What Does a Meltdown Feel Like?

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I can understand the need to sleep, you must be emotionally and physically depleted.

Yeah, my current internal state is quiet and still: very peaceful. Maybe one could use the morning after a thunderstorm as a metaphor...
All my movements are slower than normal atm, and my muscles seem to lack their full strength.
I’m also zoning out and staring into space without any thoughts at all: that’s happened three times whilst typing this.
Four times now...
Five times now...
Think there’s something else, but I can’t access the thought itself at the moment.

As a young child when I was about the age of 5 or 6, until that age I would have sudden explosive tempers which must have been meltdowns. I was not in comntrol and I was very destructive to my toys or anything else. Then an event happened where I grabbed a heavy rollerskate and smashed it on a girls head. She was about a year younger then me and had started to rumage through my toybox without asking me. My Dad really told me off and said I could have killed her. That came as such a shock to me. Now from that time onwards these meltdown type rages (Were they meltdowns or were they tempers? I would be out of control in tears of rage etc) became mild but fro then on I started getting shutdowns. I never had a shutdown before that event.
I recognize though, these lesser meltdown/mood swings which are somewhat subdued then turn into shutdowns. Shutdowns don't always have these mild meltdowns before them as there are quite a few triggers where I go straigt into a shutdown (Partial shutdown first which can lead to a shutdown if I can't deal with it).
But with these milder meltdowns I can be over dramatic which is embarissing as my Mum or others then critcize me for my odd behaviour. It is embarissing because I can feel it coming on and its going to happen one way or the other.

Please excuse my multiple posts and my ramblings on as I am posting them to explore my own feelings and thoughts, and bounce them back and compare them to other peoples thoughts and feelings.

From the age of that event at the age of about six, I have been able to subdue the experience which is why I get shutdowns. At first it was calculated by my own efforts, but then when they turn into shutdowns, they kind of are not controllable. I mean... I usually have some control to keep them in a parttial form if I can remove myself from the stressful enviroment and place myself in a more suitable atmosphere to lie down or sit back for a little while (Preferably lie down as it is more effective).
Shutdowns can also be embarissing, as I can be lying on the wet floor in pouring rain in the winter waiting to recover, but for me, this is preferable to lying dosn indoors if the enviroment has a lot going on.
The worst case scinario for me is if people see me and think that there is something wrong as I have to talk when I can't really talk. I need to rest my brain and people try to ask me things to get me to speak. They are kind wanting to help me, but it is not helping and I am not in a state to explain it.
Thankfully when in a partial shutdown, if I am trying to walk to reach a safe place to recover and I don't make it, my walking looks like I am drunk, and if people assume I am drunk and then they think I have passed out, they leave me alone... Which is actually ideal for my recovery!

I think we talked about this before. In really busy places I can get a feeling come over me. Everything slows down a bit, the it's like I'm walking through treacle and sound starts to fade away. It's quite a pleasant feeling so I decided to go with it once, but it was bewildering coming around in a different place and the experience left me feeling dazed and dopey for a couple of months. Ever since then I've snapped myself out of it.

I guess that was a full shutdown?
In any case I found myself a safe spot by a river afterwards and didn't move for two hours.

What happened to the little girl that you banged on the head?

For me it's a result of too many things happening at the same time for a too long period of time, for example many days in a row with intense worldly responsibilities, or expectations of socializing. Also a sudden drastic change in my life can leave me in a state where meltdowns can happen nearly daily until I've somehow managed to accept the change and modify my routines/thought processes accordingly.

It feels like your nervous system is on complete overdrive, and then usually one mild stressful thing on top is that breaks it down entirely. You feel like you can't keep your calm anymore and like you need to release the pent up stress energy from your system... usually I cry, throw things around, go for an angry walk, sometimes hit myself or yell awful things at people that I don't really mean. Afterwards I usually feel better and calmer although embarrassed as well. Sometimes I sleep afterwards. Generally I need rest anyway after a meltdown.

It's like a resetting of your system. Not pleasant but sometimes it's unavoidable.

Although I've never been to that degree, I think I can understand why he would do that with the lobby door. I've always felt that inanimate objects have an awareness in addition to their physical presence. It made perfect sense to me when watching movies as a child that things like trees in a forest had awareness and personalities! As such, objects can be of help, neutral or they can willfully fight against me. For those objects that are willfully being difficult they can frustrate me to the point that I'll resort to force without consideration of the consequences. A good example would be some kitchen utensil in a drawer. If I'm grabbing it and it won't budge (hooked under the counter in the drawer, invisibly tangled up with other things, etc) and I see no reason for it to be stuck, I will quickly get so frustrated I'll just use brute force to pull the thing out of the drawer even if it results in other utensils spraying out or worse something gets broken.

She was ok. Cried a bit and then that was that.

What you describe is interesting. It seems to me as if it is the aftermath result of having been through a burnout? Not sure. I have experienced an event where I had to walk through a crowded pedestrianized street and I walked fast and all the people became like solid walls of a tunnel. It was rather surreal and odd. It happened when I forced myself to go through the crowded area as fast as I could (A very quick walk) so I could reach the other side...

A full shutdown for me is an experience almost like passing out. The last thing I noticeably loose is my eyesight, but I am on the ground unable to move as my body is in limp mode, and I cant see and am in a panic with loud tinitus. I dont really know if I can hear as my hearing seems to be present when I come out of it... But while in a full shutdown, I do have a presence of conciousness as I know somwhow by the air moving or the vibrations if someone has walked past. I may not hear or see them but I can feel them, though I can't do anything or say anything etc.

