Spoons! Spoons! Spoons!
There are only so many.
There aren’t any more.
They must be conserved.
Used wisely.
Not wasted. Not thrown around with abandon.
Spoons run dry, the ice starts melting. Frustration rises.
Spoons still run down. the ice melts faster, the rage rises faster.
Routines breached. Expectations not met. 
Frustration rises. faster faster it rises.
Swirling, stretching, storming, frustration swings up and down.
Hold it in hold it in.
Try to explain, try to seek understanding. Misunderstood.
Frustration rises higher. More spoons used. Less spoons left.
Spoons run dry.
Explosion happens.
Rage flies. Things fly.
Storming, stomping screaming sounds.
Control lost. emotions flying shattered.
Yell and scream, slam and throw, kick and scream.
Tears flow.
Shame rises.
Embarrassment exudes from within.
Apologies spoken.
Bridges need to be repaired.
Spoons almost gone.
Must conserve the few that are left.
Just enough to get to days end.
**************************
The above I guess is some attempt to process what it can be like when the meltdown comes, or the mini meltdown. When it all becomes too much. When the emotions rise so much, when the language to express with the mouth parts is gone away.
It’s not pretty. In fact it is darn ugly. It is embarrassing, it is intensely felt and experienced in such a deep and painful way that it is incredibly different to understand it fully enough to describe or explain it.
Imagine if you will that you are somehow looking down on yourself, as if you are hovering over and above yourself as something foreign has taken over or control of your body. Your very being. You watch it lose control, you watch it take actions and speak words you don’t want to say and things you don’t want to do.
As you hover you are unable to make your self heard by your body which is taking action seemingly of its own accord. In a sense screaming out trying to level off, trying to take control, trying to express appropriately, but you can’t make yourself listen to yourself.
It goes on. Eventually your body exhaustes itself and you slowly, gradually, tentatively, slip back down into within yourself. As you re enter your own consciousness exhaustion is overwhelming. Understanding of what has happened is unclear yet somehow clear. It’s happened again you know, it’s happened again.
You seek to recover, to gain back a sense of where you are, time and place, settled state of being. It takes time, the sheer degree of the waves of weariness that wash over you are difficult to imagine, difficult to comprehend, and difficult to not overtake you.
For me anyway I feel as though I should be able to control this stuff, I should be able to not let this happen, to calm myself, to not let it happen. In the event though, it is almost as though any attempts to do this, or any attempts by others to ask you to calm just escalate the situation.
It’s not a tantrum. It is something completely different. A tantrum is something we as humans are all capable of throwing, but the critical difference is that it is something that we have full control over. We totally control where we throw it, how we throw it and where we throw ourselves. Just as a toddler watches the floor behind them as they throw themselves down so they do not hurt themselves as they land.
No it’s not a tantrum. It is something of a different order. A completely different order. An order where the actions and words are more visceral or something. Something that is completely at a level where the cognitive control over it is not possible. And attempts at intervention simply escalate the situation.
As an Âûtistic I have a neurology that is not typical. I have particular divergences is in the way I process language, express language. I feel emotions incredibly deeply, yet the expression of them proves to be difficult. Reciprocity and social interaction is fraught with misunderstanding and therefore difficulty. At times factual expression is taken as negativity or criticism. Words that are spoken out are assumed to have meaning that they don’t have and words coming in, they have meaning that is missed because they are not contained in the words themselves. But in implication, nuances and body language.
As an Âûtistic I understand this is a part of me and a part I do not like, I seek to not have it happen, I seek to control it, I seek to avoid it. But sometimes I just can’t.
