE things (irrespective of your Apsbergers) needs to be first priority.

If this happens often then there's probably something which needs fixing - but you can use a simple method of ensuring that what you've typed isn't lost. (and I hate losing a carefully-crafted post too )

(this is now completely off-topic, so bear with me)
1. Just before you're about to click on the "Submit" button, move the mouse cursor so it's inside the forum window where you've been typing, then press the right-hand mouse button and select "Select All" from the menu that drops down. All of the text will become highlighted to show it's now selected.
Right-click in this area again and from the menu, this time select "Copy".

2. Then, start Notepad and inside its (empty) window, use the right-hand mouse button again and from the drop-down menu, select "Paste".
Your whole post should appear and if you want to, you can save it as a file. But, saved or not, at least it now exists somewhere else.
Now switch back to WP and press "Submit".

3. If it fails and you lose everything typed, swear if you want (it helps, I know! ) and just start making a new post or reply as before - but, delete everything in the WP "Post a reply" window so it's blank.
With the mouse pointer inside the area you'd normally type your reply, right-click and select "Paste" from the menu.
Your whole post should re-appear and all you need do now is press the "Submit" button again.

Repeat this last step (3) as necessary until it finally gets posted.

And as always, these things look much more complicated when written than they are in practice - give it a try.
Feel free to PM me if it's too long/too short/too complicated.

One small thing - while your text is selected, as in the first step - if you press a key then your text will apparently be lost and replaced by whatever key you pressed. Don't panic - just right-click in the same area and select "Undo" from the menu, which should bring it back again.

This aimed at Microsoft Windows with Internet Explorer, but it should work fine on any other system - I use this method here on my machine with Linux and Firefox - just substitute whatever basic text editor you have with your system for Notepad, and the same menu system is more than likely available with it.

As cornflake suggested, I always copy long posts on to clipboard before submission.

As for the topic. After being on this forum I have always been convinced that i don't have meltdowns as an adult and my 'moments of passion' are of the NT sort. However, I have lost count of the amount of times I have been reassembling phones and keyboards at work over the last twelve months. I even recently disconnected the security camera before smashing everything up then reconnected after I'd put everything back together! The last time I prevented 'one' I must have looked strange to my colleagues when holding an object in the air and putting it down again. My face would have been a picture! Although I'm reluctant to blame temper malfunctions on autism I'm beginning to believe that I do infact have meltdowns because my speech slows right down and screws up when it is happening. And when i control it i go quiet

I do that a lot lately, especially when I'm anxious about a deadline and nothing seems to want to work right when I really need it to. I heard someone say that my computer was cowering in the corner, then I was really embarrassed about it. I scream at it like it's a conscious being intentionally making things difficult for me instead of an inanimate object. Yeah, I know the feeling...

Most of the time, I don't make scenes in public though. Rather, I run away when I can feel it coming. But I've been embarrassed even about that, because apparently people take it personally when you run off in the middle of their parties without saying a word. Eh.

I can relate to that one.
On an IT contract I did I needed to get a cable from a drawer, into which these things tended to get thrown. After rooting around in it for a while I just started chucking them out over my shoulder to clear some space and make it easier to find what I was looking for.

This got more frantic, and the cloud of flying cables got thicker and faster as I got more angry at the complete mess the contents were in.
It was only when I became aware that a few people were standing up at their desks, watching what I was doing, that I realised how it must have looked - and stopped.
I was well away, and it wouldn't have been too long before the whole drawer got ripped out.

But that drawer had never been so tidy by the time I'd picked everything up and put it back.