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how to recover from meltdowns?

qwerty

I was wondering if people may be able to share their successful experiences of what to do after a meltdown in their workplace? It seems like a lot of people treat you differently after you have had one, or had a few... How do you change things back to before? Or just to treat you like a normal person? 

  • I've never had a meltdown at work that I remember. At home, I need people to leave me alone after a meltdown. We saw a video on the internet that talks about "wearing a clothes peg on your sleeve" as an indicator to your family that they are not to talk to you until you've de-stressed and calmed down, which works surprisingly well for a meltdown. I'll put a clothes peg on my sleeve, and everyone else sees it and is not allowed to talk to me until I take it off. You have to "respect the peg", and we all have an agreement to do that. Of course, I have to do the same if someone else is wearing it.

    I read in I think it was the Dummies Guide to Autism, that one guy (I think he works at NAS iirc) has a flipchart on his desk and he flips it to the number of how he's feeling. 0 is fine, 5 is quite anxious, 10 is end of the world. He has an agreement with his manager that if his stress level ever reaches 9 or 10 he is allowed to immediately go home without saying anything to anyone. I don't think he's ever done it, or maybe once.

    Might be worth looking at what triggered your meltdown and then see how your workplace can alter things to reduce the risk of the trigger happening again - better to prevent than deal with the aftermath. Also, autism education for colleagues can help. My support worker said that her organisation goes into workplaces to do education and workshops with managers and employees where there is someone with autism in the team.

  • I was lucky - I worked at a place with lots of noisy plant rooms and my colleagues were so lazy they rarely left their desks - so I had loads of secluded places I could go and calm down alone without disturbance.