Yesterday, I discussed the roughest stage of an autistic meltdown, the rumbling stage. Today, I would like to talk about the third and final stage of an autistic meltdown, the recovery stage. Some say that the recovery stage is like coming out of a seizure. You don’t know what exactly happened, but you know that it took a toll on you. It can be hard to recall all the moving pieces of what happened when you were in that rumbling or rage stage of a meltdown. You don’t want to dwell on it because you often feel very ashamed of the way that you acted because you know that is not the way that you normally act, but you were agitated by something so intense that it caused you to explode.

When you are in that recovery mode of a meltdown, you feel so ashamed that you may not think clearly to the point all you want to do is run away from the situation or make things right. The reality is when you are recovering from an autistic meltdown, all parties should separate for at least 45 minutes, if possible, to have a refreshed sense of mind on what happened. The autistic person should not feel ashamed or belittled for what has happened, we already feel horrible enough that the best thing that you can do is give us our space to recover from the events.

Throughout life, I wish I had listened to those that had told me to take a walk or go to my room. I was too bullheaded to listen and think that I had my emotional state under control when I certainly did not. I regret not listening to those loved ones who were only doing what they were suggested to do in a time when I did not value anything that they had said because I had felt that they did not have my best interest at heart.

Then there were times when I had meltdowns at day services. Even though some of the staff knew me, somewhere completely shocked by how I was reacting towards them for things that were triggering and was led to believe certain things that were not accurate. What I did not also notice was the fact that those that valued me greatly for the amount of progress that I have made was seeing me in a very shocking way that was unbecoming of me that I knew was not proper, but because I was triggered by things as was often the case at day services, it had exploded to what it was and it had at times took some time to come back down to where I needed to be to even get home. I do have to give credit to even some of those that barely knew me but were seasoned enough to be able to get me home on my own because it was the only solution that seemed possible at the time to recover properly.

When I realized that some of my beloved peers had  a front row seat to me reacting negatively toward authority figures and were puzzled by the way that I was reacting, it opened my eyes to see that I had to work at making a change for the better. When I did that, it would take some time for me to finally realize that I had to make some changes that were needed that I did not want to admit to but were necessary. Eventually, things changed to make the main trigger of my meltdowns at day services go to a very low possibility of happening. I know that I must continue to take care of myself and be cognizant of when a meltdown could happen by developing the proper coping mechanisms to prevent a meltdown from a full-blown rage that I eventually become ashamed of and very difficult to recover from. I have matured into a better person and meltdowns are one of the last things that I need to work on making sure that I can cope with the beginnings of them so they can be extinguished before they become bigger than they need to be.