Meltdown

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I tend to listen to really loud classical music. Or play chess when I have a meltdown, usually caused by being somewhere I haven't the slightest interest in but "have" to be.

Yeah I'm wild like that. It's not a full-size, I'd say that 'medium sized' describes it better. Lots of fun. A lot of people around town just call me either "the chess master" or "the Mathematician." Both are fine.

that's awesome...

Yet another researcher trying to understand what a meltdown is?

Meltdowns are what link autism of the Asperger’s Type and Kanner’s Type together. In Kanner’s Type autism, the meltdowns are severe and prolonged. For Asperger’s Type autism, the meltdowns are occasional and milder. To understand what a meltdown is, observe the irascible nature of an autistic individual of the Kanner’s Type. It is like they are tormented from within and their motor impulses are not entirely within their control. Tone down the severity and you can understand what it might be like for an Aspie to get a meltdown.

It is like as if a particular part of the brain misfires and sends endless “get” commands to other neural centers. The result is that the entire brain gets scrambled. For many, the limbic system gets over stimulated and the (rage/fear)-memory impulse moves on the smallest trigger. One’s sense of coordination is also impacted, suggesting that the hypothalamus is affected as well. In my case, during these meltdown episodes, micturition becomes erratic and my kidneys seem to take a much longer time to excrete. There seems to be a hormonal effect too and the jumpiness experienced during a meltdown could be partly attributed to an over stimulated adrenal gland. Sleep is invariably an issue and practically all individuals who report having meltdowns indicate that they cannot sleep during these episodes or else sleep very poorly. The lack of sleep typically compounds the problems and prolongs the episodes.

In my opinion, Aspies who do not report meltdown episodes have probably been misdiagnosed. While it is not in DSM IV, meltdown episodes are what define Asperger’s Syndrome. Hans Asperger himself repeatedly pointed out the difficult episodes his young wards experienced which often went away when properly administered.

What triggers a meltdown for me are over-crowded places. Places which are too noisy or/and have too many people usually bring on a mild panicy feeling, though when I leave these areas I can usually calm myself down quick enough. I wouldn't even call mine meltdowns, they're more like a momentary panic episodes caused by sensory over-stimulation.

Zeno,the autism type does not choose who gets the worst meltdowns completely,as there are Kanners Autistics who do not get meltdowns,and Aspergers Autistics who are on strong medication because of the severity of their meltdowns.

As a kanners aut,staff say it's like am having a violent seizure,it takes a lot of people to restrain am,and although they padded the wall with a special matress,most of it has been knocked down,managers have never bothered to get it concreted in again.
Am unable to control any part of self,it is an extreme agony inside,am blind [during the meltdown] but can hear,do not notice any of the head banging etc going on,can't feel any pain or touch from the outside,but feel the extreme agony [only way can describe it].
It happens every few days,usually sensory or change/routine related.
Increase of tegretol seemed to help a little.

Medication to aid meltdowns? How does that work? We do not even know why meltdowns occur or even which part of the anatomy is responsible.

What I am trying to make a distinction of is between behavioral autism and neural/physiological autism. The diagnostic criteria for autism generally involve observing specific behavioral cues. Playing alone, not making eye contact, failing to reciprocate and etcetera. However, as many have pointed out, the checklist while extensive is hardly unique to autism. Many other psychological conditions also exhibit autistic type expression; implying that a false diagnosis of autism, especially of Asperger’s Syndrome, is at risk. Beyond the difficulty of diagnosing autism, and thanks to the efforts of a tireless and wealthy lobby, there are certain social benefits to having autism as opposed to being OCD or schizophrenic. Hence, people do get diagnosed by health professionals in order to claim those benefits and continue treatment.

