Home Mind and Body Wellbeing

Meltdown, Shutdown & Flooding Support

2»

Comments

  • HylianHylian Citizen, Mentor

    I also don't notice what I'm feeling in the moment and will realize after reflecting later, when I pick apart everything that happened.

    All negative emotions feel almost the exact same to me, and all positive emotions feel the same. Due to that I usually can't tell whether I'm angry or sad when something bad happens, and will just say I'm "upset", but later after thinking about the context I can kind of infer a bit as to what I was feeling and what kind of angry/sad I am.

    I still don't often know how to explain and express those specific feelings to other people though.

  • SheldonSheldon Citizen
    edited October 2020

    It is easy to say what I **don't **experience, these days.
    -Loneliness
    -Guilt
    -Jealousy
    -Judgmental
    -Horrified
    -Inferior
    -Isolated
    -Disillusioned
    -Shocked
    -Pressured
    -Inadequate
    -Insignificant
    -Bitter
    -Distant
    -Depressed
    -Despair
    -Proud
    -Courageous
    -Dismay
    -Bored
    -Insecure
    -Weak
    -Nervous

  • IsabellaIsabella Citizen
    edited October 2020

    Warning: I'm off my antidepressant again briefly, which seems to cause an unexpected meltdown within a week. Please call me out if you see this happening or I seem to flood.

  • TemTem Citizen

    @Hylian said:

    @Isabella said:

    This is called a Feelings Wheel. It's from therapy today. We talked about Emotional Flooding and the difficulty it poses for people with Alexithymia who can't name or understand their feelings in the first place. I think I'm stuck in certain colour zones and I'm still working on naming anything beyond the centre core.

    Having a feelings wheel actually seems really useful for Alexithmyia! I wasn't aware those existed.

    The scope of what I can identify seems to extend to some terms in the middle Angry, Bad, and Happy wheels, but that's kind of it. I guess I have a bit of work to do on emotion recognition. lol

    I wonder how many of these specific emotions people without Alexithmyia are supposed to be able to recognize? There's so many listed.

    You are not meant to identify every emotion and feeling there is and there are other wheels you can look at. You can google them and see what feels like it fits with you.
    I like the really simple ones.

  • IsabellaIsabella Citizen
    edited March 2021
    I had a major public meltdown today. 

    I was having sensory overload from the time I woke up:   really bad misophonia and intolerance of all noise, worse than normal light sensitivity, and overreaction to basic smells (a piece of toast bothered me).   I made the grievous error of leaving the house where I was bombarded with sensory stimuli at a medical appointment.   Long story short, but one of the staff members pushed all my stress buttons and I lost it. 

    I realise this was my first time interacting with people / society in months, because of Covid.   I've become used to my sensory-controlled environment, although I was even in sensory distress at home today prior to going out. 

    The worst of the meltdown is over and I'm decompressing.  I'm wondering if I should explain to the people concerned that I'm autistic?  I feel badly for my display but they really pushed me over the edge in a number of ways, not just sensory. 

    I have two questions: 

    How do you handle meltdowns, after the fact, if you will need to see the people again? 

    and

    Do you think sensory overload leads to stress, or does underlying stress lead to sensory overload?  (Maybe it's a vicious circle?)


  • MagnaMagna Citizen
    Sorry to hear about your experience, Is.  I have had fear of things like appointments, etc for the same reason of being isolated from them for so long.

    I can only say that the meltdowns I've had have been at home and I apologized to my family afterward.  Thankfully it's been a good number of years since a full blown uncontrollable meltdown.  

    I think that it is a vicious cycle.  I know for a fact that stress makes my sensory sensitivities more acute and that sensory overload causes me stress.

    I hope you feel better soon.  I would personally feel a strong desire to tell the people involved that I was autistic and was overloaded by whatever it was.
  • Thanks, Magna.  

    I'll explain it when I can.  I'm still trying to calm my nervous system.  I've definitely been overloaded with anxiety and sensory input in the past few days.  I was aware of it, and I thought that awareness would be good enough.   Unfortunately, it wasn't.  I think I'm still adjusting to an increase in my ADHD stimulant from last week.  That makes the most sense to me because otherwise, my life is going great. 

    I'll give it a few days and try to talk to the people directly. 




  • BenderBender Citizen
    Isabella said:
    How do you handle meltdowns, after the fact, if you will need to see the people again? 


    I don't really have meltdowns these days, mostly shutdowns, but normally, I would apologise. In your case, I would wait to feel calmer and explain what happened. Given that it's a medical environment, I would mention you're autistic too. Due to the current conditions, even NTs have a short fuse and deteriorating social skills. I just had a coworker complaining that he's "turning into a savage".

    Isabella said:
    Do you think sensory overload leads to stress, or does underlying stress lead to sensory overload?  (Maybe it's a vicious circle?)

    I think it can be either or both and yes, it can become a vicious circle. When I'm stressed, my sensorial tolerance decreases and when I'm overloaded, I get stressed 😁

    Try to not give yourself a hard time over it, as I said, we are all suffering all kind of unfortunate effects due to what life turned into, and being harsh with yourself will only make it worse.

    I hope you rest and recover over the weekend.


  • @Isabella. Thank you so much .  I'm very sure I've experienced a version of 'flooding' . For me it's a non sensory situation in which acute stress and worry causes me to become highly anxious,irrational, paranoid, and verbally volatile. Emotional regulation  completely fails in such a situation . Psych services are basically useless in such a situation.  Using it to portray one as a 'bad' person .  Fortunately being on a regular depot antipsychotic has helped quite a lot. 

    At times I would use as much alcohol as quickly as possible in order to crash out .
  • IsabellaIsabella Citizen
    edited March 2021
    I know floods all too well, @firemonkey.  They say it happens when we experience more than one emotion at a time, especially if we have Alexithymia and can't make sense of the emotions individually or combined.   Most of my floods are Helplessness + __________  (something else).   Perceived helplessness is an emotional trigger for me at the best of times, and when it's compounded with anything else I short-circuit. 

    I'm really grateful I haven't flooded for a few months now.  My psychologist is helping me to track it and look for patterns whether they be hormonal or predictable in some way.    Last year was a disaster for me and with my changing meds I seemed to flood about every 6-8 weeks as you describe above.   I was getting used to ADHD stimulants and I think they hyper-aroused my emotions on top of my normal PTSD / anxiety, etc.    I think I've finally got a handle on the floods and haven't had one since late November.   

    Meltdowns in my opinion and experience are different than flooding because they're almost entirely sensory-based.  I feel my sensory barometer rising and I start to panic, leading to an unavoidable meltdown.   The one I had on Thursday was with a dental hygienist.  I like dentists and have no problem with dental noises etc., but I'd had an accumulation of sensory overload beforehand, and then she said / did some very  unprofessional things including poor Covid precautions and carelessness.  Regardless, I should really explain my ASD and ADHD to the dentist, who I like very much.   She wasn't there on Thursday so I couldn't talk to her directly. 
  • Isabella said:

    Image Link
    Images need to be served over HTTPS to be rendered

    This is called a Feelings Wheel. It's from therapy today. We talked about Emotional Flooding and the difficulty it poses for people with Alexithymia who can't name or understand their feelings in the first place. I think I'm stuck in certain colour zones and I'm still working on naming anything beyond the centre core.

    I love the feelings wheel.
  • Isabella said:
    I know floods all too well, @firemonkey.  They say it happens when we experience more than one emotion at a time, especially if we have Alexithymia and can't make

    sense of the emotions individually or combined.


Sign In or Register to comment.