Meltdowns

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How long before a meltdown can you tell it's going to happen, and how long do you suffer the aftereffects?

Assuming my outbrusts of tears "for no reason" were meltdowns - I have spent decades learning to avoid triggers. I actually suppressed them, too... it uses a lot of mental power to self control to that point and after I succesfully mastered not melting down, I destroyed my own mental health as a cost of this "success". But avoiding triggers is good, I've learned I always can go to a bathroom, so I used this excuse even to leave a lecture that overwhelmed me at uni.

But back to your question: when I had meltdowns, I couldn't see them coming. When I supressed them... I got insane, my brain played horrible tricks on me. Yeah, going insane and back again is an interesting journey. Now I'm slowly learning to recognize discomforts that led me to all these and acknowledge them - know how much noise and havoc I can bear, how much I need to rest after it to regain balance.

There was no special time after a meltdown to go back to normality, just need for rest after what triggered the meltdown.

Over the past twenty years, I've pretty much replaced my meltdowns with shutdowns. It's a defense mechanism.

I don't know I'm going to have a meltdown till I get triggered/pushed too hard. Then I snap. It's over 1ce me & the person who triggered it stop yelling at each other & we may stop yelling cuz I stormed off.

I can't tell when a meltdown is going to happen but I can tell that I'm being triggered and if I'm being triggered I leave the place if I can. I can't suppress a meltdown, I can sometimes delay it though by doing this.

I typically have shutdowns instead of meltdowns, but when I have a meltdown I can kind if tell it's gonna happen most of the time. I'll usually be on edge for a while and something triggers it. Sometimes they're just really explosive and without there being a buildup.

A meltdown for me happens in response to situations that are random, spontaneous and occur without warning but which force me to make instant decisions in a time of crisis. My brain simply doesn't work that way, "short circuits" in a sense and causes a meltdown.

A good example of this would be some years ago when my wife was out of the house running errands and I was alone with the kids (stressful in and of itself). After some time, I heard a faint noise that sounded like running water and I discovered that the toilet in the "kids's bathroom" was plugged and was overflowing constantly. The entire bathroom floor was flooded with standing water of 2-3 inches and the water had overflowed out of the bathroom, into the hallway and into two adjacent bedrooms; the hallway and bedrooms have wood and wood "laminate" floors respectively. It was a crisis. I was forced to try to think clearly and calmly. I failed. Instead, I was in a mixture of panic and fury. I screamed orders to the kids to immediately gather all towels they could find. I swore and banged my fists on the wall in full on blind rage. I called my wife and in only a few words told her I needed her to come home immediately. It was a full meltdown. It took until the next day to calm down. The floors did sustain permanent damage.

I can tell when I'm getting really upset. Usually I try to leave the conversation. Looking away from the other person's face helps me a lot. If I can't leave, sometimes I do this technique called EMDR that a counselor taught me where you shift your eyes right and left between two objects (or sometimes I can just put my hands in my lap and tap my forefinger to my thumb alternately between my right and left hand). The therapy is mostly targeted at PTSD attacks, but I find that it usually works pretty much whenever I'm getting upset.

If I do go into a full-on crying, shrieking and swearing meltdown, it usually takes at least a couple of days or longer to fully calm my body down and stop thinking obsessively about whatever it was that upset me.

I don't usually suffer meltdowns around other people, but when they do happen they are pretty major. Items often get thrown around, loud noises are made, sometimes tears emerge on my face. In the run-up I just tend to feel something 'building up' inside my head.

As magz noted, I find rest and caring for myself the best way to deal with stresses that could result in a meltdown or shutdown, and to recover from same. I have also found it important to trust my analysis of people and situations and not insist that others see it my way in order for it to be true. Now that I think about it, many of my meltdowns in the past were due to the latter.

Depending on the intensity, the lead-up could be a few minutes to a few weeks. I mostly don't know it's coming. Similar to a storm, I get unusually quiet. The aftermath usually consists of days of brooding over my "mistake" and has often involved at least one broken friendship and one lost job.

Does someone want to explain the difference between meltdowns and shutdowns for me? I honestly am not sure if Ive experienced either one. Are they like a child's temper tantrum? I did that a lot when I was, well...a child. Drove my family nuts that I would "explode" over the littlest things (specially since I did that up through middle school before I learned my lesson) But I dont think Ive had an outburst like that for a while. My mom said I grew out of it (but my mom also thinks I grew out of having Aspergers in general and Im pretty sure thats not how it works...)
Anyway, just curious cause people on here tend to mention both a lot, but the symptoms are either vague or varied.