Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / What My Autism Meltdown Looks Like

Transcript

What My Autism Meltdown Looks Like · Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD

• 0:00
  Have you ever wondered what an autism meltdown kind of looks
• 0:02
  like or feels like afterwards? Well, it's hard to see, but in
• 0:05
  this video, I'm kind of show you some video clips that I've
• 0:07
  managed to capture myself just after meltdowns and close to
• 0:10
  meltdowns so that you can understand it fully.
• 0:15
  Oh, on FYI guys, there's no way we can film a meltdown typically
• 0:18
  because unless it's on a security camera footage, it's
• 0:21
  hard to just wipe your phone out and film yourself having a
• 0:23
  meltdown because you don't know what's going to happen.
• 0:25
  And it's the last thing you're going to think about when you're
• 0:26
  doing it. So it's really interesting.
• 0:28
  Autism has many variable differences that will impact you
• 0:32
  throughout your entire life. Autistic people will have
• 0:35
  meltdowns and meltdowns are very similar to kind of like a
• 0:37
  nervous breakdown, but quite regularly.
• 0:40
  And it's really interesting because a lot of people who are
• 0:43
  neurotypical or not autistic will experience some things like
• 0:46
  this, but they will never experience it the same way as an
• 0:49
  autistic person experiences it in the magnitude and scale of an
• 0:52
  autistic person. You can have multiple meltdowns
• 0:54
  every day if you're an autistic person.
• 0:56
  And I'll get into why that happens and some tips actually
• 0:59
  to how to overcome that and stop that happening so much if you're
• 1:02
  an autistic person. But if you're here to learn more
• 1:04
  than buckle up. So guys, my name is Dan and I
• 1:07
  actually have autism and ADHD. So if you're new around here and
• 1:10
  you want to learn more about all this stuff, I do weekly, daily
• 1:12
  videos all about this stuff. So you can follow along here by
• 1:15
  hitting the subscribe button down below.
• 1:17
  Or you can just watch on Facebook and Instagram.
• 1:19
  It takes off by clicking follow. So how does this work?
• 1:22
  An autism overload is basically stimulated by a trigger or an
• 1:28
  external trigger, right? And this could be like listening
• 1:30
  to more than one sounds happening at any one time.
• 1:33
  This could be certain smells this is could be going to a bar
• 1:36
  and as many people there. And what happens is you know,
• 1:40
  there's a change in your typical or your expected experience of a
• 1:44
  situation. Now autistic individuals love
• 1:47
  routine or love expectations to be carried out in a linear
• 1:51
  format that they are used to or comfortable with because
• 1:54
  routines knowing what's going to happen next is comfortable.
• 1:58
  Why? Because it's safe, right?
• 2:00
  And autistic individuals like to be safe.
• 2:02
  The be all and end all is an autistic person's brain is
• 2:05
  constantly problem solving algorithmically, meaning like
• 2:09
  it's during a chart like if this, then that if this, then
• 2:12
  that you know yes or no, yes to make sure that person is safe
• 2:16
  because we're pushing ourselves towards safety.
• 2:19
  This is problem solving one O 1 and autistic individuals will
• 2:22
  always have this idea that we are moving towards problem
• 2:26
  solving constantly like autistic individuals constantly problem
• 2:29
  solve. I'm obsessed with problem
• 2:30
  solving. Behind me is awards that I have
• 2:33
  won. You know, from MIT, YouTube, we
• 2:35
  go Health, Autism Hero award, Business Smart Award.
• 2:37
  All these things happen because I became more confident than I
• 2:41
  ever imagined. I actually was.
• 2:43
  Not confident for many years now I have put together a free
• 2:48
  download where you can take training from me for free to
• 2:51
  build up your confidence, lower anxiety and actually just make
• 2:54
  life better for autistic adults. And this is where it covers you
• 2:57
  can progress without doubt, even if nothing worked before.
• 2:59
  Boost energy without having to need more spoons, even if you're
• 3:02
  running an energy be sort of while overthinking it.
• 3:04
  Fit in society without losing yourself, even if you feel
• 3:08
  alienated, and speaking confidently without
• 3:10
  misunderstanding. If people don't get you right,
• 3:12
  all you need to do is go to the website.
• 3:15
  WWW dot. Bulletproofbrain.org right now
• 3:19
  and download your free pack from me.
• 3:24
  Link is also in the description of this video.
• 3:26
  And if you're watching on Instagram, all you have to do is
• 3:27
  comment brain and I'll DM it to you.
• 3:30
  Watching on Facebook? If you comment Brain, I'll
• 3:32
  comment back with the link to directly download this.
• 3:35
  And I love that because problem solving is how you create
• 3:39
  happiness and wins for people in life.
• 3:41
  So when we're problem solving to get out of danger, one of the
• 3:44
  main things that autistic individuals do is say, well,
• 3:46
  we'll stick to the same routine that I know works because that's
• 3:50
  going to keep me safe. And what's really interesting is
• 3:53
  that sometimes keeping ourselves safe restricts us from
• 3:56
  opportunities in other areas, which is why artistic
• 3:59
  individuals, well, 70% of us are outside of work, which are kind
• 4:02
