The term meltdown - does it cause offence?

I’ve been told that the term meltdown ought not to be used because it’s offensive and the term sensory overload should be used instead.

To my mind sensory overload and meltdowns are two different things. I have suffered sensory overload today but I didn't have a meltdown, I left the overstimulating environment for a quieter environment to recover. I do believe though that prolonged sensory overload will usually result in a meltdown.

I don't think this is coming from the autistic population, I could however imagine parents saying it.

I do find it offensive when neurotypicals use it to describe being angry/upset/frustrated because it diminishes its meaning to what we experience as a meltdown.

What do you think?

  • The problem with the term meltdown is that it means different things to different people and they fail to see the difference between a meltdown in someone autistic and someone who isn't.

    A workplace is not a good place for an autistic person to have a meltdown.  Managers do not understand. They see it as bad behaviour.They will not think that processes at work are causing it and that removing the cause is a better action than discipline and that occasional meltdowns are a curse that autistic people have. They think disciplinary action will cure it. But it won't. My meltdowns at work have been caused by no one listening to my concerns, when things get so bad that my mind will not function rationally, when I am goaded and coerced into doing things that do not fit in with the way I think. This is the cause and effect. Remove this overload and the meltdown will not happen.

    The more I try to suppress a meltdown the worse it becomes. But trying to tell a manager that it is their behaviour that is often the cause is not taken well by them.  After a recent meltdown at  work the manager wanted to put me on a 'behaviour plan, which I contested on the grounds that having a meltdown was a consequence of being autistic and that it should be more of an understanding of what leads to a meltdown than a behavioural issue.  I also asked what risk assessment they had as regards my autism, their reply seemed to indicate there wasn't one. (It is a duty of any employer to have a risk assessment for anyone who is classed as disabled and this should also be available to the disabled person)

    I am now waiting to see what is drawn up and I have asked for meaningful consultation. But there is no way I will sign any behaviour agreement, anymore than someone with a physical abnormality should sign an agreement to keep it covered up as it might distress others.

    I am also finding my meltdowns mare getting more severe in their intensity. A lot of articles on autism seem to suggest that autism 'wears off ' (for want of a better term) with age and the symptoms get milder.  This is not my experience at all, if anything I  become more affected and more misunderstandings occur.  I think more study needs to be done of autism into old age, the problem is that far fewer senior citizens have been diagnosed since autism only came to prominence in the 1990s.

  • I think you have a good point there Matt. I have unfortunately had a meltdown on a plane and had to be let off (a long story, but prolonged sensory overload, then chaos capped off by a wailing child) .... anyway, I had no control over it and I suspect the people around me thought it was a 40-something woman either throwing a massive tantrum or having some kind of breakdown. Personally I am not uncomfortable with meltdown; tantrum on the other hand would have implied I was just doing it for effect, which is absolutely not the case. 

  • I would agree that meltdown and sensory overload in my mind are two different things.

    Sensory Overload is being overwhelmed by incoming external stimuli, someone might need to go somewhere quiet, shut their eyes and zone out, or cover their ears, put on music do drown something out etc. but it's nothing more than that.

    A Meltdown to me is an outward expression of a loss of control, someone is no longer able to control their emotions and so explodes outwardly in various ways (aggression, screaming, etc.).

    I agree with you that it probably comes from parents, they may feel that meltdown (a collapse or breakdown or emotional control) or tantrum (an uncontrolled outburst of anger and frustration) are seen by some as pejorative. My view would be that meltdown is a perfectly acceptable term, tantrum is often associated with toddlers, or used to describe adults behaving like children and is used in a pejorative sense when it's subject is not a child.

  • The term itself does not make sense. It suggests a comedown rather than an escalation of frustrated behaviour. Makes me wonder how the term came to be.

  • I agree that sensory overload isn't the same as a meltdown, although the first can lead to the second, if it's not possible to get away from the source of overload, or tune it out in some way, e.g. closing eyes or listening to music through headphones.

    Calling a meltdown "sensory overload" makes it sound less worrying, perhaps. I think that could actually be more offensive, if it makes light of the situation.

  • What clever bodies we have that open the taps to help us sweat it out and cool down.

    I understand that more now ... I used to hate my body for "doing this to me" when my counsellor told me years ago that it is a good thing and without it I would probably die, I couldn't make sense of it. Obviously I didn't know the root cause of it and quite often I was confronting this sort of situation which triggered sweating.

    I was quite active within my church at the time so I have put myself through loads of social interaction crowded places etc. 

    My goal and dream was to stop sweating!! Specially that at some point I was accused of taking drugs, I started sweat badly in the middle of the sermon ... so badly that after the sermon I was taken a side. Although I didn't know what just happened I've managed to explain myself ... 

    It was like wishes circle something triggered sweating but after that my attitude towards it was triggering even more sweating ... sometimes I felt like I'll collapse and die. 

    Problem was because I knew that in certain situation I find it very difficult I was trying to prove it wrong and instead step back I was putting myself through more. 

