 What is the thing that's talked about most to do with autism? Is it our amazing mathematical abilities that seem to just happen to all autism people that just become math geniuses? Or is it our lack of empathy that just seems to catch your attention? Obviously these things not applied to autism in any way, apart from maybe a select group of individuals. What I'm talking about is meltdowns. Meltdowns and autism seem to be just like the two most such terms for people outside of the autistic community. And for a good reason, well not for a good reason, it's probably for a bad reason, to go and cut them, to watch them having a meltdown thinking, oh my God, this is such a crazy situation. How is this kid like this? What are the parents like? And all of these things sort of pop up in people's minds. But when we come to actually talk about autistic adults, people who've grown up, autistic children, they grow into autistic adults. And meltdowns, it's kind of a tricky situation because a lot of people that they don't have meltdowns, they have what's called an autistic shutdown. But there is a significant amount of people who have adult meltdowns. I am an adult meltdowner. I have meltdowns. It might be quite hard for some people to comprehend, but I do get myself into almost fit-like states of anxiety, overload, anything like that and not being able to talk and all that stuff. I have meltdowns. And it's just something that has occurred or continues to occur mostly due to my mental health. I have quite severe anxiety and depression and a lot of the time that has a large impact on both my ability to function, but also sort of my sensitivity to anxiety and to meltdowns and things of that nature. What I once talked to you about today is kind of some insider knowledge on meltdowns. You may see what it looks like from those videos. You may know that not everyone has a meltdown the same way, but you don't really understand exactly, I guess, how it is for an autistic person to have a meltdown or maybe you're autistic yourself. And perhaps there's some things in this video that may, once I say it, it may ring true for you. Although I haven't really done a channel introduction, my name is Thomas Henley, if you don't know, if you don't know, buy the name next to my video and all that jazz, but I'll let you off now, let you off. So yes, I'm going to be talking about adult meltdowns, specifically my meltdowns. And a lot of these things are some things that a lot of autistic people in my comments on Instagram who have really related to them. Some things not so much, but I'm going to tell you about my experience with them. Some of the insider information that people don't know just looking in on the outside. Number one, temporary control. Meltdowns are incredibly scary, disorientating, painful, anxiety-provoking, all of those stuff, a mentally exhausting experience. It's not a fun experience by any means necessary. And, you know, in public, I can actually prolong a meltdown. I can prevent a meltdown for an amount of time. And this may seem a bit of a weird concept, but, you know, combining states of dissociation and shutdowns and also the potential consequences of sort of having a meltdown in public, around friends, around dates, around, you know, any kind of situation. It's a very daunting thing. And whenever I find myself in situations like that, the usual thing that I do is I go into shutdown, or I dramatically reduce the amount of social communication that I'm doing and try and concentrate on my phone and take breaks and things like that. Sometimes it's not, I'm not able to. And it's, for me, it's kind of like explaining like a water pressure, like a dam. You know, you've got an empty sort of reservoir at the top and suddenly there's water coming up and the pressure on the dam is rising and it's not very strong dam. But you can kind of add some more logs to it. You can kind of sort of control it for a certain amount of time. The issue is, once you let it all out, you know, you get home after this social event or something like that. The water pressure is so intense that it actually leads to more intense meltdowns than perhaps you would have had if you just didn't control it. Another thing that really stands out to me as a point is things around people. I have safe people. You know, with a very vulnerable state, you know, there's gonna be a lot of anxiety. There's gonna be a lot of sort of heightened awareness of our safety in a specific moment. And paranoia can become really, really intense, especially if you're in public with people you don't know, around people that you don't know in a place that you haven't been before. There can be a lot of paranoia, actually, even during the meltdown. And the thing is, is that when I'm with safe people, I feel like I can have a meltdown. I don't feel like I have to do everything before, like adding logs to the dam to stop it from exploding, even though it eventually does. And so I tend to have my meltdowns when I'm alone with my safe people, if I'm going to have one. You know, it probably sounds a bit weird. It should be like the opposite way around, but it isn't. It's kind of like just being able to relax and being able to let things happen in safety. And safe people allow me to do that. When I'm not with a safe person, someone who I've perhaps had a meltdown around before and they've constantly pressured me for questions, they've made things really difficult for me. They've shouted at me, they've made fun of me or you know, anything like that in a public situation. I'm going to hold it back and I'm going to do that temporary control. And it's going to be a lot more intense once I'm actually in a place where I feel safe. It's really weird because like I can have such, you know, stronger versions to people when I'm in those states because I can't really communicate well. And with all that anxiety and paranoia in my brain just going haywire and not being able to communicate, it's kind of a state where if people do things wrong, I'm going to try and get away from them. I'm going to push them away. And if I'm really good friends with someone and I have a meltdown around them