So I Had A Meltdown, Now What?
The Joys Of Being Autistic–Unscripted.
This story has been sitting in my ‘unlisted’ tab for about three weeks now. I’ve had some hesitations about publishing it because I didn’want to come across as rude or disrespectful. Upon thinking it over I decided that it’s more important to see how simple every day activities can contribute to an outburst or meltdown for an autistic person, rather than my fear of being judged. I kindly ask you refrain from any negative comments about this article. Outbursts of anger can be a very sensitive topic for autistic people and as the saying goes “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” So here it is — unscripted.
I am in no place right now to be facing the world, especially loud places with bright lights, stuffed to the brim with other people to whom I can’t openly explain to that I’m autistic and that I don’t want them anywhere in the vicinity of my personal space. “Please don’t stand too close to me, you’re making me feel sick”, I’m sure that would go down well.
There were too many screaming children, too many selfish, unaware adults who pushed past me or bumped into me with no apologies and the others, who more often than not feel the need to chat away with me about their pointless stories of what they did that week and ‘Aunt Mary’ who ‘did this funny thing on Sunday afternoon.’ I don’t care. I don’t have the brain power right now to even hear what you’re saying, let alone listen to it. I’m not being rude, I’m autistic and my brain does not cope well with small talk during burnout. It just cannot take in any new information or it will probably result in a very public meltdown, which is what I was trying to avoid today.
I mean if you want to see me start flapping my hands beside my ears and screaming at you “I can’t do this! I’ve gotta get outta here!”, then sure, come on in! I have no problem having you look at me with those judgemental eyes like I’m crazy, I’m used to it. But expect me to educate you on the topic of respect for others, and how to not be a judgemental a**hole when you freak out, shoot me daggers and ask me “What the hell is wrong with you?”. Because I will absolutely point out that YOU caused it to happen when you decided to dump all your irrelevant information on me and couldn’t pick up on my ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone’ demeanour.
We’re all guilty of sometimes judging others due to their reactions or behaviours in public and some often don’t stop to look deeper or to wonder if that person is struggling, if they’re having a hard time, or if they process things differently to us.
I have witnessed, on far too many occasions, someone say something like “Damn, that chick’s nuts”, and then I’ve watched them head off to call their friend and overheard the conversation all about the ‘crazy person’ they just saw at Kmart, like it’s funny.
Let me tell you now, it’s NOT funny, that person having a public outburst is most likely NOT crazy, and you ARE being a terrible human if you’ve been the one looking down upon someone and judging them because of their behaviour, outburst or meltdown. You may have the ability to control your outburst, I do not. You can probably regulate your emotions, calm yourself down, pull yourself out of it, I cannot.
So after my stressful outing to what felt like every damn store across three different suburbs, I walked in my front door and it happened.
I was shaking, which is an indication I’ve been overstimulated. I began to slur and jumble my words up, my head was pounding, and I was so, so tired. My partner was making some adjustments and tweaks with the furniture in one of the bedrooms and when I walked in there… MAJOR meltdown.
“What the hell have you done! Are you serious? How is this better than how it was already! It’s stupid!”.
I was yelling, my hands flapping away beside my ears as I’m expressing my uncontrollable anger over the changes in the room.
If you don’t already know, some autistic people don’t cope very well with change, and today was my day to let it be known.
“I hate it! Screw this! I’m putting it back!”.
I was on a mission, throwing things around the room, dragging everything out in to the hallway and then angrily putting it all back where it originally was. Not today buddy, not today.
In about five minutes, everything looked as it did before. And then I felt like a jerk. Once again I’d lost control of my emotions, it all came spilling out and my partner was on the receiving end. I feel guilty now. I feel like a horrible person. I’m ashamed of my behaviour and I’m sitting here writing this while I have a thousand thoughts flooding through my mind about how I’m supposed to ‘make this all better’.
That’s the thing about us autistic people, we don’t mean to have these outbursts, they really are uncontrollable. We can’t just ‘let it go’ either when you tell us to. We will sit for hours on end going over it all, dissecting it, trying to repair the damage we’ve done that was beyond our control.
We rehearse over and over again the things we’re going to say to you and all the reasons we feel you need to hear for why it happened.
It was ‘too much’ today, I’m not feeling the best, the lights and noise are ‘in my head’, people were staring and saying things about me while we were out.
It’s a lot to cope with, we never mean to hurt your feelings, we don’t ever wish to upset you, we just can’t control when or why it happens, it just does.
So rather than spend hours over explaining to my partner the reasons why I ‘lost my sh*t’ today because I know she’s sick of hearing it, I’m writing about it for all of you. So when the autistic person in your life acts out as I did, you’ll know they didn’t mean it. You’ll know that they are definitely torturing themselves on the inside, trying to find a way to make you feel better when they feel like absolute crap over something they’ve done that they can’t control.
We may not voice it, but we’re always embarrassed by situations like these. We feel deeply, about EVERYTHING. And we just don’t know how to let that go either.
AJ.
