The First-Person Guide to Autistic Meltdown

I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not a parent of an autistic child. I can only speak from my firsthand experience with an occurrence that is not unique to me, but left mostly untold.

Photo by Stefano Pollio on Unsplash

When professional support may not be as accessible or inclusive as it needs to be, the growing presence of the #actuallyautistic community online can be a godsend. While autistic adults, women, or anyone who isn’t the embodiment of Rain Man or Sheldon Cooper slip through the cracks when it comes to diagnosis and guidance, the diverse voices of fellow autistics rise to say we aren’t alone and we have each other’s backs. After drifting through two decades of confusion, self-hatred, shame, and internalised ableism (some of the realities undiagnosed autism), I can finally breathe. I can exhale this inner-turmoil with the affirmation that I am not, and never was, a broken neurotypical, I’ve just been autistic all this time. That is one hell of a plot twist.

As a creature of habit, there is a long, prodigious road of reconsidering each trait you once resented as defective and accepting it as an integral part of your neurological makeup. The journey down this road is as enlightening as it is frustrating.

One untrod stone of this road is the inevitable meltdown that no one wants to talk about in detail. Well, perhaps not entirely untrod, for there is an abundance of information out there on what meltdowns are and how they happen. Although knowing how these pesky occurrences work isn’t going to stop them happening completely, for me, this knowledge eased the burdens of shame and confusion that come with meltdowns. The enigmatic boogieman in my head is knocked down a few pegs if I can see him for the medical jargon (specifically, a psychological shutdown due to over-stimulation) that he is.

That being said, with this article, I cannot promise a life hack that will overcome all meltdowns, nor do I believe that is a realistic goal to hold yourself to. Instead, what I do wish to share with you is something that is lacking from the internet. On several occasions, usually while in critical levels of sensory overload, I have spent my final drop of rationality to search for some online advice: “How do you deal with autistic meltdowns?” I will summarise my findings, mostly from the websites of autism charities:

• Distinguish between a meltdown and a tantrum.
• Remind the person having a meltdown (interchangeably refereed to as “your child”) to breathe.
• Remove all tools that the meltdown-haver could use to harm themselves with.
• Ask them if they’re okay.
• Don’t judge. Be patient.
• Play some chill music until “he/she” calms down.

So, that is the third-person guide that’s out there on how to cope with someone else’s meltdown. Pretty cute, right? In its defence, most of this advice is well-meaning and could benefit some. There’s nothing wrong with equipping neurotypical parents of autistic children with information on how to help during a meltdown.

The question I have is this: why this the only demographic who is advised on how to deal with these tumultuous moments?

Let’s get into the first-person guide to surviving your own meltdown. There is a dilemma with retrospectively analysing a meltdown once you are out of that state. This dilemma may explain why there is so little information on meltdowns from a first-person perspective. During the meltdown, the last thing you want to consider is making a note of how you feel and what is going on in your head. Believe me, living it once is enough without ruminating.

Also, for a lot of us during meltdowns, the most basic attempts at verbal communication seem futile. However, once the meltdown has passed, the vocabulary required put the experience into words becomes inaccessible. When it comes to venting to a therapist or a trusted friend, the best explanation I can muster is is something along the lines of “that was awful. I’m glad it’s passed.”

To echo a musing of Kurt Vonnegut, perhaps this advice is doomed to be a failure “since it was written by a pillar of salt.”

Perhaps its my alexithymia that renders each emotion an untranslatable language that only I know. Perhaps the words haven’t been invented yet. Perhaps my retrospective pondering risks being dismissive in trying to apply logic to the unreasonable.

“It feels like dropping a watermelon on the pavement on a hot summer day. The bobble, the slip, the momentary suspension of time just before the hard rind ruptures and spills its fruit, sad and messy, suddenly unpalatable. And no one knows whether to clean it up or just walk around it.” — musingsofanaspie, Anatomy of a Meltdown.

Avoiding the Inevitable?

To what extent can meltdowns be avoided? If our brains are wired differently for better or for worse, attempting to “fix” our need to have meltdowns, no matter how ugly they feel, can be as redundant as preventing stimming or sensory sensitivities. Striving for a permanent solution to end all meltdowns would be a fantasy. Chasing this fantasy will only leave you feeling disillusioned and inadequate.

Since accepting meltdowns as a necessary purge of mental overload, I no longer see it as a threat of danger, just a gruelling function my mind and body need. As much as I don’t enjoy getting my period or vomiting if I’m sick, these things happen for a reason. Stifling them would do more harm than letting nature take its course.

As cliché as it sounds, the first step to not making meltdowns harder than they need to be is acceptance. Let go of that internalised grudge against your own neurology. Meltdowns may not be the “norm”. There may not be sufficient professional understanding nor support out there for meltdowns yet. They may be an inconvenience. They may disturb other people (though I guarantee they aren’t as uncomfortable as the person having the meltdown). It may be difficult to communicate your needs to those around you. Nevertheless, none of this is your fault and having meltdowns does not make you a bad person. Harbouring frustration at your inability to fight it away is only going to empower and prolong the meltdown.

