I have had meltdowns my whole life. I didn't know that's what they were called, but I definitely had them my whole life. And they SUCK! They're uncomfortable, sometimes scary, exhausting, and disabling. But I've also noticed that many, MANY people have no idea of what it's like from a first-person POV.

Of course, this is only my experience, as any person can only talk about their own experience when doing a POV thing, but I describe it here just in case it helps others to understand meltdowns a little more.

Video version of this found episode here

Chapters:
01:23 Episode overview
03:14 Episode outline
04:14 Definitions of terms
10:40 Physiology of survival modes review
15:10 Meltdown stages and my experiences with them
(content warning for descriptions of self-harm from: 23:18 - 25:41)
34:03 Considerations for caregivers or anyone who works with people who have meltdowns

About Us:

The Trauma-Informed SLP website

Our email

Our socials: https://linktr.ee/TTISLP

Recommended resources for meltdown support:

-Managing Meltdowns by Lipsky & Richards

-"Understanding Autism, Aggression, and Self-Injury: Medical Approaches and Best Support Practices" Thinking Person's Guide to Autism article

One consistent aspect of living as a neurodivergent is burnout. Whether it's ADHD, autism, depression, anxiety, OCD, trauma exposure, or literally any other brain difference, we're all burnout from, I suspect, a younger age than most neurotypicals.

But as with workplace/professional burnout, I think there's more than "just burnout" going on; so let's talk about it.

TOPICS COVERED:

1. Defining neurodivergent burnout
2. Parallels to workplace burnout
3. Sources of societal trauma
4. Introduction into deconstructing ableism

Video version of this episode

About Us:

The Trauma-Informed SLP website

Our email

Our socials: https://linktr.ee/TTISLP

CITATIONS:

• Cieslak et al., 2014
• Mantzalas et al., 2022
• Maslach & Lieter, 2016
• TIP 57
• Shoji et al., 2015

There are many, MANY redflags in this rhetoric, so let's unpack them.

Episode topics include:

• Who are the creators of the podcast?
• The "superpower" flavor of dehumanization
• Alternative explanations for what people see
• Playing Devil's Advocate: If all their claims are true, what does it really change?

About Us:

The Trauma-Informed SLP website

Our email

Our Linktree (for our other socials)

Citations:

Disability tropes in fiction

Eariler Jilani article on the communication methodology

Facilitated Communication information and citations

Inspiration porn

Magical minoritized person trope

Moral model of disability

The Telepathy Tapes: A Dangerous Cornucopia of Pseudoscience

"The Telepathy Tapes" Has Close Ties to Vaccine Skeptic Movement (by Zaid Jilani)

Telepathy Tapes transcripts

So here's something from my Youtube page that, in light of the 2024 election cycle, I thought would be good to post here. Genocide always seems like hyperbole...until it's not.

(The video includes images of referenced articles and quotes, so if you benefit from seeing the text on-screen, please check out the link below.)

Description from Youtube episode released May 29, 2024:

I'm not a political commentator. In fact, I can only consume so much of the news cycle every week before my feelings of helplessness and hopelessness get too overwhelming.

Looking at all the atrocities humans have done and are currently doing to each other is so, so heartbreaking -- and honestly, traumatizing. However, you've got to understand the monstrous side of humanity in order to continuously choose compassion and empathy.

And, I don't know, maybe it's my neurodivergent brain, but having some academic knowledge helps me to understand and avoid (as much as humanly possible) the propaganda pitfalls that permeate social discourse these days.

