Is It Possible To Be Aspie Without Meltdowns?

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DGuru
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12 Sep 2011, 3:58 pm

And if anybody is then how do you do it?
What do you eat?
What do you drink?
What is your daily routine like?
What is your social life like?
...?

Any information that might be pertinent to why you are not having meltdowns.



Alphabetania
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12 Sep 2011, 4:19 pm

I can avoid and prevent them up to a point by
:arrow: taking many precautions to prevent sensory overload,
:arrow: eating and resting regularly,
:arrow: resolving conflict when I am NOT in a meltdown state
:arrow: taking lamotrigine (typical American tradename: Lamictal) and
:arrow: applying Cognitive Behavioural Therapy on myself.

I also used to be on risperidone (not sure what the American tradename is), and that helped to the point that I didn't need it anymore.

As a result of all of this, plus a supportive best friend/colleague, I now no longer have meltdowns frequently.

It was very bad in 2009-2010 when I had meltowns every few days or sometimes more often than that. I now have a meltdown only about once a month, or perhaps three times if I have had to work for long hours and many days without a break. In the years before my diagnosis, there were sometimes several months between meltdowns. A meltdown dissipates more quickly if my best friend holds me and calms me.

So, have not managed to eliminate meltdowns altogether and I REALLY want to know how to deal with a meltdown when I am in the MIDDLE of it (i.e. when I 'caught it too late') -- other than by smashing someone's face or harming myself.

I am not usually the kind of person to try out the latest greatest nutritional supplement, but this is one I do want to try:
N-MET: http://www.n-met.com/pages/how-the-brai ... y-overload
The explanation makes sense to me. I think this could also help with NON-sensory-induced meltdowns, based on what they say about how the brain works. I am getting a sample of it sent to me soon. (I live in South Africa and they currently don't sell it here.)


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Willard
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12 Sep 2011, 6:56 pm

I'd say if life never becomes overwhelming enough for you to have a meltdown, you don't really have a problem, therefore no handicapping 'disability'.



swbluto
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12 Sep 2011, 7:08 pm

Willard wrote:
I'd say if life never becomes overwhelming enough for you to have a meltdown, you don't really have a problem, therefore no handicapping 'disability'.


Hohoho, life isn't all about whether or not you can function without a meltdown. You have to work with other people to get what you want in today's society, that's for sure, and being socially "disabled" isn't a bed of roses.



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13 Sep 2011, 4:36 am

I dont actually know if I have meltdowns? I have times when i get sad and it varies in severity. What goes into the the threshold of meltdown. I have crying spells, do always count as meltdowns. They dont, cause if I just breakdown briefly and cry then I straighten up and then go on with what I was doing, that aint a meltdown. There will be the times when I practically get sucked into this swirl of sadness thats so encompassing that I cant sleep. I guess that's what I would count as a meltdown, if thats the case, then I have them 1x a yr.

So I dont have meltdowns or I have them very seldomly.



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13 Sep 2011, 5:53 am

Ai_Ling wrote:
I dont actually know if I have meltdowns? I have times when i get sad and it varies in severity. What goes into the the threshold of meltdown. I have crying spells, do always count as meltdowns. They dont, cause if I just breakdown briefly and cry then I straighten up and then go on with what I was doing, that aint a meltdown. There will be the times when I practically get sucked into this swirl of sadness thats so encompassing that I cant sleep. I guess that's what I would count as a meltdown, if thats the case, then I have them 1x a yr.

So I dont have meltdowns or I have them very seldomly.

It seems to me more like shutdown. Meltdowns are more like uncontrollable emotional outbursts.



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13 Sep 2011, 6:56 am

I tend to shutdown rather than meltdown, always have. I've always figures if I'd melted down more externally my AS may have been picked earlier.


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13 Sep 2011, 7:02 am

Willard wrote:
I'd say if life never becomes overwhelming enough for you to have a meltdown, you don't really have a problem, therefore no handicapping 'disability'.



what UTTER nonsense.



guywithAS
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13 Sep 2011, 7:06 am

i have basically no meltdowns now. i used to have them once/week, then once/month and now never. i know what situations are likely to be problematic so i avoid them just like an NT does.



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13 Sep 2011, 7:59 am

I cannot control having a meltdown, although I do my best to. It usually works, but when there is really a situation where I feel completely helpless, that's when I go ape.


