Do aspies have melt downs or is that an autism thing?

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A melt down is defined as an uncontrollable burst of emotions that causes one to either "shut down" or "explode" in a situation. There might be better definitions in this thread.

Last edited by swbluto on 14 Sep 2011, 9:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

i have asperger's and from the time i was a baby i've been pretty consistently calm and happy, except when something horrible was going on like losing my career.

i am quite sensitive to criticism, but i don't explode, i get sad or embarassed.

Aspergers is a form of autism, so of course us Aspies are prone to them once in awhile.

When I said autism, I meant non-aspie autism, so aspergers can't be a form of non-aspie autism.

Nevermind.

LFAs are clearly a form of non-aspie autism because they are clearly distinct from aspergers. There are probably other forms of autism that are non-aspie. It seems like "melt downs" are more associated with autism than aspergers because wikipedia's aspergers page makes no mention of "melt downs" while it does with its autism page. (And, if it's not on wikipedia, it's probably not true.)

Sigh... for someone as "obsessed" about autism as you seem to be, you sure aren't looking up the "basics"....

Aspies is the same as autism with the following differences per the DSM IV

no verbal or cognitive delays and an IQ of >70 for Aspies

The "symptoms" of both autism and Asperger's are otherwise the same and the degrees of functioning can be the same for both minus the specific called out differences in the manual. For DSM V, both will be called ASD.

So to very specifically answer your question, YES... AS people can suffer the same from meltdowns as Autistic people.

For more information on the categorical distinction between the terms, look at this quote from wikipedia:

Essentially

Autism Spectrum

--Autism
--Aspergers
--PDD-NOS

As autism and aspergers are two separate categories under the "Autism Spectrum", aspergers is not a form of "Autism"; it's merely under the autism spectrum. So, "non-aspie autism" basically refers to what wikipedia simply calls autism.

However, despite these two separate categories, I wouldn't be surprised if many people share symptoms from both categories. The question is... are "melt downs" FUNDAMENTALLY characteristic of Aspergers sans Autism? That is, does nearly every single person with aspergers have 'melt downs', or is that reserved for the more autistic aspergians?

Last edited by swbluto on 12 Sep 2011, 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

I have meltdowns. I rarely had them as a kid, but at this point there's no question that I have meltdowns.

I think you are very confussed, or maybe you just do not want to accept the fact that you are autistic. Aspergers is a form of autism. It is not classic autism, but it is autism. But yes, it is a continuum, and there is people more severe, or more autistic as you say, and people less severe, or less autistic. I do not know if having meltdowns is a requirement, but I do not think so. My daughter was diagnosed with Aspergers, and I am not sure if she ever had a meltdown. She threw big tantrum, but she only once had something that I think qualifies as meltdown. But she has all the other sympthoms, including socialization problems, hearing sensitivity, taste sensitivity, fine motor problems, lack of concentration, stims, sleeping problems, etc.

I have meltdowns all the time, though I have Asperger's, not what is known as Classic Autism (both are forms of autism, fyi).

I'm not trying to insult you or anything, but Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. Plenty of things on Wikipedia aren't true and a lot of things that aren't on Wikipedia are true. Example of this: one of the history teachers at my high school, with his AP US History class, edited the page on the Civil War to say that the Confederates won the war; they fabricated a lot of facts and battles to make it come up with that conclusion. It stayed up, without being fixed, for almost a month.

I'm asking about this because I seem to possess some weaknesses that suggests I have social cognition difficulties (TOM stuff) and other characteristics of mine suggest something the lines of aspergers, but I don't have some of the classic symptoms of autism like hand flapping, rocking nor do I have melt downs. How "common" are aspergians that don't have melt downs nor do they flap around their hands?

Dude.... It's a spectrum. Not all Autistic people have meltdowns.

You are still trying to DX yourself... Why? To what end? You know you are weird and you have some charactaristics. You may just be BAP (look it up) and not AS. You will NEVER get that confirmation without a formal assesment which you say you cannot afford. If you do not feel that you need services for your disability then stop worrying about it. You are just you!

Jeebus, will you ever stop picking on me?

I have a right to community-assisted introspection, by golly.

And, yeah, I know that some people have some symptoms worse off than others, but how common are aspies that have the social cognition difficulties but don't stim nor have melt downs? I mean, if it's less than 1% and I don't stim nor have melt downs, then it's probably safe to say I don't have aspergers from a statistical view point. Just some otherwise ordinary person (or...errr, weird person) with social cognition difficulties, or what some in the neurotypical community like to call "low social intelligence".

100% of the people that I know with AS have either meltdowns or shutdowns. Does that help?

A "better" question for you is.....

Does this self-stated weirdness cause you serious troubles in life such that you could actually be diagnosed? Remember that a diagnosis also requires that you be suffering in such as way that you are disabled by your weirdness....

If not see BAP.... Google: broad autism phenotype