How do you feel right before a meltdown?

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How do you feel right before you have a meltdown?

Also, what do you do to cope with said meltdowns?



I am learning to deal with my Aspergers. I had no idea I had it until this past month, and I want to learn what my triggers are and what I feel like just before I meltdown.


I think I feel this way (but I'm not completely sure yet):

Irritable
Sensitive to sound, light, touch
Unable to concentrate
Muscles feel sort of "ready to go"...kind of like I want to punch something


This is my biggest problem. I get frustrated/angry and have to remove myself from the situation completely in order to fully calm down -- sometimes for the entirety of the evening/event.

I would love any suggestions you may have.

Last edited by elizabethangeles on 09 Feb 2014, 1:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not sure if I'm the best person to be offering advice on this matter seeing as I still have a tendency to self-harm during my meltdowns, but pretty much all of your symptoms match up with mine exactly. I would try channeling your anger into something that doesn't damage you or the things/people around you, such as beating up a punching bag, going for a run, dancing, even just screaming (though this might bring some unwanted attention and/or concerned neighbours). The trick is to burn off as much energy as possible so you don't have the stamina to stay angry. When my meltdowns have a primarily sensory cause, I put myself in a state of sensory isolation; no sound, no light, buried under a weighted blanket until my stress and frustration have returned to normal, then I just stay quiet and out of the way for a while so as not to retrigger the meltdown the minute I go back downstairs. Good luck, these things are never easy to handle.

Before a meltdown I feel this muscle ready to go and irritation; also I feel trembling, my mind going blank or foggy, and I feel like something is compressing me, it's hard to explain, maybe thick invisible walls.
You will probably think it's weird what I am going to say, but for me meltdowns are like orgasms (only they are not good ). the tension builds up, it grows grows and grows until you explode and your mind goes blank.
I don't know how to avoid it when it's eminent, I try locking myself in the bathroom or going somewhere else not to hurt anyone, and break things instead. But before, I don't let the tension grow, that is, I avoid the things I know that could trigger a meltdown; self-knowledge helps. When I can't avoid them getting out of the situation for a while is mandatory.
What is funny is that before and after a meltdown all my aspie traits show, it's like I can't put more energy to control them plus they get worse because of the tension. I repeat the same word or sentence non-stop, I don't look at people, I stim, pace furiously, move my body in a weird manner and order things etc
just like my parents went to talk to me after a meltdown: " your sister was trying to help you." I said: "she wasn't, she wasn't, she wasn't, she wasn't, she wasn't..." while my fingers moved around. I don't do it in a daily basis.

Before a meltdown, I feel as though I have no skin, and every touch, every sound, every particle of light, is agony. Thoughts are like long, brittle needles. If I move, I'll break; if I don't move, I'll go mad. It's not really fear, nor really pain; it's more like everything is just completely and totally wrong.

How do I avoid meltdowns? Control stress, control sensory input. Don't push myself past my limits, or else I know I'll be sorry later on.

The world spins while I feel an Incredible Hulk level of rage. If I don't get away in time I'll just break down and either cry or scream at people. If I can get away I throw things around in my room, beat up my telescope (it's tough and pretty useless to me anyway) or I might start hitting myself.

It's hard to deal with them. I try to hold them in but that just delays them and makes them even worse. Sometimes I need to just got to my room and let one out and hopefully I won't need to explode until another three months.

Having a telescope is awesome. I keep meaning to get one but want to save up for a really good one.

I don't know if what I get are meltdowns but I can often feel them coming on as I get a building sensation of frustration and rage. Sometimes I have more warning than others. Sometimes I don't really get much of a warning at all or I am not aware of the warning for some reason. Mostly I notice myself becoming increasingly irritable, but can have sudden outbursts or outbursts that appear that way.

During a meltdown I shout, scream and can hit myself on the head and/or pull my hair etc.

I generally find that it's best to remove myself from whatever is upsetting me.

Also I can get blurring of vision, slightly less awareness of my surroundings (Ie I may forget briefly, or rather become less aware, that there are other people around if I am out) and I am less able to process my thoughts clearly.

Then again I can be unaware of the presence of other people at the best of times as I live in a place called bumble land. Unless it is very crowded or noisy or I am intentionally trying to interact with people in order to ascertain what is causing my social problems (which is very difficult to do when people won't mix with me because they think I am too weird..) then I am not usually all that aware of the other human beings that are around me when out and about amongst strangers (I am usually aware of a partner when I am out with one, unless I get distracted). Which is why I don't understand aspects of the social anxiety I am presently diagnosed with. Half the time I am not really aware of strangers around me, let alone worried about what they think of me...to be honest I have no idea what people are thinking most of the time. Humans confuse me, so much so I am happy to be oblivious to them some days. If I am oblivious to them, I am also oblivious to the associated confusion. Living in bumbleland has bonuses.

