how do you prevent meltdown during work? (or even school)

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I ask this because I've done this a few times during work and got in trouble for them. I have ambitious dreams but i'm never going to be even close to them if this keeps happening every time i'm overwhelmed

Make an excuse. Take a break. Family emergency. Go home. Work from home.

Go into the bathroom. And sit at a stall for a couple of minutes.

That's what I do.

Couple of times I tried to prevent a meltdown at work I imploded and had a shutdown instead. Try to avoid triggers at work.

I used to go to the bathroom to breathe before entering the office and then during the day if needed.

Spot on.

If it goes unchecked then you get written off as a psychopath, people give you a wide berth and you won't achieve your potential.

The best handling mechanism is dental The strategy for tooth care now is preventative over treatment. Nowadays people see hygienists and they advise on dental floss and gum health so as to prevent tooth decay. The same is true for meltdowns and shutdowns, they often build up over weeks and months. I find that I shutdown and go quiet for a few days before I fall apart and start throwing things. So the trick is to prevent it ever getting that bad to start with.

So there's a number of techniques you can use, as your career progresses you will build up your own bag of tricks.

- Alone time. I need about an hour a day and about 4 hours on a weekend to process. When you have a city job, kids and a husband, there's rarely any time for such luxuries so I get up at 5:30am. That gives me my time walking or in a coffee shop, time to prepare for the day. On the weekend I go out on my own Saturday morning. Regular time alone lets me neutralize the sensory overload.

- Excuses. I now understand that I can partake in a social activity once a month. It's not much at all, I always used to think it was fine, but the anxiety builds up. So I have a list of "acceptable" excuses that I rotate around. You might not be able to do this but I use women's problems to get out of social events, no one ever questions those

- Clothes. There will be physical triggers. Tight clothes/ suits and napkins set me off. So I have found a structure of chothes (soft tights, wrap dress and suit jacket) that I wear every day. I have 10 dresses of different colours that I rotate over 2 weeks. An aspie graduate that I was mentoring once worked out my pattern So as you identify your triggers, no matter how small, work out a routine that doesn't set you off.

- People. There are people who trigger me. Like super critical bosses or malicious co workers. They will go out of their way to sabotage me, or hate me for no particular reason. In response I have huge arguments with them... in my head. They make me very angry and volatile. You can't always stay away from such people so you need to work on it. Firstly, find ONE thing about them that you respect (this once took me 3 years), then focus on it. Then recognize that the anger is in your head and work on changing your perception of the person trigger. If you can shift your view of them, they will no longer have the power to trigger you.

- Visualizations. When you feel a meltdown approaching, find your landscape. In my head I see lava and fire. So I then imagine water cooling the fire. If you run through this exercise once every 10 minutes or so, then you can calm yourself down.

I used to disappear and cry in the toilets, and still do occasionally. But have found it's better to stop the build up from happening.

I used to have meltdowns (or, in my case, adult tantrums) in my old job. But it was due to anxiety. If I felt overwhelmed or out of depth or whatever, I would cry, slam doors, stuff like that. Luckily the boss and supervisor and some co-workers knew I had Asperger's/anxiety/ADHD, so they didn't take it any further.

But in my new job I found that it's not just Aspies or ADHD people who are prone to meltdowns at work. I don't have meltdowns in this job because it's the type of job that doesn't trigger anxiety for me. But in the 6 months that I've been working there, I saw two of the other female co-workers having meltdowns. One is about 60 and is foreign, and she's had tantrums before if we were doing a task she wanted to do. She yelled to herself in her own language and angrily kicked her stuff about. And then one of the other co-workers, who does have depression and anger issues but not ASD or ADHD, had a meltdown last week for being told off for talking. She was rude to the supervisor and sat crying for the rest of the shift without doing any work. She even hit herself in the head.

Yes, Joe90 has the best idea. Find a job that doesn't trigger you. Sometimes you just have to find another work situation that is less stressful.

i love my job , its the other people that trigger my meltdowns as i don't get along with people very well.

you will probably laugh at this but in one of my meltdowns i shoved a closed umbrella up my arse in a angry fashion
my coworkers still think its funny even though it happened over a year ago.

I'd lock myself in the toilet and cry until I calm down.