Adults who have destructive meltdowns

I understand why you are feeling this, but there is no reason for us to feel bad or guilty about melt down, albeit often others do not get it and make us feel bad.

You might find Luke Beardon makes sense with this. He has a simple equation: Autism + environment = outcome

Truth is our neurologies overload and need to purge. They must purge irrespective of any conscious intent on our part. Result: meltdown. There is NOTHING you or anyone else can do "manage' them, other than find a safe space (the toilette?) and let them happen.

That said their occurance is NOT inevivtable. They key to minimising the frequency of their occurrence is to identify what is overloading you and triggering them in the first place and then conscript the help of others to mitigate or eliminate those factors from your environment.

But you are NOT to blame.

I was punished for meltdowns too as a kid and I gradually learned I had to suppress them at any cost to my own personal wellbeing. Unfortunately that takes a huge toll on mental health. I've been there with the hiding in toilets throughout my years of school and work.

I've found that in recent years, since my diagnosis, I can no longer suppress them like I used to be able to. The best I can do is run for a safe space before the outburst.

Not all of my meltdowns are destructive but I've had ones where I've broken doors and other things. Sometimes it helps to channel the violence into screaming or crying instead. If you are hurting yourself then you need to try and find alternative outlets if you can. Hurting inanimate objects is better than hurting yourself.

I have a much greater awareness now of what the triggers are than I did when I was younger. I do avoid those triggers wherever I can, unfortunately life circumstances means that's not always possible. When it comes to meltdowns prevention is most definitely better than cure.

This part of being autistic is also hard for me. I don't think my meltdowns are as bad as yours, but I used to feel really bad about them as I couldn't rationalize my behavior. And I usually take pride in acting rationally. And injuring myself during a meltdown made no sense to me and made me feel shameful. Never let others know. Which made me put a lid on the meltdown until I was alone. But similar to a pressure cooker, that also made the meltdown worse. Maybe similar to your "until I burst".

With professional help, I put in practice a lot of things like sensory management, stress reduction techniques, identifying triggers. It helped to have less meltdowns, but in the end I did not find a way to completely accept this part of being autistic (sorry). Apparently self-compassion is the way to go to accept this, but it is easier said than done :/ 

But slowly, despite the shame and the need to put a lid on it, I am trying to allow 'mini-tiny-meltdowns' in friendly company. To my suprise, those people eventually got used to them (not at first, but eventually). Those mini meltdowns don't solve anything but seeing people get used to them helped me feel less shameful about it :)

Just my own experience, maybe it helps

Thanks very much for the book recommendation. I will see if I can get it from the library. £50 an hour is far beyond my means, but I do have a free therapist from a Trans charity who is doing her best to help. She's the only therapist who has even got close to understanding me so she's doing well, but her research is a week or so behind mine cos I have the time to do it, she doesn't.

I do try and journal but my PDA butt resents it and my trauma tells me to "grow up" . I am beginning to understand triggers but it feels like it's literally everything in the world. The wind, the cold, the sun, the noise etc etc There's so many triggers I have no clue where to start without any funds to do things like buy new sensory friendly clothes or headphones etc It's a bit like I opened a can of worms with no way of catching the little blighters! 

Max has left the platform (them/they) said:

I contain everything I can until I burst, and when I know I can't avoid it I run so no-one sees. 

Does anyone have any tips for accepting this part of being autistic? 

I would strongly recommend getting yourself a therapist with experience of autism and meltdowns. They should understand your issues well enough to come up with a range of strategies to deal with both the source of the anxiety that causes the meltdown and managing the meltdowns themselves.

The key thing will be finding what is causing the build up to the meltdown, so think what is the causes of anxiety. Journal your days so you can look back and see what happened, why some days felt worse/better than others and learn what things you need to focus on dealing with.

The therapist should be able to help you come to terms with the meltdowns as they are not conciously caused by you, so you cannot blame yourself for them at a rational level.

These are quote common issues for autists and we almost all have them to some degree or other, so there are a few books out there that give good background on the issue, eg:

From Anxiety to Meltdown - How Individuals on the Autism Spectrum Deal with Anxiety, Experience Meltdowns, Manifest Tantrums, and How You Can Intervene Effectively - Deborah Lipsky (2011)
ISBN 9781849058438

Therapists cost from around £50/hour but are really worth it in my opinion.

Good luck with whatever path you choose.