But run through the experiences of most of the people on this forum, meltdowns are by far their most vivid experience of autism. It is interesting that this is so because very little in the literature actually talks about meltdowns. The health and research community has basically ignored meltdowns as inner manifestations and thus not observable. Consequently, it has been relegated of sorts to the realm of Freudian psychology. Why then do so many Aspies talk of meltdowns? Indeed the very word itself, even without a definition, evokes understanding. The experience of a meltdown is diffuse, but there are enough commonalities like running mind, rage, sleeplessness, auditory sensitivity, speech impairment and etcetera to make it definable. Is it not worthy of investigation that some Aspies implicitly understand what a meltdown is whereas others are as clueless as the researchers studying autism?

It was mean of me to attempt to take away the autism label from anyone. I will play nice and let one and all be autistic. But now that we do know a little more about autism, thanks in part to the articulate and intelligent Aspies on forums such as this one who freely share their thoughts, might we not start to make distinctions in the various shades of autism?

First, thanks for the kudos to all the chess fans out there. I play a mean game but I've not yet defeated any GM's I will someday though
Second, yeah that's interesting, my mom's always called my down spells "meltdowns" or my "freakouts" but I had never thought of them that way till someone at a coffeehouse jumped up and yelled "OhMyGod Ben are you autistic?!" because the details of a story I told about the virtuoso Paganini somehow reminded her of her AS younger brother. She told me her brother has meltdown type episode and do I ever get depressed or act kinda wacky? It was quite a surprise, as I am rather sure I am AS, that these "meltdowns" caused by sensory overload (in my case) were in fact common in many AS sufferers. Very good to know. Caffeine and really loud Sviatoslav Richter CDs or other good classical piano music (his Schumann "Pappillons" live at Marlboro Festival are mind-blowing for example; or how about Andre Watts playing Liszt etudes?), often do the trick. Otherwise I just play chess and totally 'blank out' according to my opponents or people that have walked by and thought I was being rude because I, literally, didn't see them or hear them say "Hey Ben!"
I was apparently, as I found out only JUST recently (like a few days ago) "targeted" for an autism diagnosis when about 2 because of several behaviors that were thought to be "dead giveaways" but then they didn't have AS when I was that young and hence I always just thought that I'm a weird scientists and will probably continue to be my weird self. But it's the non-reciprocation because I CANNOT empathize much that is the major trait that caught my attention to begin with.

I wonder if meltdowns and shut downs are getting confused here? To me, a meltdown would look similar to a tantrum and involve getting agitated, maybe screaming or crying hysterically, even self harming or hitting things.

However, a shut down would be a state of such sensory overload that the person affected would for a time be unable to speak and could also be unable to see and/or hear.

I get both of these things from time to time. Meltdowns are usually set off by seemingly small things eg. somebody speaking rudely to me in a shop, but this is the last of a series of adverse events and finally my coping mechanisms are overwhelmed and I "lose it".

Despite what anybody might think, it is NOT a matter of trying to manipulate other people. It happens so suddenly, it is like a runaway train. I have been known to wet my pants while having a meltdown and that is fairly embarrassing.

If I am under sufficent emotional shock, I go face blind and run away. If the shock is really bad, I might get caught in a alexithymia feedback loop that won't let me sleep. The loop is my mind desperately trying to figure out what went wrong emotionally.

I, although I have almost no recollection of it, would apparently go over to UCF (this is when I lived in Orlando, FL) and lay down in this grove of pine trees behind the university library. People that knew me would walk by and sometimes even come right up to me and try to get my attention and I wouldn't notice. I'm also told that someone told my favorite philosophy professor about my behavior and he one day suggested to me that I try to attend class more and not think much about other people. It was very interesting advice. But I really don't remember laying around and not having any idea what I was doing, this was VERY, very different from when we'd lay around in that same grove of trees after class and hang out and this one kid Jeff would play flamenco music for us on his guitar (he was a Berkeley Conservatory dropout- and he was a rad musician!).

This sounds like having shutdowns and could also be like a fugue state where you do things that you don't remember. I think we have our limits as to how much stimulus we can cope with and once past that stage, we either melt down or shut down (or maybe both).