What are your meltdowns like?

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It sort of feels like someone's thrown flash and concussion grenades at me. Everything becomes too loud, my body gets real slow. I run outside to where I can be by myself.

To add to Tambourine-Man's list: don't tell me that the world doesn't revolve me. I KNOW THE @#$# WORLD DOESN'T REVOLVE ME! I'm not a damn narcissist. I pretty much said at the time I was told this to please don't make this worse than already is.

With me, mine involve heavy breathing, pacing back and forth, stimming with hands, the feeling of blood rushing to my head, the urge to wanting to yell and scream at the top of my lungs (and doing so but resist the urge to do so), and breaking things...though I haven't broken anything on purpose often in the past several years because I have to take responsibility for anything I break anymore). I also don't lay a finger on anyone despite any thoughts that come about to do so.

Davidalan had an interesting piece of advice that I should use myself.

Imagine your mind has run out of RAM and needs to be reset. That's what it's like for me.

Whilst I'd love to step infront of a Tangara (Train) I go and ride on one... To Sydney Olympic Park. That always helps me. Its quiet off peak

When I have a meltdown it feels like my mind is slowly shutting down. Everything becomes confusing and overwhelming, and if I can't get somewhere quiet to be alone I start crying and wandering around looking for an escape. If I still can't get away I start pulling my hair, punching my hip or digging my nails into my arms. If somebody tries to ask what's wrong I start rambling incoherently. I want somebody to help me, to get me out of the situation, but I'm too confused and distressed to properly communicate what's wrong. When I was younger my meltdowns involved screaming, crying and trying to slap or punch the arm of anyone who touched me during the meltdown. After a meltdown I'm usually mute for a while and don't respond to much. It's almost as if my mind is in the process of rebooting.
I don't have meltdowns often, I seem to be more prone to just shutting down. It's better because I don't end up freaking people out or causing a disruption, but in a way it's also worse because I'm usually fairly quiet anyway so nobody can tell there's anything wrong.

I go through stages when I have meltdowns. I use these to determine when I need to get out of a situation.

1st: Usually I feel a little bit anxious or upset/scared, I begin stammering and feel quite shaky inside. This is the threshold of a meltdown, and I try to calm myself down with deep breathing and getting out of the situation. These days, my meltdowns don't progress any further than this. However if I can't get out of said situation, it gets much worse.

2nd: I begin to get teary eyed, start sobbing, start shouting and have feelings of wanting to run/bolt in the opposite direction and remove myself, desperate feelings start to surface and my breathing becomes sharp, quick, ragged and irregular (hyperventilation)

3rd: I am visibly crying, sobbing very loudly, shaking, anxiety starts to take over and I feel out of control; my heart starts pounding in my chest (I can hear it while I have meltdowns this bad) I start rocking and stimming violently, cover my ears/eyes, at this stage I'm so worked I'm nauseous, so I could vomit. The temptation to run and hide gets MUCH MUCH stronger.

4th: This is the final and most severe stage. I lose all rational thought and go temporarily insane. I often end up screaming, hurting myself, running away (blindly) from the situation, and my symptoms in stage three are 10 times worse. I experience complete terror and feel like I'm going to die. This, is you likely guessed, is a full on serious panic attack. Even though this is rare for me, it still does happen.

Thankfully, I rarely reach stage three or four these days.
I have anxiety disorder, so I regularly feel like I'm in stage one. Most of the time, my panic attacks don't go past stage two. But when I do get like that, I know I need to get out of the situation and calm myself down straight away to stop myself having a full on anxiety/panic attack. I've lived with this all my life, and its the worst possible feeling when it happens.

When I have a meltdown, I feel like I'm in some kind of storm. I don't make any noise (I hate making noise under any conditions, and I don't even yell in the middle of a meltdown), but I do break things. Sometimes all I need to do is break something and it's over. Sometimes it lasts much longer. What causes it? Emotional + sensory overload. Sometimes it happens because of breaks to my routines, or expected routines. Sometimes it happens because there's too much noise. Sometimes it happens because I am trying to say something and I either can't get it out correctly or the person I'm talking to either seems bent on not hearing me or misunderstanding me.

Sometimes instead of lashing out I direct it inward and curl up and cry.

Sometimes it becomes a shutdown.