  of a scary statistic when you think about it.
• 4:05
  But how does all this relate to meltdowns and what is it that
• 4:07
  you can do about it and what does it kind of look like?
• 4:10
  So I'm going to expose just a small clip of me from a meltdown
• 4:14
  I had and I'll explain the parameters.
• 4:17
  So my partner was was here with her three children and I had my
• 4:21
  two children here. So we have a blended family of
• 4:23
  five kids. Two of them are autistic and me
• 4:27
  and my partner are both autistic too.
• 4:28
  So we were, you know, taking an intern to do different things
• 4:32
  for my partner. She was in the kitchen cooking
• 4:35
  and she's an amazing cook. Like one of her special
• 4:37
  interests was cooking and baking.
• 4:39
  So she's like this amazing chef. So she makes amazing things and
• 4:41
  I'm not downplaying her her cooking at all, but I was in the
• 4:44
  living room with the other kids and it was hard because we have
• 4:48
  one three-year old and 1-2 year old and sometimes they can get
• 4:50
  really annoying to each other and they have to kind of
• 4:52
  separate them. It's kind of like a wrestling
• 4:53
  match and you have to kind of referee this.
• 4:55
  And I know all parents out there watching this give it a thumbs
• 4:57
  up if you know exactly what I'm talking about.
• 4:59
  But one of my main triggers is sensory input or over
• 5:03
  stimulation through the smell sensitivity for onions and
• 5:07
  garlic. Now if I smell those, I start to
• 5:11
  feel pain and insecure and I feel unsafe.
• 5:14
  Why this happens could be explained in another video which
• 5:17
  I'll try and link here, all about sensory processing
• 5:19
  disorders so you can understand more about it.
• 5:21
  But just for this video, I'm going to say that if I smell
• 5:24
  onions and garlic that it's raw or overpoweringly cooked, then I
• 5:30
  start to feel pain and then I start to kind of like escalate
• 5:33
  very quickly towards a meltdown or a shutdown.
• 5:35
  OK, So what happened next? So my partner, being an amazing
• 5:39
  chef, always cooks her onions. So she said, hey, can I dice
• 5:41
  some onions up? And I cook them with the window
• 5:43
  open, put the extractor fans on and close the kitchen door.
• 5:46
  That way you won't smell it. I said, yeah, OK.
• 5:48
  But on this particular day, my senses were already hammered by
• 5:52
  the children's noise. And so now I'm heightenedly
• 5:55
  alert to anything and everything that may cause a trigger because
• 5:58
  triggers are subjective sometimes to the environment
• 6:01
  that you're in. So at that moment in time, she
• 6:03
  started cooking with onions. And slowly but surely, the smell
• 6:06
  of onions filled the room. At one point, I was on my hands
• 6:09
  and knees on the floor crying in pain because of the smell of
• 6:13
  onions. There's nothing I could do about
• 6:15
  it. I couldn't leave the room
• 6:16
  because I had to, you know, be with these two children.
• 6:18
  And I couldn't leave them alone, right?
• 6:20
  And then I couldn't take them both with me because we're not
• 6:22
  getting along. So I was kind of stuck in that
• 6:23
  moment. So what do I do?
• 6:25
  So I had to endure it, and it was painful.
• 6:28
  And here's the clip of what that kind of felt like and looked
• 6:30
  like. Now I know they were only short
• 6:49
  clips and they were kind of like weird kind of on my phone, but
• 6:53
  the point here is to show you what that looks like.
• 6:56
  Sometimes you could see somebody who is an autistic person and
• 7:00
  they may look like that. They may be upset, short, snappy
• 7:02
  for no reason and you could take offence for this, but it's not
• 7:06
  because they're angry at you, it's because they're over
• 7:09
  stimulated and close to a meltdown or melting down because
• 7:12
  of XY and or Z. And when you do this, when you
• 7:14
  have that, it can be so detrimental to the relationship,
• 7:19
  communication between you and another person if you're an
• 7:22
  autistic person and vice versa. So it's always good to know that
• 7:26
  if an if an autistic person seems upset, try to clarify if
• 7:29
  they're dealing with the environment OK?
• 7:31
  Because this could definitely help improve that condition and
• 7:36
  they can feel a lot safer. Now, how do you overcome those
• 7:39
  things? Well, the biggest way really to
• 7:42
  help with this is to take away the variables of triggers.
• 7:45
  In this case, it was unavoidable.
• 7:47
  And that will happen sometimes because sometimes life is going
• 7:49
  to happen, right? It's not always going to be
• 7:51
  rosy, but if you are wanting to kind of like overcome those
• 7:54
  things, then you have to really kind of and try to figure out
• 8:00
  what in that environment can help you reduce those things.
• 8:03
  Like I said, we turn on the fan, open the door, sorry, close the
• 8:05
  door, open the window and try to just get as much as that onion
• 8:10
  smell out as possible. Now, another thing is I could
• 8:12
  wear a respirator, you know, or I could put I don't deal on my
• 8:17
  top lip on my beard, so I could smell that instead.
• 8:20
  There are variant ways that you can kind of help overcome those
• 8:22
  things. Now, I want to know more from
• 8:24
  you about this experience and how you felt watching this
• 8:28
  content. Now drop it in a comment down
• 8:29
  below. I read every single one.