Can an Autistic Person Mask a Meltdown?

I believe so, I'm 40 this year and had a mental breakdown in july/august/september due to significant life changing trauma in June. Anyway long story short I ended up having a psychological assesment that believes I am ASD (my 12 year old took 6 years to get diagnosed 4 years ago.) And now awaiting an official assesment. But I do believe I've masked until I'm 40 as looking back things like being put into foster care, past domestic violence relationships and abusive relationships and even now noticing things day to day. Totally ironic that even my daughters diagnosis didn't make me question myself until this assesment, and now I wonder how different life would have been if I'd been diagnosed as a child, instead of being told I was naughty and a horrible child and the effect that has had on me growing up, allowing people to use and abuse me, thinking I deserved it etc. And in relation to ur question I absoloulty think I have masked meltdowns where I have shut down, or struggled with overwhelment over the years but not having a diagnosis I didn't believe they were meltdowns till now.

This is something I’ve struggled to get my head around. I invalidate myself a lot if I don’t present in very typical ways but I think a lot of that is to do with very narrow representations we are taught. I definitely shut down rather than being as visibly upset (although sometimes it’s impossible to hide). A lot of it is to do with the fact that, over time, I’ve learnt that it would be ‘unacceptable’ for me to react in a lot of ways (according to others)

I normally have like my brain is melting down while my body shuts down. My brain normally focuses on wanting to be destructive during those times. But feel like I hide that because of anxiety of what would come of me being destructive.

I think so or instead of having the visual meltdown that people stereotype instead they will have a shutdown.

Oh absolutely. Having an internal meltdown is 100% a thing.

i remember when i switched from shutting down to melting down in my early 20s. It was like someone opened up a reservoir of emotions and I just couldn't hold them back anymore. not healthy to hold them back anyway as it turns out

100% also bc like one of my biggest things is crying in public like I’ve done it but I hate it so much eventually it will come back to bite you in the ass though so pick ur battles

Yeah 100%, i have shutdowns rather than meltdowns which is just internally burying the pain by dissociating

As an autistic who's masked a lot in their life, I can tell you that if it's not a big meltdown we can otherwise we just have a meltdown like any other autistic person.