It is different from being medically knocked out where one has no recollection of the event until one comes to.

It kinda feels like fainting but is different as if I have fainted, I welcome a bit of pampering and attention while I am coming to. However with a shutdown, I have to lie still and wait without attention even if I have pulled out of it, as I need to give myself time to fully have my systems turn back on as if I try to come out too early (Or if someone like a nurse (This happened to me once for a few hours in hospital. Only went in for a blood test!) goes through the proceedure to pull me out of a faint and does not know it is a shutdown, they will try to get me to use my mind by adking me questions and by doing this I go straight back into another shutdown. I had hours of this going in and out of shutdowns when a nurse kept doing this at my local hospital!)

Your shutdowns sound very severe MG.

Thankfully it does not last long, but for some I am told it can last quite a while. Though it is hard to track time, the actual shutdown itself when I loose vision does not take that long. At a guess about 10 to 45 seconds? But it takes a long time to recover before I can stand up again and walk around. Anything from 10 to 15 minutes to easily double that, and if someone keeps trying to force me to recover it can take a lot longer as I will get another shutdown. Having more then one shutdown is exhausting and I feel weakened and vunerable to getting another. It is why when I used to work that I ended up in what I describe as burnout. I am very fragile afterwards so much smaller events can push me to start shutting down.

A member of a model railway site I believe had long shutdowns where he could be in one for a month. About a year and a half ago he said he was having difficulty, and it was the last time we heard from him. He is actually registered on this site but has not been active for many years. (I found this out when we were trying to trace him to check that he was ok. Another member of the railway site managed tofind his address, and his address was passed onto one of the moderators and he wrote a letter to see if all was ok, but we didn't have a reply.
Now if it is what I get but as a long term shutdown, it is a most horrible experience, as one is concious and aware of ones surroundings, but unable to see or hear or use ones body. When I get a full shutdown where my eyesight goes... Lets say for around 20 to 30 seconds I have lost my vision... Even though my vision then "Comes back online" I wont be able to do much like move my body for quite a while. Maybe in a few minutes I could move my arm if it is in the way of something, but if I try to do it too early I risk going back into another full shutdown, so I am stuck there lying down on the ground for around 20 to 30 minutes (If I have had a deeper shutdown) unable to get up.
The worst case scinario for me would be if I shut down in an enviroment which has a shutdown trigger as I will keep repeating the shutdown experience. Eventually inbetween shutdowns I can move myself a little bit a time before shutting down again until eventually I am out of the trigger zone. Why hospitals are bad for me as the hospital smells are a trigger, along with those long corridors with the strip lights in and the hot heating etc, so for me to get out of a hospital when I start to go into a partial shutdown... I can end up fully shutting down just after making it into the great outdoors and occasionally I don't make it. One such occasion I was there for six hours! As I wanted to go outside to recover but could not communicate, and if I could they would not let me as they did not want me to lie on the ground in the rain.

It is not easy! But I would say my shutdowns are mild compared to those who have long term shutdowns, and my concern is that if I push myself too hard in the future then I could end up in a deeper burnout and possibly a long term shutdown. Think of being in a coma like state but fully concious and aware of ones surroundings!
So I count myself fortunate that the shutdowns I get are short ones, even though they may take a while to recover.

[quote="Mountain
A member of a model railway site I believe had long shutdowns where he could be in one for a month. About a year and a half ago he said he was having difficulty, and it was the last time we heard from him. He is actually registered on this site but has not been active for many years.[/quote]
maybe he's experiencing burnout.

maybe he's experiencing burnout. [/quote]

Not sure. He did mention that he had been in hospital on and off over the years in a coma like state. I hope that he is ok.

Not sure. He did mention that he had been in hospital on and off over the years in a coma like state. I hope that he is ok.[/quote]


Me too, sounds like catatonia

I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I feel for you because I work in a school and have gone through some similar experiences. I almost had to restrain my favorite student (yes, I know we're not supposed to have favorites but we all do we just can't tell all of the kids). I had to hold him back because he was physically banging his head on the sharp corner of a table and saying he hated his life. Another time he put on 2 heavy sweatshirts and said he wanted to pass out and die. It's heartbreaking seeing someone we love suffer but what can we do besides offer our support to the students and colleagues?

I usually get shutdowns now instead of meltdowns, but a meltdown for me feels kind of like a buildup of pressure in my head (caused by any kind of stress) usually accumulating over time up to a few hours, if I haven't had time to myself to get rid of it, and then it gets to the point where it feels like something in my brain kind of snaps, and the meltdown begins. I become mostly unaware of what is happening around me, may scratch, hit, or bite myself and am very likely to either hit or throw any object I come in contact with, depending on size, will pull away from any attempted contact (but I don't usually hit anyone other than myself) and will try to isolate myself. Once I'm alone, I'll just lie on the floor and thrash around for a little while, again throwing or hitting anything I come in contact with, then usually just lie there while I start to recover. I may or may not make some sort of angry-sounding vocalizations but don't/can't use actual words. Feels kind of like a low-level shutdown afterward, like my brain is kind of numb.

https://youtu.be/WEkmkAvcbJU

This describes it for me better than any words could...

https://images.app.goo.gl/nM8Db9WsTNS9G16C8