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13 Sep 2011, 8:41 am

I don't have meltdowns. I never cried much as a kid, either, save the first week. After that, I was extremely quiet. My grandparents thought there was something wrong with me. I usually will not show much emotion externally.

That said, I do experience shutdowns. For me, that means that life slows to a standstill for a short while. I will have trouble making any decision at all, I freeze up, and have trouble processing any new information. I'm there in body, but my mind is elsewhere. I need to go to a quiet place to recover.

As for how to prevent them, for me it's all about managing my external world. Less sensory stimuli = better, usually. I do my best to avoid places that are loud or overly crowded. Sudden loud noises are still a problem, and they can ruin a perfectly good day, but I deal with them as I can.


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23 Sep 2011, 8:31 am

Willard wrote:
I'd say if life never becomes overwhelming enough for you to have a meltdown, you don't really have a problem, therefore no handicapping 'disability'.


I think the other people who responded to this, misunderstood it. How I understand it is: If life never becomes overwhelming enough for you to have a meltdown, you don't really have handicapping 'disability' in this area of your life. In other words, if life did become overwhelming to that degree, debilitating meltdowns could occur. So if life isn't too stressful, you could go through life being an aspie without being disabled by your AS (provided that you didn't have any other disabilities, that is). Like a neurotypical person could become disabled by depression, but not disabled by their neurology per se once the depression is gone.

Did I understand it correctly?


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Alphabetania
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23 Sep 2011, 8:36 am

MudandStars wrote:
I tend to shutdown rather than meltdown, always have. I've always figures if I'd melted down more externally my AS may have been picked earlier.


I have an aspie friend like that and life is much harder for her because people don't see her suffering.

Sensory shutdowns (where your senses become so overloaded that in some cases you can hardly understand the signals anymore and start to throw up) is something else. I have never got quite to that point, but my sensory overlaod has been quite bad at times. If there aren't any relationship stressors, I am now usually able to have sensory overload and withdraw to recover without having a meltdown. It still takes time, though.


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ToughDiamond
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23 Sep 2011, 8:54 am

I don't have meltdowns at all. I had one weird episode in 1980, but it was more like a panic attack, I lost control of my breathing but that's about all.

I don't know why I've been spared. I definitely remember my mother knocking what she called "tantrums" out of me.....it seems that if i ever did anything to cause any kind of spectacle, she would belt the living daylights out of me. So maybe it was pavlovian conditioning.

My diet has changed a lot over the years, so I doubt that has any effect.

I try to manage my lifestyle to avoid a lot of stress. My employer is reasonably soft on Aspies, as employers go, and working in the public sector in the UK gives me quite a lot of job security. Even so, I expect to retire early in order to avoid job-related stress, as the workplace is likely to become less friendly in the future. Outside of work, I have much better control over my lifestyle, and I take pains to keep away from anything potentially horrible.



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23 Sep 2011, 9:17 am

It's been many years since I had a meltdown, but I don't think I have any helpful advice on it. Probably just "grew out" of it (as an adult: I had them, fairly rarely, in my younger adulthood). I do try to keep my life calm and unexciting, and I have little to no social life.

Unless you count panic attacks: those are more like a shutdown, except that I _can_ talk: the panic is all inside and best I get away from people and lie down curled up. Those can be controlled with Xanax, though.



Alphabetania
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23 Sep 2011, 9:53 am

I had almost no meltdowns when I was a child. Unless I had ones when I was extremely young that I can't remember. I do remember one in which I beat up my toddler cousin when she (in toddler stupidity rather than malice) broke some kind of giant dolls' maze or something which my brother and I had laid out all over my bedroom floor.

My violence shocked my mother so much -- I was otherwise rarely violent -- that she didn't even punish me. She just came to my room and removed my cousin who was crying intensely. She was a bit cross, but more at the situation than at me. She usually knew somehow that if I did something bad, there must have been an exceptional trigger for my behaviour, and that punishment wasn't going to fix it and that the trigger was not likely to occur again. Unfortunately I didn't learn how to manage my reactions when there were such triggers.

I can't remember anything like sensory overload either.

My meltdowns as and 18-year-old and beyond were not frequent, but very embarassing. After a few months in a place I used to wish I could move, because I wanted to get away from my ruined reputation.


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