how do you experience a meltdown?

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Oh, I do that too, at times! Mostly eyebrows, eyelashes, though. (Thankfully, I'm lacking facial hair. ) When I was a kid, I'll pull out hair on my head, but I stopped doing that.

It was eyebrows for me as a kid. I actually pulled out every eyebrow hair within a few days of starting kindergarten. Too much to take in. The teachers had no idea how to handle me at all. That's probably why I ended up in special ed.

Rising panic.
I lose the ability to think clearly.
I can't put my thoughts into words, so I can't talk to anyone about what's bothering me.
As things start shutting down on me, panic increases. Problems get worse.

There are two ways this can go. If I can retreat, I go into shutdown mode. I need to sit down somewhere quiet and be left alone, because at this point whatever thoughts are triggering the meltdown are stuck on a loop in my head and I need to clear things up.

Sometimes this isn't possible - often because my NT partner's reaction under stress is to shout and complain (and put the blame on someone or something). Since at this point I can't put together a sentence, he gets frustrated that I'm not talking to him, and now the shouting and blame is coming my way.

Meltdowns that can't be defused continue to loop and reinforce themselves. The sensation is like having fireworks going off in the back of my skull. I've grown quite good at containing them until I can enter shutdown mode, but if actively prevented, things have escalated to violence before. Mostly against myself, with some collateral damage to inanimate objects.

Post-meltdown I am an emotional wreck.

So far my meltdowns have only happened in response to extreme rage. I never do it in front of people, but my fury usually turns inward and I basically attack myself. I'll start by biting down as hard as possible on the insides of my index fingers (they both have calluses by now so it doesn't really hurt, just helps reduce some of the tension), and if I'm sitting down, I'll throw my head back as hard as I can against the back of the chair (usually it's soft so it doesn't help much). After that, I'll be forced to get up and jump or stomp around, sounding like a wounded bear as I slam my fists/wrists into the sides of my legs (once I did it long enough to give myself bruises, which, every time I saw them, just brought back the reason I had them and made me mad all over again). Once I started smacking my forehead against my bedpost, and the pain took the edge off my rage, but it hurt too much to keep it up for long. No one in my family has any idea I act this way, and I'm pretty sure they'd think I was crazy if they knew.