Meltdowns

I'm male and can relate to what is being said in this thread. I have meltdowns that result in me crying, and leave me feeling with a mixture of helplessness, anxiety, anger and low self-esteem.

Wow that is ridiculous. Why didn't they refer you? That seems so cruel to diagnose you with it and not offer you any appropriate treatment. Did you not get offered anything with the ASD diagnosis? I got offered support groups for newly diagnosed adults which I initially scoffed at but think I will take up now as I am struggling to cope and something is better than nothing. It is so hard to adjust to the idea that rather than having a mental illness that can be treated and 'fixed' there is something that is wrong with me... but isn't wrong with me as well. Something that is in part a disability but in part something fundamental to who I am as a person the characteristics of which I take pride in. But either way, it can't be fixed and the anxiety that comes with it is likely to be permanent. That's a bitter pill to swallow. 

I technically still have the BPD diagnosis. Not really sure how I get it reassessed or removed.... The autism assessor said he has nothing to do with the mental health side of things, he's only interested in assessing and diagnosing autism, but did agree that I don't come across as very BPD to him. I've been asking for DBT for over 5 years since getting my BPD diagnosis, but it's really hard to get on the NHS, at least in my area. I can see how it would be really useful for autism as well though, especially the module on interpersonal effectiveness. I could really do with learning some of that! 

As a woman in her 30s also just diagnosed with aspergers I can relate to everything you’ve written here! I also thought I just couldn’t handle life and would cry unconsolably thinking I was just a pathetic excuse for a human but yes, I think I do have melt downs they just don’t look like your sterotypical autism meltdown!

Also apparently DBT works quite well for autistic people as well, which makes sense I guess 

Oh maybe it was icd11. I don't know but it was only a month ago. Yeah I have mixed feelings about aspergers /ASD. On one hand I feel ASD is more accurate and emphasises that it is a multi faceted spectrum not just whether you are smart or not, but on the other hand it is easier to find resources more relevant to me if I search for aspergers. It is interesting about the mistaken diagnosis. A lot of my friends have either bpd or an ASD (oddly a lot of us have found out at around the same time) and there does seem to be a lot of crossover. Does the bpd get erased from your record now or do you still officially have it? I just got through women and girls with autism spectrum disorder by Sarah Hendrickx. The author herself didn't realise she was autistic and had even written a book with her autistic husband about being in an NT/AS relationship. That book has helped me make a lot of sense of it. 

Yeh I had never realised that uncontrollable crying could be autism-related until I was going through the assessment process. I knew that other people didn't do it (particularly in the kind of situations that often trigger it in me, and often in public places which I've always found really embarrassing), but I always just assumed it was anxiety/depression/me being pathetic and having no self-control.

Yes I agree, some of the regional ones are really useful! And there does seem to be NHS support in some regions too, but not in mine which is frustrating. Aspergers disappears in the ICD11 I think (which follows the American DSM-5 that I was diagnosed with and which the NHS also use), so if your diagnosis was pre-2018 then that will be why it's Aspergers. I was told that it's fine to use whatever term you're comfortable with anyway (I think I would identify with Aspergers even though my diagnosis is technically ASD). Funnily enough I was diagnosed with BPD about 5 years ago, but now feel this is inaccurate and that it's been autism all along. There are quite a lot of overlapping symptoms and I think they can present very similarly, particularly in women.

I sometimes bite my arm as well, or scratch myself. Very frustrating as this is a new behaviour that has only emerged in the past 3 years.

Thank you. I've will hunt those out this week. So much of the literature is tailored to men and I just find it so hard to relate to as I do not present in a male way at all (apart from maybe externalising my anger a bit) I love reading fiction and view social interaction as kind of a fun and interesting game! I am now aware this is not how most people feel about it! Haha. 

Thank you. I appreciate that. Weirdly I seem to find that sometimes these regional NHS departments seem to have better information than the main NHS website. I was totally baffled by the fact that the NHS website says that Aspergers isn't a diagnosis that is given anymore when it says it right on my report and when I googled it found that the ICD10 is the most commonly used manual and it is on there. I digress. 

What I meant to say there was thank you! I'm in my 30s and I had honestly never suspected that I was on the spectrum despite puzzling for several years over which mental health diagnosis most fit me (a cross between BPD and OCD without ever meeting enough criteria for either) so this is all a lot to take in! I'm still not entirely sure what autism means, whether I'm really masking even though it feels natural and which bits of me are me! 

This blog has some great articles: https://spectra.blog/

You may find this one on meltdowns useful: https://spectra.blog/news-views/autistic-meltdown-or-neural-high-jacking-what-is-meltdown-how-can-outsiders-deal-with-it-empathetically-and-how-do-autists-manage-their-own-meltdowns-asd-asc/

I've also had the uncontrollable crying. Usually burry my face in my duvet to muffle it. If really bad I'll bite my arm I cant really feel it and not sure why I do it. It's not regular thing

Thank you for that link, it's a really helpful leaflet. I definitely do the shutdown thing and only occasionally complete meltdown. Meltdown is usually a result of not being able to shutdown and self-regulate. I have previously thought the uncontrollable crying was just related to my depression but I'm now re-thinking this. 

meltdowns can also be described as shutdowns - what you describe sounds fairly common to a lot of us. My most common version is monosyllabic grunting and inability to describe what the issue is, whilst inside winding myself up into a frenzy

good books for women:

"nerdy shy and socially inappropriate" - Cynthia Kim - also her website https://musingsofanaspie.com/ - bit on meltdowns: https://musingsofanaspie.com/?s=meltdown, also shutdown: https://musingsofanaspie.com/tag/shutdown/

"odd girl out" - laura james

"aspergirls" - rudy simone

I have crying spells with rocking when on my own but in stressful public situations just been diagnosed with underling autistic traits scored 33 on aspergers scale testing baseline was 37 so my care team never bothered but yes I do have tears and intense anger and don't have many friends or trust people I have other mental health issues as well  dandylion

It's interesting to read about your experience because I've had these kind of meltdowns where you break down in uncontrollable tears for most of my life and only very recently realised they could be related to autism (I'm also a woman who's recently been diagnosed in my 20s).

The best information I've found on it so far is this: https://www.autismwestmidlands.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Meltdown_shutdown.pdf 

The site actually has quite a few different information leaflets that are aimed at adults with the diagnosis and their friends and families (I totally hear your frustration about most of the resources out there being for children/teens and their parents as well, as I've found the same in my searches).