Meltdowns – from the other side…

Many, many months back Colin Bowman and I began a conversation in the comments section of one of my posts (Yours, Mine and Ours: Autism, Self-Advocacy and Setting Limits). This interaction has been resonating with me, and this post has been inspired by that conversation.

This is such important understanding:

“Avoiding meltdowns, and everything that goes with them, has merit and yields dividends. However risk-aversion carries its own costs. Perhaps more crucially, it may be (and I think it so) that an autistically developing person cannot develop as an individual, unless and until they become able to pass through meltdowns, and perhaps routinely. I think the nub of things is how we manage meltdowns, how we pass through them, what we sift and mine from them.”                   ~ Colin Bowman

Considering current thinking around meltdowns:

What I have often read and what seems to be often put forth as a pretty readily accessible and accepted understanding is that a meltdown should be differentiated from a tantrum. Unlike a tantrum, a meltdown is not a move for power or method for an individual to try to get one’s way – rather it has been framed as something that is not a choice and that a meltdown should be viewed as communication – just as all behaviour is communication.

The logical extrapolation from this assertion is that the meltdown is the communication of a need, or something overwhelming in the environment, or it is the expression of the communication of dissent. From this then, it follows that those working to support someone who sometimes experiences a meltdown response, should be working to make the environment the best match for that person in order to minimize the likelihood of a meltdown occurrence.

This makes sense, and a big part of the work so many of us are trying to do is to build understanding so that we can undertake the transformative process to shift the world to be a more supportive and better match for those with social cognitive or sensory processing differences.

The impact of Colin’s perspective:

Since my conversation with Colin, I have been thinking that this interpretation and response to a meltdown is lacking – not wrong – but just not considering another potential dimension or possible perspective.

There is value in to questioning our assumptions to see if there is sometimes another way of looking at or framing meltdowns, as Colin suggests… because I suspect that there is an opportunity to deepen our understanding.

For the purposes of this post I would like to consider and suggest that a meltdown may not always be a behaviour communicating a need, or something lacking or overwhelming in the environment or a situation, or an act of dissent. Although this makes sense, and I am not in any way suggesting a denial of this understanding of meltdowns, there exists the possibility that seeing a meltdown solely from this perspective may be damaging to the authentic and natural development of Autistic processing.  I am wondering too, if there could be an element of othering in this common interpretation simply because it may be too narrowly defined for some circumstances.

What if, just for a moment, we didn’t view some meltdowns as a response to be avoided at all costs?

What if it was framed instead through the lens of an emotional response?

Would we understand a meltdown differently and support people differently through the melt if we saw it this way instead of as behaviour and communication?

Consider Colin’s point again:

“Avoiding meltdowns, and everything that goes with them, has merit and yields dividends. However risk-aversion carries its own costs. Perhaps more crucially, it may be (and I think it so) that an autistically developing person cannot develop as an individual, unless and until they become able to pass through meltdowns, and perhaps routinely. I think the nub of things is how we manage meltdowns, how we pass through them, what we sift and mine from them.”            

I responded to Colin that I might know a little of that feeling – the cleansing of a breakdown and the sense of a fresh start of the aftermath. I have felt that like the promise of a shaft of light breaking through after a storm… there is such clarity and the rain-soaked world feels washed clean and is transformed to sparkly beauty.

I get that this sounds a little schmaltzy – but I do feel cleansed like that after a really intense emotional release and am able to move on in a new way. I know this is not necessarily the same as I do not identify as Autistic, but I am trying to understand through my own experience so I have something to hang this on.

But what if it is the same?

What if when I am overwhelmed I am able to be cleansed by this really good cry or emotional release – but at the same time an Autistic person is denied this – because that same expression or release of emotion is labeled a meltdown, and it is seen as a [mis]behaviour or response to be avoided at all costs??

How would I feel when I released  intense emotions – if it were seen as a failure??  I am concerned that this may be the message that is given to an Autistic person when a meltdown is framed as something that is negative: a failure of the support system to effectively support and/or the failure/fault of the Autistic individual to effectively set limits or self-regulate or self-manage their emotional state.

Along with this – when emergence happens at the other side as an Autistic person works through the meltdown – if the good cry or more intense release or expression of emotion is framed solely through the lens of failure, what lies there may not be that wonderful cleansed feeling of a new start, combined with a shedding of weight and a deep hard-fought release of stress and pain – but… rather… only… shame.