REFERENCES & RESOURCES:
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/disaster-distress-helpline

PDF of Ten Stages of Genocide: https://www.scasd.org/cms/lib5/PA01000006/Centricity/Domain/1482/TenStages.pdf

Ten Stages of American Indian Genocide (Chavez Cameron & Phan, 2018) file:///Users/Kimbrulee/Downloads/webmaster,+Edit3+Cameron.pdf

Link to James Baldwin quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11882302-love-has-never-been-a-popular-movement-and-no-one-s

United Nations on how to help ALL victims of the Israel-Gaza Crisis: https://www.un.org/en/situation-in-occupied-palestine-and-israel/donate

Topics covered:

• Updated episode intro ends around 8:00 (in light of the 2024 U.S. election cycle)
• Strategies (and I've time marks included below if you're wanting to find specific ones quickly)
  • Intro to strategies starts near 13:40
  • Physiological needs starts near 14:50
  • Calming strategies starts near 17:50
  • "Burning up energy stores" starts near 26:50
• What bottom-up processing is
• Reframing our definition of emotions as signals instead of "good" or "bad"

About Us:

The Trauma-Informed SLP website

Our email

Our other social media:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube

Referenced links:

Autism Level Up!

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Butterfly Hug

Tactile/breathing exercises

Progressive muscle relaxation

Destini Ann, "Big Mad," on TikTok

So you've tried all the burnout strategies you can find: Mindfulness, eating better, exercising, goign to bed early ...aaaannnnnd they didn't work. Guess you'll just stay burned out forever, right? Not necessarily...

The stuff that really works to help with burnout (and trauma responses) are just not as pithy, toxic-positivity-y, and clickbait-y as the stuff we tend to hear the most about. Not that those things aren't useful for healing, mental health, and recovery...just that complex problems often require complex solutions and burnout? It's complicated, BABYYYY!!!!

TOPICS COVERED:

• The issue with "typical" strategies
• The ONE strategy we could all use more of
• Strategies for emotional processing (bottom-up)
• "Small" strategies that can have a big impact
• A rough burnout series summary

Youtube video of this episode

About Us:

The Trauma-Informed SLP website

Our email

Our other social media:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Youtube channel

Wanna support us financially?

• Give us a tip on our Kofi (only if it's not a burden to you, tho!)

CITATIONS

• Maslach & Lieter, 2016
• van Dernoot Lipsky & Burke, 2009
• Butterfly Hug instructions
• Bottom-up processing examples
• Jacob & Lambert, 2021 (protected processing time example)
• Ellis, W. R., & Dietz, W. H. (2017)
• Gill, L. (2017).
• Finding community: Volpe, 2022
• McMillan, 1986 for a sense of community definition and theory

Episode 3 is finally here! On this episode, we talk about secondary traumatic stress (STS), a.k.a vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, trauma exposure, etc... This is the meat...the "entrée" (if you will)...of the series because I think that the impact of being exposed to other peoples' trauma is a lot more prevalent than we tend to think. And it's what gets confounded with burnout the most.

TOPICS COVERED:

• What STS is
• Where STS comes from
• Symptom clusters of STS

Youtube video of this episode

About Us:

The Trauma-Informed SLP website

Our email

Our other social media:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Youtube channel

Wanna support us financially?

• Give us a tip on our Kofi (only if it's not a burden to you, tho!)

Citations: (I am unaffiliated with all links below)

• Cieslak et al., 2014
• TIP 57
• Shoji et al., 2015
• Bride et al., 2004
• Judith Herman, "...trauma is an affliction of the powerless"

One little thread on r/slp made me think of three major things that are part of how I process and do neurodivergent-affirming care in the case of emotional dysregulation. So I made a really informal video (using my front cam on my Macbook, so apologies for the quality) to address those things.

Outline:
1) Definition of dysregulation, it's over-use, and contrasting it with emotional upset.
2) Putting more effort into thinking through possible reasons for meltdowns/tantrums/emotional upset vs. trying to figure out which one it is -- and why this is important for child safety.
3) All behavior isn't intentional communication, but it can be information: Pro-tip for thinking of AT LEAST THREE possible reasons for the meltdown/upset/tantrum behavior.

Citations:
-Reddit thread: https://bit.ly/4gFrtTd

- Destini Ann: https://www.destiniann.com/epk

-Psychology Today article on emotional dysregulation: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-for-happiness/202108/what-is-emotional-dysregulation

-Quinones et al, 2020: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7682894/

-Quote: "Trauma is an affliction of the powerless" is by Judith Herman: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/530025-trauma-and-recovery