Protecting Yourself From Meltdown

3 months ago I met a man Cameron 49 years old and an alcoholic of 25 years.

He was charming well educated and he liked me because I listened to him.

He had just come out of hospital after serious self harming behaviour as he had tried to cut his hand off. If ever someone wanted human understanding and attention it was him. As we talked he confided in me his life story. I have had experience of living with an aspergers adult before and Cameron displays very similar characteristics and behaviour. Needs admiration of others and dresses to get attention, but also acts like a child. very creative and absolutely brilliant at building model boats. Has achieved good education but does not read books. probably has another personality disorder as well.

Is preoccupied with knives guns and gansters and has a terribly innapropriate sense of humour. Has terrible self loathing and an unstable self image. tells his parents to shut up because he finds them boring and wants to be the centre of attention.

His mother an ex school teacher just tramples all over him and never listens to what he wants which just makes him angry. He must be the most misunderstood person I have ever met.

after a meeting with a psychiatrist the other day they treated him just like any other alcoholic and told him they would do nothing untill he reduced his alcohol two 2 units a day. He tried to explain that he didnt want rehab as he has done that many times but desperately wants a detox. I think he is AS but noone will listen.

He set himself on fire a while back due to his long time girlfriend leaving him.

He desperately wants someones attention.

have you got any suggestions as to where we go from herebefore he kills himself.

Thanks.

Howard Kelly 

Thank you very much for your very good advice. When I am at home, I tend to keep myself to myself as much as possible. In the beginning I think my parents found it difficult to understand how I was feeling, but they have thankfully become a little more understanding.

After some experimentation, I have found that listening to "white noise", like the sound of running water, on my ipod helps the most. I haven't had a lot of luck with earplugs, sadly, all the ones I have tried have been less than useless.

I find that my meltdowns are definitely caused by a combination of things, like when I am feeling unwell, the tv is too loud, my parents are talking loud, that kind of thing. I can cope with one thing at a time, but it's when they occur all together than my anxiety levels rise and I have a meltdown.

Thank you for your advice, again, and I will definitely give those earplugs a try too.

I am sorry your in this situation. I have exactly the same issue. yes, absolutely i think it best to try and remove yourself, but sometimes its just not possible & you have to try and get through it.  

My meltdowns are caused by my (much loved, but...) unpredicatble mess making child, crying baby and husband who combined make a lot of stressful noise & demands on me all at the same time. My husband trys to understand & I think it helps if the people who are causing the disturbance know how it is affecting you. hopefully, if they are considerate and kind they will try to modify there behaviour). Is there anyway you can explain to the people who are causing the disturbance?

On a practicle note. For unavoidable noisy areas & where I might need to hear some of what is going on (driving, supermarket, place where other people might be). I wear noise cancelling ear plugs. They reduce the noise, but you can still hear. They are unfortunately quite expensive & easily lost. The cheapest I have found are from boots. They are purple, so not as easily lost, people can see you are wearing them. which may or may not be a good thing.

www.boots.com/.../

These ones are fantastic, but very expensive, but the colour means people cant see your wearing them.

www.amazon.co.uk/.../ref=sr_1_1

For full on situations, where I can feel I am just about to go nuclear. I put these ear defenders on and try and remove myself from the situation. Yes they do make these for adults. The quality is good, they clamp quite fimly on the head tho. They fold up compactly for traveling about, but they are quite hard to put on one handed. not sure if that is an issue.

www.amazon.co.uk/.../ref=sr_ph

You can get ear defenders that dont fold up too from amazon and screwfix. I dont have any of these, so not sure how effective they are.

I find using one sound to mask another makes it worse for me, but once I am on my own and a bit calmer, using calming classical music, tibetan siging bowls (yes I know a bit new agey, but relaxing none the less) or visualising meditations, that help to use another sense calm me down. or watching stuff on iplayer, also helps distract me and calm me down.

These practicle meassure help, but I still find it hard. I am still learning.

Hope that helps. good luck! 

That's very good advice, thank you. I will try a few variations of natural and other kinds of sounds, and see which work best for me. I downloaded a MP3 of a babbling brook last night, but, to be honest, after a while it just annoyed me. Perhaps a sound like a ticking clock would be better for me. Thanks again.

I have a few tactics that I find helpful, though they haven't eliminated melt-downs completely.

For sensitivity to sound, I use my mp3 player and headphones to mask external noises.  You needn't necessarily play music through it - for some people recordings of the natural world are more effective, and for others even recordings of a single tone or white noise. The sound of a ticking clock is especially soothing for me.  Ear plugs, such as used to keep out industrial noise, can be very helpful as well - I use those at night, or when I do need awareness of my surroundings, but at a lower volume level.

Making sure I get some time when I'm not exposed to triggers is good too.  I find that a walk in the park or woods "empties the bucket" of accumulated irritation, which has improved my tolerance for noise at times when I can't excuse myself.  The trick with this, I find, is to make it part of my daily routine wherever possible, rather than waiting until I feel a melt-down is imminent - that way I'm not waking each morning with the "bucket" already half-full.