???? *Sigh*
Are you aware of what a meltdown is and why it happens?
(WARNING, THIS WILL BE LONG. HOWEVER I ASK THAT YOU, ANON, MAKE AN EFFORT TO READ IT ALL.) Also if another autistic person sees something false that I have written in this then please inform me, I speak from what I know, but I dont know everything.
A meltdown is a response to stressful and overwhelming over-stimulation. It is involuntary and an extremely unpleasant and distressing experience for an autistic person to go through. It is not the wilful and intentional violent destruction of a person’s property and is not rooted in any desire to cause harm.
While shutdowns could be described as more of an internal withdrawal response to over-stimulation (that doesnt fully describe it but the topic rn isnt shutdowns so forgive me for the over simplification and lack of detail), meltowns are a more outwards and often times more visible response to the distress caused by over-stimulation. I will repeat that meltdowns are not a reaction autistic people can control and are not caused by a desire to destroy things.
Autistic people may have a meltdown when they are in stressfully overwhelming and/or over-stimulating situations/environments. What an autistic person finds overwhelming/over-stimulating differs from one autistic person to another.
For example lets say that an autistic person is extremely sensitive to sound and cannot stand physical contact from people and they are put in an environment that is extremely loud and crowded with people, without any means of blocking it out/removing themselves from the environment and protecting themselves from becoming over-stimulated. Its almost inevitable that this autistic person may become distressingly over-stimulated and could more than likely experience a meltdown.
Meltdowns can include screaming, shouting, crying, the person curling in on themselves, stimming (in an attempt to regulate the sensory input and calm down), the person becoming non-verbal, shying away from touch/physical contact.
Meltdowns can also include self injurious behaviour such as; pulling at their own hair, hitting themselves, biting themselves, scratching themselves. Very, very rarely does a meltdown involve hurting other people and most of the time it happens because someone tries to touch that autistic person while they are experiencing the meltdown and the autistic person involuntarily lashes out in response to the unexpected, and unwanted physical contact. Unwanted because physical contact only adds MORE over-stimulation when a person is already over-simulated and overwhelmed.
Which is why autistic people stress the importance of NOT touching an autistic person during a meltdown or shutdown unless they have given you permission to do so. Otherwise is will only make the situation worse and could result in both you and the autistic person becoming injured.
Do you notice what wasnt mentioned in my kinda-list of what can happen during a meltdown? Yeah thats right. Not a single mention of ‘smashing’ a persons propety. You know why that wasnt mentioned? Because wilful destruction of property isnt really a part of meltdowns.
An autistic person having a meltdown really isnt likely to start running around destroying your property. They are responding to over-stimulation and honestly are much more concerned with getting the meltdown to end and getting the over stimulation to stop so that they can stop being in pain.
And let me tell you something thats pretty important to this hypothetical situation you’ve conjured up: If an autistic person is having a meltdown in your living room then that means they are experiencing a sensory overload, which wouldnt be happening if you were conscious of their sensory needs/what they find over-stimulating. If you were accommodating for the fact that they are autistic.
If its someone you didnt know was autistic or what-not then you cant be faulted. However I dont think its too hard/so unreasonable to ask if there are any sensory issues they have that you need to be aware of so that they are comfortable and dont experience a sensory overload. Autistic people tend to try to do this for themselves anyway but it really does help a lot if allistic people are willing to be accommodating and respect our sensory issues.
And if someone is having a meltdown in your living room? Then no, unless they specifically asks you to, you do NOT restrain, or even touch that person without their permission. If someone is having a meltdown then you do what you can to help. If you know what caused the meltdown then you stop it (for example if its loud music then you turn the music off), and do what you can to reduce the sensory input for the time being if possible. If its the environment then try to help them leave the environment so that they can escape the sensory hell and begin to recover.
Or the very least you can do is be patient and wait, leave them be for a while so that they can wind down from the sensory overload and recover in their own time (though really, trying to make the environment less over-stimulating for them would be a great help).
To summarise: You are almost 100% wrong. An autistic person having a meltdown isnt very likely to smash your property. Touching and restraining an autistic person having a meltdown without their clear permission is wrong and should not be done. Its more likely to get you and that person injured than it is to fix the problem. Forcefully removing them from your home and dumping them outside in the middle of a meltdown is, in my opinion, bordering dangerously on flat out cruel.
