Autistic Meltdown

Meltdowns, shutdowns and burnout are all responses to over stimulation that are typically seen in autistic people. While I can't say I've personally experienced all 3 of these responses I've gathered enough information through research and the online autistic community to hopefully be able to accurately explain each one in an informative and helpful way. I was planning to cover all 3 of them in this post but while writing I realised that I had quite a lot to say about just meltdowns alone, so I thought I should leave shutdowns and burnout for another time - probably next week and/or the week after.

Meltdowns are probably the most commonly observed of the 3 from an outside or neurotypical perspective, and most people who see autistic meltdowns in children will mistake them for just childish tantrums. In reality though, they're far from it. A meltdown can occur in autistic children and adults alike, and not all autistic people experience them - I for example have never had one as far as I know. A meltdown is when the person's senses are overloaded from any external stimuli that they may be hyper sensitive to. This stimuli triggers the fight or flight response causing a need for the person to urgently get away to somewhere they can recover (flight), or it causes an outburst that can present itself in many different forms such as screaming, crying, hitting/kicking, self harm and more. Just as a point of reference there's a scene in Atypical on Netflix where Sam (the autistic main character) tries to flee from a situation to avoid a meltdown, but he can't escape it and ends up having a meltdown on the bus home. It's a difficult scene to watch but I think it makes a valid point in that meltdowns can happen anywhere and any time to autistics of any age and it gives an idea of what a meltdown might look like, although each person's meltdowns will be different.

Going back for a minute to meltdowns often being mistaken for tantrums, I think it's important to explain the difference. A tantrum is a behaviour carried out by children (usually when they don't get their own way) and is their way of displaying that they're unhappy with what's happening. A meltdown is an involuntary loss of emotional control in response to an external stimuli that the person is hypersensitive to, such as bright lights or loud noises for example. A meltdown does not mean that the person is a naughty child or a bad person, it's just their body's way of coping with the over stimulation by either fleeing to safety and/or physically expending the energy built up for the fight or flight response. It's also worth noting the wording I used a moment ago where I said it's a loss of control rather than a lack of control. It's not something that the person can help, it's not permanent and it also doesn't mean that they generally can't control their own actions.

I want to mention a few safety tips for both the person having a meltdown, and anybody that may be with them and/or looking after them. First of all for the person melting down, if you're going to be in a situation where you think a meltdown might happen please do what you can to avoid any hazards. For example, try to keep yourself away from any objects that might harm you or any height that you might fall from. Try to surround yourself with people who understand when you're melting down and what they can do to help you when you do. If you find yourself punching, kicking, headbutting or anything like that during a meltdown please try to do it into something soft that's not going to harm you like a pillow, and again try to distance yourself from objects that you could use for self harm.

Now, for any person who may be with the autistic person when they meltdown. Please do your best to make sure they stick to the safety advice above by removing any hazards or asking for help from other people if you need it/if it's available. Other than that the best thing you can do is stay with them to keep them safe, but at the same time leave them to it to get it all out of their system. When the meltdown is over the person will most likely be exhausted and upset, and depending on the person it can take anything up to a few days for them to fully recover. While you're helping them try to keep communication to a minimum by using short, direct phrases as they won't feel like talking much. For example if you want to offer them a drink, just asking "Drink?" would be far better than chatting unnecessarily. They can then just answer yes or no and still be as comfortable as they can be. Above all else, the person will just need to feel supported so do what you can in each situation to ensure that for them.

So that's a brief overview on meltdowns. As I've never had a meltdown myself I hope that I've used the information I've gathered to put together a helpful post for anybody interested or experiencing it. If there's anything I've missed or got wrong please feel free to share and discuss in the comments. I'll cover burnout and shutdown in a later post so stay tuned!