Last edited by bumble on 09 Feb 2014, 4:18 am, edited 2 times in total.

A sense of panic, a sense of being choked, that morphs into anger at the situation.

Sometimes they can be triggered without warning.
Other times its like when something starts to annoy or give a headache.
Or it can come on similar to a panic attack.
I def have to get away from whatever or end up tearing things apart or curling up in a ball.
Sometimes a family member is able to talk me down if its a more progressive meltdown.
But usually its self soothing methods that bring me out of the ones where i dont go ballistic.
but that does not happen too often. Usually its rocking with my head between my knees
or curled in fetal position. usually go into my closet for that for darkness.

I can't describe it because I think I have a high level of alexithymia (emotional blindness) when I'm the most stressed. I don't know how I feel; it's just bad. Like – I just can't cope, and I have to physically get away from the situation, otherwise I'm just going to scream and cry and fall apart.

And if I can get away, I can usually calm myself down, maybe with just a little crying or hugging myself. But if I'm stuck there, I'll have to do it in front of other people, and I usually end up huddled in a corner in fetal position, crying and muttering to myself, and it's really embarrassing.

How do I feel before a meltdown?

Anxious
Irritable
Can't take in anything other than what is upsetting me
Any attempts at changing the subject from what is bothering makes me worse
My whole body starts to feel like a rubber band wound tight
I just need to... I just need to... need to...

Once I hit that point where the rubber band is about to snap, I HAVE to remove myself from the situation. Otherwise things start breaking, usually objects I throw or things those objects hit. If I am forced to stay in the situation, I have been known to pick up objects and start swinging them at people.

My meltdowns are spontaneously triggered by thoughts, words, deeds, events, and / or environments that I feel distinctively uncomfortable with and they can be internal to me or external to me, by which I mean the responsibility for them lies within me or lies outside me. E.g., internal recycling thoughts that induce worry or anxiety or panic or paranoia; words that spontaneously come out all wrong and get me into trouble or make look a fool; clumsy actions that make me drop things; badly planned arrangements that go cock-eyed; smoke or chemical filled rooms caused by me inadvertently setting something alight or ejecting gas; someone looking at me accusingly, someone calling me something I don't like; someone doing something to me I don't like; and nature, fate, fortune, god, the universe, whatever creating an environment I feel distinctly unhappy with.

I've been having them since my birth apparently as the consequence is oxygen starvation and my mother told me I was a 'blue baby', so I probably did one when she went into labour with me and started to eject me from her womb, but I don't remember it happening - I only remember my mother telling me I was a blue baby and that 'the powers of darkness' tried to kill me even as I was being born. Hmmmm. Bizarre. Yes I know. Like most of the rest of my life to date (I'm 68 years old now and just published an autobiography of my life of autism and aspergers syndrome, which is why I can give you detailed answers to your questions).

Nowadays I recognize an impending meltdown because I receive an initial warning that I might be about to have one by my chest tightening ever so slightly then going into asthma spasm unless I medicate it quickly enough to relieve it before it gets a strong grip on me.

If I don't medicate it quickly enough it shuts down my breathing completely and causes me such severe oxygen starvation that I black out and my body and brain start going into death mode - I was twice declared dead in my infancy, once at school and once on holiday - personally I'm unsure of whether I was dead on those two occasions or only in some kind of minimal maintenance form of hibernation, but what I do know is that my soul / spirit / mind / whatever is not inhabiting my body and brain when I am in that state but is in a different dimension to the one I am normally in, exactly the same dimension as Eben Alexander refers to in his book Proof of Heaven as 'near-death coma', Robert Monroe describes in his trilogy of 'journey' books, and Thomas Campbell describes in his trilogy of 'My Big Toe' books.

These books are all recent publications, post 1994 I believe, which was when my trips into that dimension between the ages of 0 and 16 (1945 - 1961) were confirmed as being my truth in hypno-regression-therapy by a private consultant clinical psychiatrist commissioned by my employer as I had a nervous breakdown at work when I was involved in official secrets act work. Had I not had that hypno-regression-therapy it is possible that I would never have known that I have aspergers syndrome, as I'd had two severe bouts of amnesias that hid my past childhood autism and teenage autistic psychopathy from my conscious awareness. It was bizarre memories of my childhood popping into my conscious awareness which were a significant partial cause of the mental breakdown, hence the need for the hypno-regression-therapy.

