what makes a meltdown a meltdown

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I was wondering this earlier when I broke down while trying to get rid of a headache in my bathtub, after a particularly gruesome sensory-overload-filled day

I googled "can crying be a meltdown".

Here's my best guess based off what I found:
What makes a meltdown is being bombarded with stimuli or emotions and bottling it up until you can't anymore. How the meltdown is expressed may differ, but it's that buildup that makes it a meltdown.

Thoughts?

A meltdown can be defined in a couple of ways. Everyone has meltdowns including neurotypicals. One type of meltdown is very common even with neurotypicals. It's basically when someone loses it because s/he is overwhelmed or exhausted. That can involve screaming or crying or any kind of emotional outburst. Usually that kind of meltdown doesn't last very long.

In Autism, we experience meltdowns much more severely. They can also include screaming, crying, lashing out physically and all kinds of other emotional expressions. They can happen for any kind of overwhelm that we experience from sensory overwhelm, emotional overwhelm and even social or executive function overwhelm. They can also happen if we are physically or mentally overwhelmed. When they happen to us, the reason is that whatever is triggering the meltdown is literally short circuiting the brain because the brain is so overwhelmed that it is not able to process the stimuli and we are literally blowing a brain fuse. The brain is so overwhelmed that it can no longer process anything at all during that moment. It's like a normal meltdown but on steroids. So when we have them, they can sometimes be very short but they can also last for hours leaving us completely exhausted, drained and debilitated. So to answer your question, yes, crying can definitely be an expression of meltdown.

Meltdowns differ from tantrums because in a tantrum we want something, like a kid screaming for a toy. When we have a meltdown it's the opposite. We want to get rid of something - usually a buildup of tension caused by an overloading of our nervous system related to sensory hypo- or hyper-stimulation, social demands, confusion, insecurity, anxiety, exhaustion, executive dysfunction, change in routine, helplessness, etc. There's nothing that we want, other than wanting that pressure to be purged. It's an involuntary act rather than a choice. Yes, crying can be involved because that's one way the body rids itself of excess emotion.

What makes a crisis a crisis?

Violence and you don't know why.
And nothing can help you get rid of it or shorten this crisis.
But all you have to do is avoid things that can make the crisis worse and trying to put yourself and others in safety.