Your Worst Meltdown?

[Charlotte Antell-Collins]

I get shutdowns too I get crying sessions, every once in a while, I get upset enough to yell

 

[AsheSkyler]

I can only remember one major one.

The first was when I was going to ITT Tech. It was time for lab, and the students were in fine form. A class of about 20 people all talking to each other at the top of their lungs, some of them blasting movies and music from their stations. We were in a very small room, and I was in a corner. So all that noise was amplified at my station. I could not concentrate, it felt like all those sound waves had taken physical form and were bouncing around in my head. It was very painful and I remember being nearly in tears. I didn't really realize I was shutting down, hunched over, and had my hands clamped on my head until the teacher came up behind my unexpectedly and put his hand on my shoulder. I nearly knocked his arm off and I remember snapping something in my growly dog voice. I think it was close to break time right after that and I sat in the cold, quiet hall for the longest before I taking my break.

There was another incident where the stress of being the one to get the money, pay the bills, cook supper, clean house, tend the kid, run a business, and deal with the %$&^#*@^@&$*$& DMV that had screwed us over to the point all that stress on me in the first place ended up with me behind three locked doors into a dark, quiet closet for over two hours so I wouldn't have an explosive snap on my husband and kid.

All the other incidents I can remember were just shut downs where I was being put through so much verbal and emotional abuse I'd just shut my emotions down and go numb for a while. Stare straight ahead, couldn't talk, some flat monotone if I could talk at all. It was really scary when at first when it happened almost all the time when I was a young teen, it's like a switch would turn off and I was this very cold, very logical robot, and I had a callous side I didn't care to hide anymore. Now I can control them enough not to verbally slice somebody to the bone in return. It's a bit of a relief when they come on, but I dread it still because it means I'm put through a LOT of pain to get there in the first place.

 

[Shawn D]

When I was 19, I was living in my grandparents' basement. To say I was going through a rough patch in life would be an understatement. I was into drugs, drinking and general "crazy" behavior. My friend's pit bull had Pit/Rottweiler puppies and I picked one out and named him Gizmo. My grandparents didn't know I had him. I would leave him in the basement with food and water, but nowhere to potty. He went everwhere. I came home one afternoon and my grandma had discovered Gizmo and we got into a heated argument. She picked him up and said she was taking him back where I got him. I tried to grab him from her and she resisted, pulling Gizmo from my grasp. It escalated to the point where I was screaming at her not to take him, crying and then I started punching the wall over and over again. I put a hole through it and I'm pretty sure I broke my hand. My grandma, who I succeeded in scaring half-to-death, high-tailed it out of there with Gizmo and left me to my hysteria. That wasn't my first time punching a wall, but it was by far my most intense meltdown.
I haven't had a meltdown like that in over a decade, but I did have a mini one two nights ago when I was talking to my husband about yet another communication issue and I ended up repeatedly hitting myself in the head and screaming. Scared him half-to-death. That man is a Saint.

 

[Laughingowl1975]

The worst one I can clearly remember happen a month ago, it was a busy day at work, I could not keep up, it was crowded, pouring with rain, very noisy and I was tired, felt useless and was convinced the boss was after me and it just overwhelmed me. I suddenly just lost it and I remember going downstairs and ringing a crisis line and telling them hysterically that I was going to kill myself or someone and began punching myself in the face hard enough to knock my glasses off and bruise my mouth as well as hitting my head against the wall and swearing. I suddenly calmed down and just hung up on the poor woman on the phone and just went back to work feeling sore, depressed and stupid.

 

[ExplosiveTMT]

My worst one happened one day at my old primary school a few years ago. I had gotten upset about something in my classroom, and stormed off to the library, which was my usual place to calm down and get away from the things that were triggering my anxiety.
So I got there, sat down and after about a few minutes or so, kids started peering in through the library windows. Then they started mocking me, name calling, finger gestures at me through the windows, all kinds of bad things.
At that point I completely lost it.
Library books got torn up, shelves were tipped over and I broke a couple of windows.
Of all the things I wish I had never done in my life, that would have to be at the top of my list. :-/

 

[I am Matt]

For me when I get angry, I'm either gonna explode and then cry, cry, cry after I'm done or I will cry for a while and then explode for making me cry. I am not truly angry if I do not cry after and I am not gonna cry over what someone did without going off.

One time my brother and the neighbor who was being babysat kept messing with me by throwing stuff at me and putting things on my head and I kept saying "don't do it" until I finally threw down the neighbor and tried to tackle my brother. I then proceeded to cry while breaking their things. This happened before my worst time.