When discussing her experience about The Pain of Meltdowns, Laura Nagle shared:

“…To meltdown is to be broken. The person melting knows it, feels it, feels broken. To be in meltdown is to ride an out of control aircraft plummeting to the ground and with controls not responding, aflame, reality coming up towards one at an alarming rate: and the aircraft is one’s self! To be broken does not feel good at all. To be autistic and out of control; out of your own control; when control is so important to us and so tenuous; is terrible! The melted person did not want to melt!”

and

“…and then you melt. And you feel awful because the melt feels awful in ways that I cannot begin to describe. and you feel awful because you know what awaits you when you return to the real world. What awaits? Bad feelings from everyone around you, and the foundation for the next melt. Then the parent blogs about how awful the meltdown was; if only that parent could know.”

Consider the contrast here…

When I breakdown emotionally, I have finally given in: my limits were reached, and I can say, “I am okay now, I just needed a good cry.” I am ready to build back up. I never feel shame after I have had a good cry – this is even evidenced in my syntax.

Look how easily I can call this a good cry.

I don’t feel judged – I feel relief.

Unwinding ableism from the meltdown…

What is emerging then is a nuanced wondering about what might be the consequences for the emotional development of an Autistic person if we only see a meltdown as negative and undesirable behaviour that is to be avoided. We may be disallowing or blocking the cleanse and processing that moves us beyond the trigger or the frustration.

Further, what if every intensely emotional response is viewed as a meltdown for an Autistic person or by an Autistic person themselves, and it is only seen as an indication of unmet need – rather than an expression of intense experience. If that is the case, we may be denying experience and a very valid expression of authentic autistic processing.

Melting, the good cry, and welcoming the emotional process…

I know when I have had an intense emotional episode – for me it is most often crying – afterward I am different – it is like the world is a little more manageable and I have been cleansed by my storm…

If I take this further,  I can see that I need to work to support H (and others) through this so that he is honoured for his process, and is able to see himself as capable of navigating his way through the storm.

So I am having these thoughts about the meltdown as a potentially important part of processing. I observe that for H his emotions appear to be very intense. If he cannot occasionally meltdown, is he then denied the full range of experience to effectively process his emotions as Autistic person?

Non Autistic people are not denied the opportunity to experience intense emotion and process it however it is best for them…

An intense emotional response (AKA the good cry) doesn’t seem to get labeled and talked about the same way…

If a meltdown is viewed as an authentic and important part of processing emotion, then it seems that we need to be closely examining the messages we send regarding this process and explore opportunities for Autistic people to feel confident in their ability and skills to navigate this intensity and emerge on the other side of the storm.

So I am suggesting we look for opportunities to slightly reframe meltdowns. Of course it is good to adapt the environment to reduce the stressors that will trigger a meltdown, but I want to consider that there may be an important function to the melt that is a part of processing. It is worth considering that there may be times when the meltdown should not necessarily be avoided – if we understand that it is an authentic part of Autistic processing. So much of the focus so often seems to be around avoiding the melt – and then too often if  it is not avoided, it is seen as misbehaviour.

Supporting an individual through a meltdown is important: to be there to support and to help them process when they come out on the other side. There is learning and development that can happen there… in the ability to handle it and move through it.

There are opportunities here.

As parents we can run risk of modelling for our children that we never lose it…

Or… we can tell them we understand and that it is hard. You melt – and sometimes I have a similar experience… (and yes – I know it is not quite the same – but it may be more the same than it is different). There is an opportunity to share after my own emotional outpouring, I can let my son know that I feel may feel badly afterward (if I was hurtful to myself or others) or that I may feel better – but that either way, it is over and done and the important thing is that there is always another chance. I can encourage him and give him the message that it is good to let all those feelings out.

I can let my son see my fallibility – and share my understanding that intense feelings can be challenging. I can model that I can work through them. I can share that there may be some very important processing that goes on in a when experiencing intense emotions.

I give my son the message that it is safe to experience that intensity – that it will not swallow him – and that there is an emergence on the other side. I can support him through it – to the other side – as process: “You are feeling a lot of things right now… those feelings can be very strong. It is okay – you will be okay… I am here for you…”

I can reassure him that there is some cleansing that happen in that state and clarity that can be found afterward.

I think we may perhaps be too quick to judge a melt-down as something to be avoided – rather than an authentic response to a situation that needs to be processed in a more organic whole body way. Supporting my child through this – and also sharing that I sometimes struggle – will only help him to see that it is okay to have difficult times and to feel things deeply and to not be perfect (whatever that might be?).