  • Maybe you are Jan84. That’s what happens to me. I get overheated, meaning my stress levels rise and everything else in my body seems to rise with it including my indoor heating element. What clever bodies we have that open the taps to help us sweat it out and cool down. I was in the supermarket yesterday, talking on the phone to my mum and I said to my Mum, I’ve got to go now, I can feel my body getting hot, I know what’s coming if I don’t change what I’m doing ~ a meltdown. So I got off the phone, did a bit of deep breathing, relaxed, and I was good to go. I finished my ridiculously over priced shopping haul (because I was hungry) came home, nibbled at the food and left most of it to put in the bin today! Such as life :-) 

  • Don’t have much experience but I can relate to the term as sometimes when I feel overwhelmed, overloaded ... to be honest I don’t know what really happens I sweat ... and I sweat badly it is like open tap, water drips everywhere. It feels like I’m melting. 

  • Me to but had never understood why I suddenly reacted this way, A sudden loud noise or just lately certain sounds not so loud( Hyperacusis) feels like a massive over powering sensation that grips me and my whole body cringes, I react angrily for a second, I don’t really say or do anything as it is a fraction of a second thing, 

    I have only really shut down once that I can say for sure and that was recently, it was when a work colleague raised his voice and told me I had no right to talk about autism or say I was until I had been formerly diagnosed. It overwhelmed me as I have a lot of respect for him and considered him to be a kind man and a work friend. I couldn’t talk straight after, I was shaking, my vision blurred, I couldn’t orientate myself,I tried to write my diary for work but my hand wouldn’t move, I had lost the connection between my hand and brain. I eventually left the office in a daze, got in my van, sat a while, started driving and cried out loud and screamed, I had tears running down my face and I was lost within my mind, it took me many hours to settle down once I got home.

    x()x

  • I did a poll on another site 70 Autistic people responded. 3 said in the wrong context it’s offensive, 3 said they didn’t know and 64 said no, they don’t find it offensive.  The idea that is offensive is unheard of in my community which makes me vbelive that people are taking offence on our behalf.  I find that offensive.  I totally agree with being careful with language something said in the wrong way has caused wars

  • I don't find it offensive... but I don't like the term.

  • I don't find it offensive... but I don't like the term.  I always think of it in terms of other colloquialisms that get used: 'going mental', 'going loopy',  'throwing a wobbly'.  I suppose it's because you often hear people using it in that colloquial sense when talking about kids having temper-tantrums: 'She had a right meltdown this morning.' (Actually, there was a news item sometime last year, about the mother of an autistic child who took a supermarket to task for selling a kids t-shirt that said 'I'm just having a meltdown!'  She argued that it demeaned the term as it applied to autism).

    It's a personal thing, though, and I know everyone won't agree.  I admit that I'm quite sensitive to language like that.

    Further to this, though - I work in autism care, where we also don't generally use the term 'meltdown'.  Usually, we refer to 'incidents', or something similar, when doing incident reports.  We also have to be very careful with the type of language we use to describe behaviours, etc, because of the risk of making assumptions about what triggered the behaviour, and its intentions.  The language needs to be as neutral as possible.  This might all sound like nit-picking, but I think it's good if we can make progress towards using a more appropriate type of language - especially in autism care, where it's very easy (for the uninitiated) to make assumptions and judgments because they aren't fully understanding the behaviours.

    Incidentally, I recently had training in handling epilepsy - given by an epileptic.  Someone mentioned 'fits', and the instructor said she preferred the term 'seizure', which is fair enough.  But then I piped up and said 'Would you describe it as a kind of short circuit?'  She definitely didn't like that!

  • I had meltdowns at my previous workplace because of impossible social and conflict situations that I was put into on purpose by my colleagues and that I just couldn't handle, because I wasn't allowed to do anything about the way the others were treating me or else I'd be criticised for standing up for myself. Then when I eventually reached my limit and had a meltdown, I was criticised for that as well. It had nothing to do with sensory overload. When I do experience sensory overload, I shut down or withdraw. I don't think I've ever had a meltdown from sensory overload, though loud sudden noises make me really angry but only for a second.

  • Yeah, when you know what you’re dealing with you can do things to prevent it all come crashing down.

  • I use the same tactic.  I was at work this morning and i suffered sensory overload, I could feel my life-force draining from me, so I left the overstimulating environment and returned to my quiet less stimulating environment to recover.

  • I agree with what you have said. I get sensory overload that might lead to a meltdown but I can have a meltdown without sensory overload. I like the term meltdown, it’s very helpful to me because prior to my diagnosis, I was thought to be angry/upset/frustrated etc where as now I know it’s none of those things, it’s a meltdown and there are certain things I can do to either prevent the meltdown, help me through it or help me recover after it. It helps me a great deal in fact and I like sensory overload to be different as I need to approach that in a different way. For example if I know that my senses are particularly heightened and that any noise will distress me, I keep away from noise, etc.