Wow, that was weird. I just had a long dream, and in it, I had an autistic meltdown. In the dream, I was forced to people a lot in a gathering-type environment, people IRL that I had no- contacted for good reason were forcing me to account for my upcoming schedule, and my phone which helps me remember things and stay functional kept crashing itself when I needed it most.

I have no idea what triggered this dream, but oh am I glad to have my safe space at home with my kitty! It's interesting how this intensity is lying in wait just outside the door.

@autistics #ActuallyAutistics #Peopling #AutisticMeltdown #Dreams

"Overreacting" is a myth.

ADHD and Autistic brains process emotion at maximum volume.

Atypical amygdala wiring drives this surge. Bystanders might perceive a tantrum. In reality? The individual is surviving a severe neurological meltdown.

#AuDHD #ASD #ADHD #AutisticMeltdown

It’s just too much 😵

https://cynnisblog.wordpress.com/2025/10/10/its-just-too-much-%f0%9f%98%b5/

A new thing happened to me today (that I'm aware of). A meltdown. At the finish line of my #marathon.

The marathon started very well. My pace was amazing and I was having the best of times.

It was my second marathon on that course, which I appreciate on many levels, but relevant here is the fact that because we're on a bicycle path in the woods, there's not much cheering on the side. Said otherwise, for long stretches, we only hear other runners foot steps, which is soothing.

But during the second half, I was doing less and less good. I thought it was my stomach (well... it was, but not only). I have battled my own head for the last... 8km at least, where I was certain I would collapse at the finish line, if I ever got there.

(There's always negociation with oneself during these events, at least for me, like: it's ok to be a bit slower, I can settle on a "worst" finish time...)

Legs and feet were hurting, sure, it's a marathon. My fifth. I know what to expect by now and I love races (of all distances). I love being part of that community and running alongside them. I feel connected like nowhere else.

At the finish line, I stayed on my 2 feet. I tried going to expo, but turned back and went for medical assistance. My throat felt tighten, I had difficulty breathing and speaking.

I had to sit in the shades, as isolated as permitted by the temporary installations, with my loops in my ears. (I eventually switched to my AirPods Pro to have noise cancelling plus soothing music).

I felt overwhelmed. Really overwhelmed.

And I really couldn't speak. I even wrote a note explaining that, which I showed to the doc.

It took me an hour, they took my vitals, then I was better.

The staff was awesome and supportive, event though they clearly had no idea what an #autistic meltdown was.

Eventually I was able to come back home, by taking a longer route to avoid traffic.

I'm exhausted.

#actuallyautistic #autisticMeltdown

Been busy this evening, with a chain-reaction of events.

I got my #3DPrinter working again - nozzle was blocked, and I couldn't get it unblocked, so I ordered some replacement ones, which arrived nearly a week ago. For multiple reasons, I haven't had the opportunity and/or energy to fit it, until tonight. Got a great test print run off, first try with the new nozzle, so tomorrow I'll be able to set off the ~15 hour print I was trying to do when it blocked.

Also been thinking about a re-spin of the #MakerSpace concept that hopefully won't be so fkn horrible to run. I've been ruminating on this for the last couple of years - especially since I rage-quit running my local makerspace in the summer of 2023, when I had an #AutisticMeltdown due to having to leave our premises because the landlord was a rogue. Tonight I was able to actually get some good ideas down, some basic principles: virtual; non-hierarchical; no committee/board; distributed inventory; premise-less; nomadic - meeting in various venues around the area; organised online (pref using something federated); self-organising; plus a bunch of other things.

As a result of *that*, I ended up looking at #ActivityPub based applications, looking for things that might help with the "virtual makerspace" idea. Found three that I feel I need to check out: Hubzilla, Mobilizon, and NodeBB.

Looking at those three, NodeBB stuck out as it actually mentions FreeBSD as a supported platform, so *that* made me update my #FreeBSD-based mini-NAS, so I could test it. So I've just got it back up to scratch, because it WAS running FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p5 GENERIC, but after running freebsd-update, I found it's now no longer supported. While I've been typing this, it's just finished installing 14.2-RELEASE-p3.

Oh, and also been talking with my wife about how her #AutismAssessment went this evening.

And posting about British Chips and Mushy Peas.

I keep breaking shit. Literally and metaphorically. And then I want to feel better, so I run to some other shit. And then I break that too because I'm impatient and distracted by my feelings of loss from the last thing.

I'm trying to escape this cycle with video games (possibility of success without possibility of meaningful failure)... but Veilguard is making it hard to give a shit.

#ActuallyAutistic #OCD #AutisticMeltdown #AutisticBurnout #Meltdown #Burnout

This week is a struggle. I am sad because I so want to do #inktober2024, but at the current rate I'm not going to be in the headspace or have the spoons. 😣

We knew I was going to crash after #theGreat2024Move was done. It's the way it is when living with #chronicFatigue and #burnout. What I somehow hadn't factored in was the #autisticMeltdown because my safe space is *different* and *cluttered* and things *don't have a place*. 😞😭

Doing art may help, but a challenge is gonna be too much. 😞

Weird #ActuallyAutistic dynamic after a self-diagnosis a year or so ago: I think I am melting down slightly less. I only say slightly because now I know I am having the meltdown and know I am getting to a meltdown point now, and they're just unavoidable. But I think a part of it is that I have #Alexithymia and I would not realize I was getting to the point of needing an #AutisticMeltdown to re-regulate, so I would just reach uncontrollable boiling points a bit more frequently by virtue of not realizing I am getting mad and doing something about removing myself from the trigger

That said, with the awareness I am now actually accepting of the meltdown and leaning fully into getting the emotions out now instead of trying to stifle them, and I am recovering from dysregulation way faster now which is nice (a day or two instead of stewing over it for a week), and obviously avoiding triggers more often.

Makes me feel that Autism education is very, very important to people newly diagnosed, self-diagnosed or questioning. I don't think I would have learned the skills to improve my life like this without the internet communities and resources out there.