Shaun’s meltdown scene on The Good Doctor.
Here’s what I like to call the metaphorical “stuck on the tracks” moment where the meltdown train is in the distance and Shaun can’t get out of its way anymore.
This is at the beginning of the episode before the show intro happens. You can see that Shaun feels backed into a corner, like he has no choice but to agree even though he doesn’t want to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-R8NqhAWEY
You can stop it at 1:44 if you want to avoid spoiling the actual ending of the episode.
The root of it is a feeling I’m so familiar with. Shaun aims to please everybody, to gain their approval, but he feels like nobody considers what he wants. It’s very much a “I do this and this and this for you, why can’t you do this for me?!” feeling. Shaun is so against seeing a therapist that he avoided going home just to avoid the confrontation. Then Glassman confronts him and, well…that’s when the meltdown train runs Shaun over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blPhwqCiMVc
An important thing to note here: Glassman did everything totally wrong here. He keeps talking to Shaun as Shaun is losing his cool, which applies more social pressure when what Shaun really needs is less. Shaun is mumbling (echolalia) advice given to him by Bobby earlier in the episode while Glassman is talking to him. Then Glassman gets into Shaun’s space and wham.
It is not “aggression out of nowhere” like so many Autism Moms™ claim it is. