Since finding out I’m Autistic, one of the most important things, that has transformational in my own life, has been learning to recognize meltdowns, shutdowns, and other types of overload, as they’re happening, before they happen, before I get to the point of no return. Throughout my entire life, even before knowing I was Autistic, I have experienced Autistic meltdowns, shutdowns, and other types of overload and overwhelm. I’m an Autistic adult, but I didn’t find out I was Autistic until I was 29 years old. The words “Signs of Autistic Meltdowns” floats in front of them in pale teal and green letters. It was a vicious circle.ID: Lyric, a pale skinned nonbinary person with short green, teal, purple, pink, orange, and yellow hair with shaved sides and jet black roots is sitting behind a white microphone in an RV with dark wood panel walls. Then she wouldn’t receive her 100% pass to allow her to have dinner first with her friends, so she would have to eat on her own, which would stop her from going back to school. The gates are locked at 8:40 am so if she was late she wouldn’t go into school, she would have the full day off. Slowly she burnt out, her hair wouldn’t be right and she would be late for school. A couple of occasions she jumped out of the moving car as she spotted friends she could walk into school with and she would just jump out as she didn’t want to walk in alone. Her bottom jaw would be shaking like she was in shock at school drop off. So not long into September of her first month in secondary her anxiety was worse than ever. She was separated from all primary school peers even though I had asked them not to do this. Then came a terrible transition of her being transferred to secondary school all on her own, even though 30 class mates had moved up with her. The secondary school head teacher promised me she would apply for an EHCP for my daughter - the primary school had said she didn't need one. But once she was in class she panicked all day which would stop her going into school the next day as she knew she was trapped for the full day once in school. She really liked the receptionist, and the receptionist used to walk her to the classroom. She was allowed to go into the reception entrance without the other children. By this time she was in year 6 and had constant panic attacks, which was turning into PTSD. CAMHS said they would assess but it took too long (we were put on a year long waiting list) so we waited 4 months for the PDA centre in Norwich, Help for Psychology. We got her privately assessed and there were some processing issues not strictly down to dyslexia. At the beginning of year 5 I thought it could be dyslexia. After her first episode of freezing in class she could no longer get into school without panic attacks. She would be told off for moving around the classroom and not standing still. So the teacher may have asked everyone to be quiet and she would be told off as she would be the only one talking, not realizing others had stopped. She has auditory processing disorder so wouldn’t hear some instructions from the teachers as the classroom was too loud. Primary school teachers would normally tell her off for being loud - she used to get excitable if she was tired or anxious. Sometimes she wouldn’t make it into school as she was so exhausted. Sometimes she would go into school late as she would need hours to calm. We would normally blow bubbles together to help her calm down. She would lay on the floor in a foetal position, crying and saying ‘it’s not fair, it’s not fair’ or ‘I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel safe’. This would be if her hair was unacceptable, or just fed up with the feeling of dread going into school. Sometimes the panic in a morning would involve a full on meltdown. Then she would take a long time to do her hair which would have to be perfect (I think she thought she would be liked better with nice hair) which would make us late, which would cause us to rush out of the house, which would normally have more people stare at her for being late into the playground, lining up to go into class, late into the classroom which cause more paranoia for the next day. It might start in the morning, getting ready for school with her wanting a bit of reassurance: ‘Mum will I get told off today, would the teacher ask me to get into pairs, who would I sit with on a school trip?’. At the time we didn’t know she was suffering with anxiety, and we didn’t know what a panic attack was. Our youngest daughter began to struggle in Year 4, around the age of 8.
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