The therapy helped me to cope with my life of autism and aspergers syndrome, but didn't cure me as I attempted suicide at 55 by deliberately running out of medication when far away from home so that I would drift off quietly to heaven and never come back, but they sent me back because I hadn't completed fulfilling all of the callings I had come here undertake.

How do I cope? By believing in different paradigms to most of the rest of society. My truths as my psychiatrist said, and stuff the rest if they are blind to all the mounting scientific evidence that they have it all wrong.

My meltdowns are spontaneously triggered by thoughts, words, deeds, events, and / or environments that I feel distinctively uncomfortable with and they can be internal to me or external to me, by which I mean the responsibility for them lies within me or lies outside me. E.g., internal recycling thoughts that induce worry or anxiety or panic or paranoia; words that spontaneously come out all wrong and get me into trouble or make look a fool; clumsy actions that make me drop things; badly planned arrangements that go cock-eyed; smoke or chemical filled rooms caused by me inadvertently setting something alight or ejecting gas; someone looking at me accusingly, someone calling me something I don't like; someone doing something to me I don't like; and nature, fate, fortune, god, the universe, whatever creating an environment I feel distinctly unhappy with.

I've been having them since my birth apparently as the consequence is oxygen starvation and my mother told me I was a 'blue baby', so I probably did one when she went into labour with me and started to eject me from her womb, but I don't remember it happening - I only remember my mother telling me I was a blue baby and that 'the powers of darkness' tried to kill me even as I was being born. Hmmmm. Bizarre. Yes I know. Like most of the rest of my life to date (I'm 68 years old now and just published an autobiography of my life of autism and aspergers syndrome, which is why I can give you detailed answers to your questions).

Nowadays I recognize an impending meltdown because I receive an initial warning that I might be about to have one by my chest tightening ever so slightly then going into asthma spasm unless I medicate it quickly enough to relieve it before it gets a strong grip on me.

If I don't medicate it quickly enough it shuts down my breathing completely and causes me such severe oxygen starvation that I black out and my body and brain start going into death mode - I was twice declared dead in my infancy, once at school and once on holiday - personally I'm unsure of whether I was dead on those two occasions or only in some kind of minimal maintenance form of hibernation, but what I do know is that my soul / spirit / mind / whatever is not inhabiting my body and brain when I am in that state but is in a different dimension to the one I am normally in, exactly the same dimension as Eben Alexander refers to in his book Proof of Heaven as 'near-death coma', Robert Monroe describes in his trilogy of 'journey' books, and Thomas Campbell describes in his trilogy of 'My Big Toe' books.

These books are all recent publications, post 1994 I believe, which was when my trips into that dimension between the ages of 0 and 16 (1945 - 1961) were confirmed as being my truth in hypno-regression-therapy by a private consultant clinical psychiatrist commissioned by my employer as I had a nervous breakdown at work when I was involved in official secrets act work. Had I not had that hypno-regression-therapy it is possible that I would never have known that I have aspergers syndrome, as I'd had two severe bouts of amnesias that hid my past childhood autism and teenage autistic psychopathy from my conscious awareness. It was bizarre memories of my childhood popping into my conscious awareness which were a significant partial cause of the mental breakdown, hence the need for the hypno-regression-therapy.

The therapy helped me to cope with my life of autism and aspergers syndrome, but didn't cure me as I attempted suicide at 55 by deliberately running out of medication when far away from home so that I would drift off quietly to heaven and never come back, but they sent me back because I hadn't completed fulfilling all of the callings I had come here undertake.

How do I cope? By believing in different paradigms to most of the rest of society. My truths as my psychiatrist said, and stuff the rest if they are blind to all the mounting scientific evidence that they have it all wrong.

Exasperation, despair, confusion, agitation, dread and hopelessness. Meltdowns aren't fun.

Confusion...and an intense feeling. Emotional understanding stops or is really jumbled, it is difficult to feel touch input.

The world dematerializes and people fade, and all I want to do is get to my room as fast as possible.

I have noticed that while I'm angry my head has emotional stress and pain. I don't think like I normally would, I am more negative and less compassionate, and I generally feel like doing things that would make matters worse, such yelling or breaking something valuable. When I am super angry and sad, while at the same time sleep deprived and hungry, and I don't feel safe or comfortable, I think that is when I have meltdowns. When I have a meltdown the little things that shouldn't annoy anyone annoy me a lot. And when something that would normally annoy someone annoys me during a meltdown, grief just piles up and it's awful.