Just for the record, a meltdown is not the same thing as a temper tantrum.
A meltdown is the result of sensory overload and/or very high stress to the point that someone just can’t deal with it anymore. It’s common in autistic people that have a difficult time processing and/or coping with certain situations or stimuli.
A “temper tantrum” is someone getting pissy because they didn’t get what they wanted. The most common example is a child kicking and screaming because you told them no when they asked for something they wanted.
Now, consider the fact that, if someone has an autistic meltdown, the people around them will often call it a “temper tantrum”. Which means that they’re obviously comparing it to that little kid that’s screaming because you wouldn’t buy them that they saw at the grocery store.
Which means that, instead of trying to actually understand what caused that meltdown in the first place, people are frequently labelling it as “childish” behavior, either by saying it outright or by comparing it to a tantrum (or sometimes both).
The big problem here is that since a meltdown is ultimately considered “childish”, whoever had the meltdown usually gets in trouble (and sometimes even forcibly restrained), but the actual cause of the meltdown is usually never touched on, since one of two things usually happens afterward. 1) they might ask “what happened to make you so upset?” and then decide that whatever they answered wasn’t a “good enough” reason and therefore that they were overreacting; or 2) they won’t even bother asking questions and assume outright that they were “being a brat” or “being difficult” or “just wanted attention”.
Tl;dr comparing meltdowns to “temper tantrums” basically infantilizes autistic people, inadverdantly or otherwise.
also they’re closer to seizures than to tantrums
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