Sometimes I can feel them build up, like a pressure building up in my brain until I have to let it loose.

Once, I recall having a major meltdown on my birthday, when I was hoping for getting a particular gift, but I received something else instead - something I wanted, but my day had deviated radically from where I was expecting it to go, so I lost it. People tried to talk me down, ask me questions, telling me I was wrong for reacting. It was all pretty awful.

It leaves me exhausted afterward, and sometimes cognitively a bit "loopy" and slow.

Whenever I get to the point of a meltdown, I usually go off by myself rather than be around people. I don't usually take them out on anyone.

I don't make any noise too. Now... in a social situation, my breath become very halted, my heart start to pound wildly, I'm not capable to think clearly, begin to sweat more and more, and feel like if I'll have a blackout if I don't leave quickly. But I've learned how to handle that during social... at least, it's a bit better.

My outbursts are very verbal. I can't have them when I'm alone - I need somebody to yell at, to get it out of me. I know that sounds awful, and it is, which is why I am trying my best to prevent having outbursts, and perhaps reducing them to a mild outburst, then hopefully they should decrease as time goes on. My last outburst was August, and it was an intense one - it was caused by a panic attack over the riots in Tottenham and London, because I had this huge fear of them coming to my town (and fires have always frightened my since I was 5).

In outbursts caused by panic (like the one above), I screamed and yelled at the top of my lungs, and I kept on throwing myself onto the hard kitchen floor and clawing at the wall as though I was trapped somewhere, and I kept yelling why I was so afraid, and because I was in such a panic, I didn't know where to put myself, so I screamed instead - and frightened my family. Then after that I had difficulties breathing, and had a sore throat and a pounding migraine, and after my mum got over the shock of seeing me in such a state, we went for an evening walk, which calmed me down - although I was shaky the whole way. I felt ashamed too, and very fragile. I ain't going through that again.

In outbursts caused by anger, I do similar things but I'm more argumentative. I don't harm people or objects. I only harm myself by hitting myself in the head and screaming how much I hate myself, and yelling horrible things to my mum like, ''WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST f*****g KILL ME WHEN I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH THIS f*****g s**t??! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!'' Usually I totally take back nasty things what I say about people and things, but I never take back what I say about Autism because I hate it too much to care how much I insult it, so that is good because I can just grieve on Autism instead of insulting people and things. I also use strong language like c***, and when I'm not angry, c*** is a very strong word for me to use and I can't even say it, but when I'm angry I don't care. C*** is nothing compared to how I'm feeling when in an angry outburst.

Usually what triggers off outbursts is when I know something is going to change, or if snow is forecasted (because I hate snow). Then after a few minutes of crying and telling about it, I suddenly turn all angry and start blaming myself on everybody's problems and blaming myself on why I don't like these things. I hate having outbursts.

Someone asked about the law.

Here's my story.

If you are married/living with someone (or there are minor children present), and have a head banging/wall punching melt down, you can be arrested on domestic violence charges if someone calls the police.

Holes in wall=off to jail to explain it to the judge.

US courts don't give a crap what your disability or issue is. And your spouse/friend/lover saying don't press charges means nothing.

I was working. Hub was watching the baby. Computer crashed, he got a migraine, our teething daughter was crying. He started the head banging/fist punching in his office.

Upstairs neighbours heard pounding+baby screaming and called police for suspected child abuse. Our baby was in another room in her crib.

I get a call to return home. Front door is broke. Office door broken by the police. Baby gone to foster care. Husband was tasered and pepper sprayed, and carted off to jail.

Charges: domestic violence, endangering minor children and some other things.

There were other holes in the wall, that the police saw. Hence "pattern of domestic violence".

Baby was in foster care for a week. Hub got a beat down in the holding cell, because the others thought he stomped his baby.

I had to go to court ordered counceling. Hub dodged anger management classes by seeing a psychiatrist, and that meant no jail time. He got his ass chewed out by the judge for his behavior. I got chewed out for having a emotionally incompacitated person watching a minor child.

Husband has never even hit or yelled at our child even once.

Word of advice. Really rethink your melt down strategies if you have a similar living situation as above, and physically pounding on things is part of your coping routine.

I don't have meltdowns. I just "shutdown" my social self when things get too much - retreating to solitude.