My worst time was in 4th grade and our teacher finally officially let us bring our games to class on 2 days a week because me and another student kept breaking her "no games rule" until she said I will okay it for everyone if you agree to only tuesday and friday. In 4th grade I wasn't so cautious of my stuff so I thought it would be alright to not have to watch my backpack on tuesday. My brand new game goes missing. Friday comes around and another student who never has new games suddenly has a new game that he never mentioned on wednesday or thursday. I immediately assume that he must have stolen my game and I wait until he isn't looking and steal my game back. When it was time to leave, he tells the teacher that his game is missing and she would not let us leave until it was found. I admit to it, but say that it was my game. We go back and forth and she keeps telling me that I have to give it back to him and I'm starting to get angry because this guy is lying. Other kids start saying to give it back so we can all leave and I just start crying right there with everyone watching. After a few minutes of crying the teacher asks me again to please give it back and I proceed to repeatedly punch this asshole kid in the face until he admits that he ended up saying that yes, he did steal it from me on tuesday. The teacher must have spoke up for me to the principal because I got off with a call home and 1 day of in school suspension.

TL;DR: If you can upset me enough to make cry, you better disappear quickly.

 

[Syfmsl]

It's rare for me to have meltdowns, i had a lot when i was a kid, were i badly hurt others and myself, but i think the worst which my mom told was when i "destroyed" a classroom in school.

 

[DogwoodTree]

I've never written or told anyone about this before, except the people who were involved.

I was doing some counseling with my pastors. At one of the first meetings, before they had much idea at all of how serious everything was, they kept encouraging me during the session to just express whatever I felt inside, even if it didn't seem "normal" or "okay". I think they expected me to yell or cuss or something. I told them this was a bad idea, and I kept trying to bring the emotions to the surface without losing control completely. Didn't work. I ran out, went to a store and got some alcohol, and went hiking and got more drunk than I've ever been in my life. I was imploding inside, and didn't have any clue how to stop it or control it other than completely shut myself down, no matter the consequences. And that's huge for me because I'm always highly conscientious of consequences. I passed out in the woods, away from any trails, and woke up just before sunset. I found my way back to my vehicle, and called my pastors for help. They came and got me and let me sleep it off at one of their houses.

Like others, I don't have meltdowns very often. Growing up, it was too dangerous to be emotional about anything. I do have shutdowns very often, though, sometimes completely unpredictably, like not triggered by anything I can pin down. I think the shutdowns are much safer, lol.

 

[Judge]

Like others, I don't have meltdowns very often. Growing up, it was too dangerous to be emotional about anything. I do have shutdowns very often, though, sometimes completely unpredictably, like not triggered by anything I can pin down. I think the shutdowns are much safer, lol.

Couldn't agree more. Shutdowns allow me to regenerate and reenter the world in a somewhat better way.

Meltdowns have always come with severe consequences for me.

 

[Charlotte Antell-Collins]

Same here Judge

 

[Aspieashken]

It happens around how "things should be", especially if it's something I was taught is supposed to be done a certain way etc. I'll just implode, I've learned not to outburst but holding it in is worse cuz after I get dissapointed it takes days for it to go away. I can't just snap out of it and i HATE that. Mine happen when I'm under alot of stress, Worst was I told off my best friend, (my only friend) all the things that had upset me that she did or said over the years every little thing, soon after she broke off the friendship of 25 years and she never spoke to me again. I didn't have a new friend for 10 years-

 

[Arlais]

A kid (well, teenager) of a family friend was over at the in-law's place and kept repeatedly taking my hat off my head and refusing to give it back, despite me asking him not to remove my hat many times (I'm very attached to my hat).

Then, I'd finally had enough so when he went to grab it again, I moved to stop him, which caused me to knock my hot cup of tea all over myself and the table at which we were seated.

I'm ashamed to admit I then went into a very angry rage and cussed the kid out, his parents out, everybody else around the table. I was, at this point, heavily restrained and bundled off upstairs whilst screaming about getting revenge on everyone.

The in-laws are no longer friends with this family, and I'm partly to blame.

 

[Graelwyn]

I have frequent meltdowns, and they are usually full of rage. It is as if some sort of pressure cooker explodes inside me, and because of a history of tending to be blamed, criticised and generally put down, and having absorbed all of that, I seem to now attack myself with almost every meltdown. For a period, it was walls and throwing things, followed by tears. Now, I mostly punch myself and I have lost count of the times I have had to face the world with a black eye and/or bruised, swollen face. I am trying to figure out some way to not do this.

On occasions, when overwhelmed in a busy, noise and large place, I have simply frozen and felt intense anger and panic building up inside. This happens when I lose sight of whoever I am with too.

~Feeling that I have no voice is another major trigger... you know, trying to talk about something and basically being told they don't want to hear it, or being blown off etc. That really, really enrages me. It is like a burning hot furnace suddenly lights inside and I feel so small.

