A Fantastic Meltdown

A Fantastic Meltdown

 

I had a great day. As days go, I had a really good one. As the title goes, you think I would have had an awful day, but no. I actually had a really good day. I woke up, had about an hour or two with my husband, then he went to his usual hobby while I stayed home. I looked for part-time work from home jobs that I’m qualified for which, there aren’t many. Most of them these days are for tech wizards who know code and software engineers and higher ups in management. Not… me. Apparently they don’t make many jobs for people with disabilities stuck from home, or those are all taken.

I’m not here to complain about that. I’m used to the job search being anxiety filled and horrifying. I’m used to there not being much out there in the field of social work that pays a living wage, much less is part time, definitely not work from home with the level of education I have and the lack of certification. This post is about my good day, and overall, this didn’t bum me out one bit. I knew this would be one of many days job searching. I just got hyperfocused on it, which I seem to be doing more and more often to the detriment of bathroom breaks, eating and drinking, etc.

I finally stopped for a nap, but no nap to be had! My husband was home, and I was excited! We didn’t do anything all that fun or together really, but it’s the company that matters. Just being in his presence makes everything better. I spent the rest of the afternoon between having a long nap once we settled down, fidgeting a bit, then a bit more, then getting overstimulated and having a meltdown. And I don’t know why. That’s the bit that catches me off guard. Why have what I think was a meltdown when everything was going fine? I had music: too overstimulating. I had the Neurospicy Community Classes which I got two minutes into about Mindfulness before being, you guessed it, overstimulated. I wasn’t tired enough to take a nap. My three to five friends would be no help, and it was Sunday, so they were probably busy. I tried to calm my breathing and put on a meditation. It relaxed me, but also made me shudder. I had to set it to where I could barely hear it. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times by now.

Thirty minutes later I was looking up the differences between meltdowns and shutdowns and it seems to boil down to lots of similarities but a few differences. Both happen when an autistic person gets overstimulated, too stressed out, etc. Their body seems to go into a different type of nervous system (the fight/flight/freeze/fawn system) and in meltdowns, it’s mostly external: shouting, crying, stimming more, throwing things—you get the gist. Shutdowns are more exclusively the freeze response which most people take as them starting to ignore other people: turn a power switch, and they retreat inwardly until their body can recuperate from the shock of the stimulus. The recovery times could be different too—meltdowns could be minutes to hours USUALLY whereas shutdowns could be hours to days even. (Thanks AI Overview, LA Concierge Psychologist, and Prosper Health.)

I’ve talked to my therapist, and I have been in autistic burnout, which is a whole other beast. See, I didn’t know when you could get meltdowns or shutdowns, and that they could happen during burnout. I’ve just been twitching and mostly okay but sometimes just sobbing uncontrollably.

By the way, if this makes you feel uncomfortable, THIS… scratches the surface. I am “high functioning” to the point where people mostly just said I was weird my whole life.

My sister’s bridal shower was a comedy show and I was the comedian… (I still don’t know if they were laughing at me or with me… probably at me), but I told the story of how my sister and her husband came together, and true, there was some irony in there, but I didn’t think it was THAT funny… I just thought I was a funny guy. But now… I’m pretty sure they were laughing at the “funny way I told it” not because it was “haha that was funny” but because of “haha look at the idiot up there telling a stupid story.” I feel like I’m just now getting the joke a decade later, and the joke was me all along.

I’m glad I can understand the joke now and laugh with everyone else finally! Hahaha