Question about meltdowns

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Are meltdowns something all Aspies have some time in their lives?

If not, do you know what percentage of Aspies have meltdowns once in a while or have had meltdowns over their lifetime? The majority, the minority?

(I never had any.)

No. And I don't know the percentage.

Pretty much everyone, Aspie or NT, has had a meltdown. Think of two-year-olds.

There's a big difference between a meltdown and a tantrum, though. A meltdown is caused by sensory/cognitive overload, while a tantrum is often a means of getting one's way. People in meltdown and people in tantrum respond differently to different ways of ending the problem, too.

Oddly enough, I never had tantrums when I was little, but I've had plenty of meltdowns throughout my life. I was a pretty easy two-year-old because I was passive and never went through the "terrible twos", but I was quite difficult in other ways.

My mother says she doesn't ever remember me throwing a tantrum, that I was quiet and didn't express emotion. She forgot about the actual meltdowns I'd had in front of her, but apparently there weren't very many even with that in mind.

Meltdowns are one of those things I wasn't sure I'd had until I'd really thought about it, and all the times I just lost control of my emotions and felt horrible during/after, and those go back to childhood.

I didn't know for a long time, even after I had read about AS, that meltdowns were part of the ASD spectrum. I always thought I was just bad tempered and intolerant of difficult situations, and that it was a personal failing that I would sometimes get so overwhelmed that I would throw a fit and start crying and yelling. It took me a long time to learn to avoid situations in which I would be overwhelmed (usually not by sensory overload but by emotional/mental overload and stress), and it's not always possible to do so. I used to think it was my responsibility to stick up for myself rather than withdraw, and I got myself into trouble as a result (by being bullied/ostracized for making a scene).

I don't know how common meltdowns are or how many people on the spectrum have them, but my AS is fairly mild, and I still have them.

I really hate "meltdown" as a..well in whatever context is used. Distress is distress, and my distress is no less or more my fault and no less or more valid than anyone else's. I don't know if I have what other people describe as meltdowns but I'd hate for my distress to be described in that way.

I have different kinds and degrees of distress, and I like having different ways to describe them.