Meltdowns?

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How do you experience a meltdown?
Is it mild, or violent?
Implode or explode?
Stimm or shutdown?

I experience either a shutdown or a tension meltdown. Either I have to contort myself or I fall into a incoherent stupor for any were from minutes to hours.

It's a shutdown for me, I don't feel like doing anything. They usually involve me getting teary eyed. It's mostly mild and it usually involves silently exploding.

I experience both. Shutdowns are generally from long-lasting overwhelming experiences - being in a busy or crowded place, for example. I become very tired and sluggish, I struggle to focus, talk or do much at all. I've been told by my husband that I move in slow motion. It takes me a long time to get out of a shutdown - or a sleep!

My meltdowns are caused by what I'd call 'bombardment', though that isn't strictly true. It's where I'm already struggling and then people are asking me questions, and they want answers, or there are things I'm expected to do, and I just can't cope with it all. In public I just get flustered and make a quick getaway, then go into a shutdown once I'm 'safe', but at home where I'm already in a safe space, they're (thankfully rare) occurrences where I will explode for just a few seconds (and then usually cry with the guilt of it afterwards).

The meltdowns occur at times when my husband is asking questions, and I'm struggling to work out my answers, and he keeps asking or he's talking whilst I'm thinking, or coming up with suggestions that are distracting me when I'm trying to work things out in my head. And I'm not angry, but I just need a break and I feel like I'm backed into a corner and trapped - it's a fight or flight thing. My husband used to think it was angry shouting, but I'm not like that at all. I am very rarely angry. I think he's only heard my anger twice, and whether he realised it or not, he did know the difference. These times were both pre-diagnosis, and both times he said "I've never heard you THAT angry before". The reality was that he'd never heard me AT All angry before.

Meltdowns aren't anger. They're panic. They're trying to force words out when they're stuck, so that they come out sounding loud and aggressive. I've had to explain to him the difference, but he still doesn't always get it. He'll occasionally comment that he doesn't understand why I'm angry about something when he was 'just trying to help'. I have to try and explain that there's no anger, and I know he was trying to help, but in listing suggestions when I'm already overwhelmed he just adds further blocks to an already wobbly tower, until it all falls down in a crash for a few seconds. As soon as I've 'snapped', I recover. Then, of course, I feel terrible. Thank goodness they're rare.

I have been told my meltdowns look like seizures

My meltdowns look like I am having a hissy fit and having a tantrum like a toddler.

I also shut down and that is just my way of wanting to be alone and not wanting to talk to anyone.

I am not sure to be an Asperger yet, I am waiting for a diagnosis.
So I am not sure that what I experience are meltdowns or shutdowns.

Also consider that I am very, very controlled in public.

Regarding the shutdowns it often happen to me that when something is disturbing me phisically or mentally. People talking, too many people, social interactions, noises, smells, cold or even pain. I just close myself. I can feel irritated and out of place, then I begin to be more silent and I lose myself in some daydreaming or I begin to observe something with all my attention. Can be a person, an interaction, a pattern on the wallpaper, a surface, a count... sometime I just pick a word or a small sentence I hear or read, and I write it in the air with the point of my foot, again and again and again. Sometimes I don't even realize I am doing it.
What I would like to do is to go away and stay by myself in a quiet place.

The meltdown are, instead, always linked to emotions. To be honest to the confusion about emotions. When I don't know what I am feeling or I don't know why I am feeling in a certain way, I can become very anxious and upset. If somebody keeps pushing me to express how I feel, it is the end. I try to tell them to leave me alone and leave me the time to think, but soon I can get mad, cry or explode.
It also has happened to me when I was in a social situation where I didn't know how to act or I felt too much the weight of some responsabilities.
In these cases I don't even know why I am crying or I am so upset.I just can't stand the situation and I would just want to be alone.

I haven't had a violent meltdown in years...especially since I moved out. But I wonder if my "people breaks" are just silent meltdowns.

Basically, I look like a toddler having a tantrum. Except I'm nearly 200 lbs, and 42 years old. I cry. I can't really make a good explanation for what's going on. If someone tries to make a demand on me, I yell. I run away, but not too far away, because deep down, I really want comfort. It's gnarly and embarrassing. I turn bright red. It really is like returning to being a little kid for me. I lose my adult brain. I used to think it was PTSD, but now I understand aspergers better, I know it's just that.