What is a meltdown?

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I know it's a remarkably ignorant question, because I've been here for two years now, but what exactly is it? What does one feel like? I ask because I'm wondering if I ever had one.

I've had it many times, though they mostly happen in the form of shutdowns rather than meltdowns. It's basically an explosion of sensory or emotional overload, triggered usually by something that the aspie is highly sensitive to or a downpour of frustration. The aspie would then go either into a tantrum-like fit or, as I mentioned, a shutdown, where they just seem to collapse entirely, thought not necessarily catatonically. At least, that's what they are to me.

For me, it's a build up of stressful input that ends up in an explosion (ranting, yelling crying).

I thought it might be something like that...yeah, I have got a few of them, when I was a kid it felt like the world was collapsing or something when I went somewhere unfamiliar, something seemed inherently "wrong", and I refused to do anything except get the hell out of there, instantly. Then there was the time after I had done an IQesque entry exam, and after waiting 6 months and driving 200 miles my parents forgot my ID. I didn't talk or eat for three days, although I wasn't necessarily angry. I just refused to deal with the world and it's BS; it was like a...soliphistic strike

Actually, that's a very fair question. Everyone experiences them differently.

Some "signs" that I'm going into one:

-Tightness in chest/heart racing; breathing faster
-Thoughts racing; can't focus on anything
-Things around me start to not make sense--kind of like details fade into background, because they are overtaken by light seeming too bright and sounds seeming too loud (imagine a migraine without the pain)
-Urge to either start screaming and throwing things or withdraw ASAP (as in, crawl under my bed, or at least lock myself in my room with the lights off and no TV, etc.)
-Along with that, getting VERY angry/panicked/confused

Sounds like part panic attack, part temper tantrum, and part something else. My bf and his brother once described the light/sound sensitivity and some of the emotional symptoms as "aura" or "fugue" (his brother described it like this: "like my head was being pushed out of itself").

All I can do is retreat until it passes, unless I can't, in which case I have to just ride it out and try not to let it show.

A meltdown is a tantrum. Often it is a tantrum in which a person with an ASD uses their diagnosis as a justification for bad behaviour.

I don't think meltdowns necessarily involve "bad behavior".

Are you saying this just to provoke an argument? Surely you know that meltdowns are a real, and painful, as well as extremely embarrassing, experience. Many of us have lost relationships or jobs due to a meltdown. Is that really anything that someone would want to do on purpose?

You know this because... ???

Either you are saying this is something you are guilty of, or you are claiming the ability to read the minds of others so you can be sure of their inner motives.

Last edited by theWanderer on 23 Mar 2011, 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No, I'm not saying this to provoke an argument, rather this is how I see things: meltdowns are tantrums. If one thinks that these meltdowns are inevitable, that they are going to occur regardless of effort to control one's own emotions, then it automatically gives way to the mentality that tantrums are acceptable and, consciously or unconsciously, it is using one's diagnosis for justification of having tantrums. I do not see how one would want the effects produced in interpersonal relationships by having meltdowns, but having worked with the general public I am certain that there are certainly people who exist that enjoy having meltdowns in public and creating a scene. I know not the thoughts of others specifically, but it still seems to me that the notion of a meltdown being inherent to having an Autism Spectrum Disorder would tend to lead people, whether aware or not, into considering such meltdowns to be acceptable and thereby give them grounds to disdain anyone who would say otherwise.

I think I have shutdowns then, such as when I'm a passenger in a car. Suddenly my mind registers how fast the vehicle is traveling relative to the ground and starts computing all possibilities of collisions and probabilities of death from each. Perhaps it's not a shutdown or a meltdown, it's definitely sensory overload though.

@iamnotaparakeet: Okay, I see what you're saying, but let me make a slight distinction here.

It is possible to have a "meltdown" and completely internalize it, as I and probably many others here have had to do (a few people even referred to it as a "shutdown"). When internalized, and therefore not observable, it is not a "tantrum," but that doesn't mean it's not still a "meltdown" because everything that goes along with one is still being experienced.

I was fifty one before I figured out that I had AS. For all those years, I had meltdowns, I believed they were my fault, and I drove myself crazy trying to stop them. Yet I could never learn to control them at all. Now that I understand what is happening, I still cannot do a single thing to stop them - but now that I understand what's happening, I can sometimes head them off before they build up. But some things still trigger them. When I didn't believe they were inevitable, they still were. Now that I understand what they are, I at least know what I'm working with and can manage them a bit better. So, since I had no idea I had an autism spectrum disorder, or that having one would involve having meltdowns, your theory doesn't really seem to hold water.

And what of people who had no diagnosis to "justify" a meltdown?

It isn't as if these things don't happen to people who haven't heard of a meltdown.

Last edited by sapientdevice on 23 Mar 2011, 9:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Meltdowns aren't tantrums. I don't find meltdowns to be acceptable or desirable, and when I was having them I hated very few things as much as dealing with the aftermath (which was, thankfully, usually private). I didn't have a diagnosis to "give me an excuse to have them" and did not even suspect I was different from other people in this particular way. If anything, I've become better at identifying and coping with incipient meltdowns (even if it means shutting down, or finding a different way to let the emotions out) after finding out I was on the spectrum and learning ways others have used to cope.

However, it should be understood that meltdowns are caused by overload and an inability to deal with overload, and that defining them as tantrums won't help anyone cope with them.

Last edited by Verdandi on 24 Mar 2011, 12:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

I had them long before I even heard of ASD. Once I had one in a room with about 3 or 4 other people. I was stuck there and had nowhere to go. They didn't know why I was crying and tried to comfort me. I didn't know why I was crying and kept trying to stop and laugh it off because I was humiliated. But no words came out. If people exist who enjoy this, I am not one of them. There is nothing I hate more than being the center of attention. Luckily, that sort has only happened to me a couple of times.