and they don't help or they do the wrong things or it's actually going to, usually it carries on into normal life, you know, when I'm not having a meltdown. I'm like, I was in that vulnerable position and I didn't feel supported, I didn't feel like, you know, I felt like they made it worse for me. I feel unsafe around them. And that's something that has occurred a few times in my life, occasions like that where I've had a good friend, perhaps they haven't been so understanding when I've had a meltdown. And I just really can't shake the feelings of not being safe around them. Usually the people who are more likely to be my safe people are calm, proactive, caring, they listen, they take on board what I tell them. Those are usually the safe people, you know, the people that really don't put a lot of pressure on you and they don't get too stressed out and they just want to help and be there and they're very proactive. So what about routine? Like, can we actually do anything while in a meltdown? Yes, we can. And those things tend to be things that we do all the time, like in normal life, we do them all the time, like going on your phone and playing a mindless game or for me, going on my phone and writing and making up scripts for a video or like making up different posts and things of that nature. Those things are things that I've done a lot so I'm able to do that even if I'm having a meltdown because usually they do a lot to kind of calm me down. And that's all because it's part of my routine. Things that are not part of my routine I'm gonna find excessively difficult. Just to give you a bit more of a list to go off, these things can be for me, writing, mobile games, drinking, eating, going to the toilet, even editing sometimes if I feel like I can do it. Anything that really kind of grabs my attention really tends to help me, so it's really good for me. So what happens when you're in a state of meltdown and you are really not, really not in a safe place and you're around some people who could actually cause you physical harm, what happens then? What do you do? You know, obviously with meltdowns, there comes a lot of a lowering of your ability to control your body, to speak, to control your force. So in those situations, it can be like, you must just roll over and must just let it, let them beat you up or something like that. If my adrenaline peaks and I don't feel safe, I'm a lot more able to do things to make myself safer. Sure, I can sort of say, sort of talk, but it's gonna be very, very broken. It's gonna be very, very monotone. It's gonna be very, very different to how I usually speak, but I can run away if I need to. I'd probably be a bit clumsy with it, but I can run away. I can protect myself. I could, well, probably, all of these things probably not as well as I could do in my own life, but I could do if I needed to. Now let's talk about the after. What happens after a meltdown? The dreaded meltdown hangover. Yes, post-meltdown hangovers. It's not just something that happens with alcohol or recreationals or anything like that. The intensity of the hangover depends on how intense and how long the meltdown was actually. This can be characterized by dropping general cognitive function, just generally being a bit slow, having low energy levels, low social battery, mental health and self-esteem can definitely take a big hit just by having a meltdown, but also if you're in a situation and you feel a bit like, oh, I've done something wrong or I feel embarrassed or anything like that, those can really play on your head either the time after the meltdown or the day after. And usually the best medicine for this kind of situation is just to wait it out, just to eat and sleep and drink water and just kind of get it out of your system. They're not fun, especially if you have a tendency to self-injure, like hitting your head, it's probably gonna make that feeling of hangover a little bit more intense. It's happened to me on a few occasions, but in general they tend to be quite consistent just for everyday meltdowns, if you can call them that. Just your everyday meltdown, just go to the shops, have a meltdown, go to my home, have a sleep, we go to work and bladdy, bladdy, bladdy. One of the last things that I really want to talk about is hearing and remembering. You know, you try and help an autistic person who's having a meltdown or having a shutdown and you think, right, they're not communicating me, they look like that, they're convulsing in some way, they don't look like they can cope in this situation, they don't even look like they can function or listen or perceive anything, they just look like they're just gone. And the thing is that that's not the case. Although some people have told me that it's not the case of them, I definitely do hear and remember things when I'm having a meltdown. I hear people talking to me, I hear people saying stuff to each other about me, and I remember it. Sometimes it's a bit sort of hazy. Cause obviously it's a different state and there's so much anxiety and overload and lack of brain functionality, but I do remember it. You know, some people might be surprised to hear that. So that is my very last point. If you want to read the full article, the full article, head over to my Instagram page, Thomas Henley UK, at Thomas Henley UK. And if you want to check out my podcast where I think I've done that episode or two, one or meltdowns and shutdowns and things of that nature, season one was in the top 5% and I've had some very notable guests on both tailing the end of season one and also starting season two. People like Temple Grandin, people like Sam and Baron Cohen, people like Steve Silberman, a lot of really influential people, but also advocates, real life advocates, particularly on Instagram. All of those links are down in the description. Likey subby, do all that kind of stuff and I'll see you in another episode of Thomas Henley. Still not used to the name change, but it's only been like a few days now, so. Yeah, it'd be fine, it'd be fine, good. I'll get my head sawed. I'll think of a good outro. But in the meantime, take care. Love you guys. See you later.