Stages of a meltdown as interpreted by me (a female HFA)

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http://reslaneshop.blogspot.com/2011/10 ... by-me.html


here is the text but my link has some great conveying images that would help

My gf (and probably many others) have issues interpreting my stages of a meltdown. While some meltdowns are the archetypal response--where its WAY obvious that I am in a meltdown b/c I am doing such things like: Rocking, rubbing, babbling incoherently, etc.

Most of the time (GOD WILLING) meltdowns don't hit that state. Does it mean they are not meltdowns? No, it just means they arent F6's. They arent total destruction phase. Just like hurricanes and tornadoes, we have phases of destruction.

Phase 1: Overwhelmed feeling. I begin to shutdown. I cant hear another word spoken, I cant hear hums or whispers, NOTHING. I often plug my ears of just scream "SHUT UPPPPPPP". If I am feeling more tactful, I will say "Please leave me alone



" This is the start of the end....Doest help that Rebecca HATES this phase. She is seriously codependent and any type of perceived rejection causes her to go into serious cling mode. This naturally leads to phase 2.


Phase 2: "Angry Teen" In an attempt to be ALONE, I try to push the other person (agitator) away. There of course is a diagnostic term for this phase that describes my "Rage" period where I begin to try to "rile up" people around me. Rebecca, again, falls into the trap and begins to argue back. Does she realize she is arguing against a breaking person? No, despite years of experience, no, she continually takes the bate. She will call me tons of horrible names and I back...






Inside all I am is this:



I just want to be LEFT ALONE. Why is that so hard?? Why is that so hard to see? I often scream it but she wont listen. Anyone feel the same?

Arguing with me, calling me names, blaming me, heads me to stage 3 meltdown


Phase 3:



Sobbing, relentless sobbing. It doesnt stop. The pain is like a cavern that extends into the depths of the earth. I am rarely consolable. I feel horrible, un-understood, nonlogical. This begins to finally f*****g click for Rebecca "OH its a meltdown." You think???



If you thought things were bad already...Wait until Phase 4 knocks you on your ass.




I become completely inconsolable, completely irrational, completely self-hating, completely BROKEN feeling. I am beginning to understand that the world is full of complete people and incomplete ones. I begin to feel unworthy, full of self-hate (probably a leftover of my misdiagnosis). I begin to feel COMPELLED to kill myself. It starts to feel like you have the chance to kill hiter. There is a loaded gun and hitler is sitting there tied up and helpless. Wouldnt you just kill him? If you refrain b/c of fear, dont you feel worse about yourself for not killing him when you had the chance?

No its not rational...but thats how it feels..

Then

Phase 5:

Phase 4 cannot last forever (thank GOD). your body becomes exhausted. Sobbing, rocking, thrashing, screaming, etc, becomes emotionally and physically exhausting...so you begin to shut down your sensory system. You inadvertenly shut down everything. You cannot hear anything anymore, it is entirely silent and eerily so. You even stop rocking and stop performing your ticks or stims. Silence as cold as death enters. You curl up into yourself. Catatonia enters

This photo is from an actual autistic kid in this stage:




Phase 5: Slow relief. Exhaustion. Perhaps a nap.



So if you think a meltdown is just rage, no, it can be anything from "leave me alone" "I am sobbing" " I am insane" "I am tiny and sobbing" to "I am completely shutdown within myself"

There is this push in media to portray aspergers and HFA kids as goofy fun loving males without portraying the real challenges and difficulties. There is a dark side, as sad as it is for everyone, bad things happen and they are difficult to deal with in everyday life. If you see the same actions from a woman you are much more likely to just write it off as 'b***h crazy". Men are allowed to be more eccentric, more emotional, more "fickle". Women when they get this way are "damaged". It's a biased perception that even those closest to me have.

Educate yourself, hopefully your loved ones are faster learning than mine. Understanding and patience by others makes all the difference to how far you go down the rabbit hole. They have all the power. Help them make the right choices. If they continue to make all the wrong ones, if they continue to hurt you when you are broken, please be strong enough to leave them. I am wresting with this myself to be completely honest.

Stage 6

Afterwards - Everyone treats you like a leper. I am sad and angry at myself for losing control. I am still exhausted mentally and physically. I struggle to find a way to rejoin "normal life" while everyone around me is angry at me or thinks I'm crazy. I have no will to live. I am broken. I have no words that can explain it to them. Even if I knew the words, I have no strength left to say them. I go back down my rabbit hole.