Sometimes, I just have attacks of crying where I just cry for 1-2 hours solidly and end up exhausted afterwards.

My theory is that I simply do not notice tensions building up in me, all the little things through the day that add up, that I perhaps push aside at the time, and it just all erupts once I am back home in the silence, alone with the thoughts.

I also tend to meltdown very badly when criticised or if I feel cornered by someone.

My mother's reaction when she sees the evidence of bruises is, 'Haven't you grown out of that yet?'

 

[Zjezdzaj]

I tend more towards shutdowns than meltdowns but I used to have lots of temper meltdowns during my teens and they could be triggered by something so simply as a word I didn’t like being uttered in relation to me. One time a guy said this one word I used to hate and I had such a bad meltdown I screamed and cried and threw a bunch of hardcover folders at his head, before running off locking myself in the bathroom where I beat up the sink.

Probably not the wost one I've had but the one right of the top of my head.

 

[Warmheart]

For survival's sake in the household I grew up in, my meltdowns had to go internal (shutdowns). My temperament is soft anyway, so I tend toward shutdowns rather than meltdowns. The wacky hormones of adolescence let slip a few meltdowns. Menopause is making me feel more meltdown-y(?). The worst meltdowns have always been in a medical setting, with tactile sensory overload, triggers, restraint, doc/nurse getting annoyed, verbally demanding things of me too quickly. KA-BOOM!

Whoa. Cali Cat brought up a great point, having a diagnosis helps. I went into a trigger situation in the ER last week. This time, I told them: "I am verbal now, but I am autistic. I lose speech when stressed, and this exam can be a trigger for me. It helps if you give me time to answer your questions before asking the next one, if you ask before touching me, and if you give me some space during my exam." HUGE help! Easy exam. No Ka-Boom! But, I need to get a card made up, as I could've ended up non-verbal right at the start, before having a chance to fill them in. D'oh!

 

[Smart Shelly]

I think my father triggered my first one in teenage hood.
It comes as a full blown panic attack when someone I'm in love with rejects me.
In case anyone had panic attack, it's HORRIBLE. I can't even think clearly unless I have ativan right then.

 

[Progster]

I was living with my mum temporarily, and I don't do very well living in someone else's house. My mum has everything on loud - the TV and radio and this was getting to me, especially the radio, so tension had been building up for some time, Then one morning I'd been expecting to go out somewhere with my mum, we'd been planning it for a while and she announced that she wasn't going. I was devastated and suddenly a wall of emotion hit me and I went to my room and started crying and rolled up into a ball. My mum tried to talk to me but it was too soon, I couldn't speak, so she started to get worried and called the doctor. I then told her that I didn't want to go to the doctor, so she arranged to have the doctor come to the house. The doctor told her she would come a bit later on. Later I started to recover and speak more calmly again, and we agreed to make an appointment to visit the doctor. I don't think that this meltdown was particularly severe, what made it really bad was my mum and sister's reaction to it - it's now in my medical records, but if they'd just left me alone I would have recovered on my own after an hour or so.

 

[karl]

It was probably the one last summer when I had already had 4 in one day and then my fiance snapped one of those pop rocks a few feet away from me.... I screamed because I was so damned frustrated. I didn't even hit myself (If someone is being immature enough to give me a guilt trip, that's when I do that the most. It's my way of saying "well, I deserve to be slapped I guess, so no one wanted to do that, so I'll save you the trouble" and I know that sounds concerning but do you really give a damn about anything when you're having a meltdown? Absolutely not. Or at least I don't!) that time. I just... screamed. Then I smiled briefly because screaming felt good, and then ran to my room because he said "wow, you're overreacting." and I cried really hard for about half an hour.

And he's ignorant, apparently! If he hasn't figured my patterns out by now do I need to draw a damn map? SHEESH!!!!! Next month will be 7 years together.... figure me out! LOL!

Just read this about your other half mine.is the same how dI'd you/have you over come this

 

[anne.bc]

Just read this about your other half mine.is the same how dI'd you/have you over come this

We actually broke up four months ago... Lol

The summer this happened was probably 2012, and I just gradually have had less meltdowns since then. Like I had a TINY one earlier this year I think but I don't tell anyone because otherwise I have gone about a year since the one before. I just hate having meltdowns so I've been trying to remind myself that no one is perfect and not all will understand me, so this is where Frozen's "Let It Go" reminds me "conceal, don't feel" lol it's actually good advice!

So basically I grew up or something...I have noticed that Aspies have to essentially grow up/ mature twice. The way everyone else does, and then I fixed some of my Aspie flaws that my life would be more efficient without.

 

[karl]

I always think that I like that song lol sorry to hear about the.break up me and my.gf sam boat but together for 4 so far