If they can’t be avoided, that leaves two more factors that can be somewhat controlled: reduction and preparation.

Reduction

It’s worth being aware of what can commonly cause and contribute to meltdowns:

• Sensory triggers and overload
• Prolonged masking
• Disrupted plans
• Unfamiliarity
• Socialising
• Stress
• Low mood
• Having boundaries overstepped

As an autistic person, being your unmasked self unapologetically goes a long way for your mental health, but doing this 24/7 isn’t always an option. Societies and cultures are structured in a way that caters to neurotypical brain, and if you don’t have one you’d better start pretending you do. Prior to realising I was autistic, I was a big believer in the “fake it until you make it” idiom. However, when “faking it” means suppressing your autistic traits in the hope of “making it” as a neurotypical, it’s only a matter of time before a Molotov cocktail of self-hatred, identity crisis, emotional outbursts, and exhaustion blows up in your face.

When you’ve believed something your whole life, acknowledging it as a lie is only the beginning of purging all the ingrained notions of it from your subconscious. After all, your perception may have changed, but social expectations of you probably haven’t. Therefore, it’s easy for external pressure to eat away at your boundaries and become internalised ableism.

At first, being vocal about your sensory triggers and boundaries can be daunting, especially if it’s with someone you aren’t close to or in a professional environment (work or school) where a stiff upper lip is part of the pizazz. Despite the commercialised rhetoric of “reach out” and “don’t keep your mental problems bottled up”, society still has a long way to go with putting it into practice. Fear of emotional vulnerability is understandable but that doesn’t justify suffering in silence.

The process of opening up can be gradual. You must start with yourself. It’s still a long process, especially if you tend to be hard on yourself. But before I could even consider communicating to loved ones about my state of mind, I had to be honest to myself.

With some introspection, I was able to reclaim the visceral reactions I’d suppressed and replaced with a façade of how I was meant to appear. Once I could see these autistic behaviours for what they were, such as that some sensory triggers cause me physical pain that no amount of exposure therapy can fix, this gave me a new sense of agency. Disregarding all notions of normality, my feelings are my own and no one can convince me I feel otherwise. You can’t control how people react or how supportive they will be. However, being unapologetically upfront with yourself about how you feel cannot be taken away from you. Prior to establishing this honest dialogue with myself, it was too easy to get lost behind my mask and base my identity off what other people wanted. That’s a first-class stamp to a downward spiral.

Also, I have found this sturdy foundation of internal agency keeps me strong when faced with external challenges. Let’s face it, sh*t happens and if disrupted plans, social situations, and negative sensory triggers could be entirely avoided, this article would be a lot shorter. Therefore, when faced with these things, there’s no need to bite your tongue and convince yourself you’re overreacting (you aren’t). Not only do these things suck, but they’re draining. So after a long day of unavoidable exposure, allow yourself to be burnt out if that’s how you feel.

While neurotypicals would get through the day unscathed by these occurrences, we need to stop holding ourselves to neurotypical standards, especially when you’re worn out from doing just that. Denying your feelings and gaslighting yourself into believing you’re not worn down only makes it easier for the meltdown the combust when you’re unprepared.

Preparation

Sometimes meltdowns seem to come out of nowhere. If that’s often the case for you, pay attention to patterns in your behaviour in the “rumble” period. For example, some tell tale signs I’m about to blow are difficulty speaking, feeling and acting spaced out, sudden loss of attention span, irritability, and sounds, lights, and sensation seem amplified. I’m so used to lying to myself at this stage to convince myself I’m fine, my fiancé often picks up on these behaviours before I have any idea I’m spiralling.

In terms of helping yourself, here’s where I drop the classic cop out of “everyone is different”, because it’s true. One autistic’s trigger is another autistic’s stim. So once you’ve established your favourite stims, positive sensory input, and just anything that soothes you, during and after a meltdown is the best time to indulge. Nothing is more therapeutic.

During the meltdown, exposure to negative sensory triggers can make it worse or prolong it. Try to get rid of them before the meltdown gets intense, or ask for help. Dim the lights, eliminate background noises, and change into some non-irritating clothes. As tempting self-injurious stimming can be, keep anything sharp out of reach and replace it with something safe but just as satisfying. If possible, find somewhere comfortable where you would usually feel safe to wait out the meltdown.

Surviving the Meltdown

With all this considered, the bottom line is is to be gentle with yourself. Meltdowns are callous enough on their own. Let it pass on it’s own and give yourself as long as you need to recover. Keep in mind that meltdowns are not a character flaw nor a sign of weakness. The more we are honest with ourselves about how we are, rather than paying lip service for the convenience of neurotypical superficialities, the less daunting are lowest points will be.