Meltdowns caused by university (stupid tasks or too many tasks), work (for example I've got two jobs and had to choose between them) and any other situation which simply matches this description:

1. "Warning! CPU is being overwhelmed." Too much of data to analyze, too many things to do, etc. Still trying to cope with this, loosing attention.
2. I don't know what to do and what people want from me. Trying to cope with the problems, but lost attention.
3. I need a break, but I can't escape, because if I escape, I'll fail. It's impossible to temporarily isolate from problems and solve them either, which makes everything more stressful.
3. "Warning! CPU is being overheated. Need to shut down." Well, everything like crying, pacing, destroying objects, screaming, hitting head (now I try to avoid this because I don't want to damage my brain) etc. is present during this stage.
4. Restart stage. Everything is back to normal after the cause of meltdown is being removed. New life strategy is being developed.

Thanks for writing this. I've been struggling to describe what I go through in my own meltdowns and this is helpful for personal understanding.

Mostly I am able to go off by myself when things get intense, but sometimes things happen so fast it's not possible to get away fast enough.

I didn't much know of meltdowns until recently, and I didn't think of it much as a meltdown.

Is it okay if I skip to phase 4 immediately whenever this happens? I don't show any physical manifestation of it in front of other people, either. I try really hard to keep it inside, and then I have to go to my room by myself and take a nap for a while before I can feel better.

I think I'll go read about meltdowns now. (I didn't know much about them, before.)

strangly enough but heat is a strong trigger for a meltdown for me...usually involves heat and being overwhelmed by something else and it can happen so fast that my runaway emotions brake the sound barrier. (just an analogy)
Also unescapable stress, crowds, and sensory overstimulation

I go from stage 1, skip 2, go to 3, skip 4, sometimes go to 5 and usually 6.

I often attack myself in a meltdown, throw stuff, cry uncontrolably, scream obsenities and then if it gets worse than that...I will rock back and forth and cant speak but just make nasally noises. Sometimes it feels as if I am watching myself in slow motion like watching a car without breaks crash into a wall.

I dont often get suicidal but do hurt myself with hitting and biting and slamming my head against stuff.

only after exaustion do I stop..then I feel this horrible self hatred like something rotting in my gut, eating me from the inside out kind of self hatred. I also feel intense overpowering guilt. This is probably left over from before I was diagnosed too and some members of my family shunned me saying I was a crazy b***h.

This self hatred and guilt lasts for 2-3 days while I try to rejoin the living.

Jojo

What always floors me is waking up from a meltdown. You went through all the phases, you're curled up in the closest bed you could find in the dark and everything is silent, you know that the person who was subjected (and caused) your meltdown is right there, behind that door, and suddently you're 14 again. SHAME. The shame is immense, and for me it comes from a feeling of waking up, with a fresh clear mind, hungry for comfort and affection and the only person who could give it to me is the person i was insanely screaming and roaring at just 15 minutes earlier. And I don't remember why i was mad. Or it seems so small..... I'm lucky though, i was never rejected when looking for comfort after a meltdown.

I just realized how often I have a meltdown. Before I only countd the stimming/isolating myself/sensory overload and the catatonic severities as a meltdown. I just realized that everytime I feel overwhelmed by a sudden change or when there are too many people I have a mini-meltdown/lesser severity meltdown. Meltdowns thus happen to me everyday...

^This.

I've had them happen on the bus on the way to work, for no discernible reason (maybe sensory stuff: bus shaking too much, other people making noise...etc.) and I can't do anything about it. I am literally SCREAMING on the inside and feel like I could lash out at total strangers and feel no regret afterwards.

By the the time I get there, I'm internally a wreck, but eventually manage to shake it off...sort of. I'm generally out of sorts for the rest of the day. A few times, I've had to keep myself from breaking down crying (if I can get into the restroom for a few minutes, that helps).

It's almost better if it happens on the way home, because then I can retreat into my room for a while and recover properly...providing my roommates leave me alone (if they don't...it's not pretty).

Yeah, that sounds a lot like me whenever I have to brave the world outside my quaint little flat. Buses are the worst, what with the smell of diesel, hordes of people and their incessant chatter, the constant tooting of car horns, the omnipresent light of the sun; it's all just too much.

At the end of everyday, I would feel like bursting into tears, and I never understood why that was so until after my HFA/Aspergers diagnosis. The desire to kill myself was almost palpable, and it would hit me at the most inopportune times, making it impossible to pre-emptively prepare myself for the disabling depression that typically followed.

I'm much better at warding off my meltdowns/shutdowns now - at least I think I am - and I find that it helps me to make use of therapeutic coping skills to get me through each day, although it can still be a slog in spite of these countermeasures.

It's really strange to think that other people out there in the world are going through this stuff, too, as I always thought that it was just me getting crazier with every passing year.

The last two stages are nearly identical - staring for a while as if in shock then going to sleep. I cried nonstop a few hours first, til the skin on my face burned and my eyes swelled shut. Sometimes, my head throbbed as well. Meltdowns. I definitely do not miss having them and hope I never will again.