Yes, you can have quiet as well as noisy melt downs. Sometimes people internalize the upsetness, but will still be a cauldron of violent grief, or rage, or frustration on the inside. A shut down internalizes things, but without the higher level of boiling strong feelings. I've experienced all three. I actually tend to live in a mild, partial shut down most of the time, as I am a hermit type person, and prefer living alone. Because I find this state more comfortable and less stressful, and I am in it by choice, I don't consider this partial shut down to be a problem.
As for your own situation, if you were upset, and feeling violently strong emotions of any kind, and were internalizing them, then that was an internalized meltdown. Also, there is no time factor involved in determining whether one has had a melt down or shut down. They can be of any length. You need to clarify these things with your room mate.
Normally I hold to the need to know rule with people I deal with in person, but you live with your room mate, who thus has to deal with your traits, so your room mate may need to know some of your stuff, in order to understand what he/she is dealing with.
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.--Henry David Thoreau
23 Mar 2012, 5:21 pm
