Meltdowns

Yeah, I still get those. They weren't as bad as when I was in high school, but as melt downs are usually a direct cause of having no control in the situation, high school is sort of conducive to them. I suppose I was lucky enough to never be assaulted by staff members who were "trying to restrain me" the way some kids have. But considering what lead to the meltdowns, you may decide for yourself if the staff were guilty.

In most of my school years really, the meltdowns were the result of bullying. But it wasn't just the bullies that would cause it. First I would tell someone, like a teacher, that someone had threatened me. Then that teacher would be more concerned with semantics.

"Oh, you're not in school, even if you're walking home."

I would repeat myself. But this student is threatening to hurt me here.

"But you're not in school on your way home."

Looking back, I can see the point. I wasn't the school's responsibility on the way home, so they had no power over the student out there. But the nonchalant way they said it got on my nerves and it just added on with each pass. Finally I would stand up and start screaming, sweating, crying. I wasn't trying to be violent or rambunctios, but I was afraid. On the one hand, I was definitely being threatened.

These students would find out how I was walking home and try to catch me on the way. And no one, NOT ONE PERSON walking by would interfere if they saw me getting the crap kicked out of me.

So that, coupled with the fact that people who should have been protecting me refused to do or say anything to the students responsible, added to the fire. I would explode and I would wind up in the principal's office. Or the nurse. Or detention. Because clearly, it was all me. There was no way anyone else was the problem here. (My sarcasmatron is fully functioning, just in case you're a little slow on the uptake)

Like I said, I've long since graduated and except for my stint at Job Corps, my schooling has pretty much been completed for now. But lately the meltdowns come from something new. Largely, they're associated with the stress of living in a homeless shelter, looking for a job and trying to stay afloat in a world that doesn't slow down for anyone.

Sometimes it's just easier to let it run it's course. Other times it's all I can take to avoid them, or at least get to somewhere where it will not attract too much attention. Really, there is no convenient time to have a melt down. And it's especially difficult in a place where people don't know you, they don't recognize the difference between a meltdown and a raging psycho whose screaming in the streets, or they don't know squat about Asperger's or any of the related traits involved.

See, I don't go throwing the word around trying to fish out sympathy. But in situations where I'm trying to explain what might lead to a meltdown, having Asperger's and having people know what it means is a way of cramming it all into a nutshell, the way you might tell someone "I have an upset stomach" when you're visibly sick and someone shows concern.

Alas, we're still in a day and age when people are ignorant to the term. When Marc Brown knows about it, it's about time the rest of us got on board with it too.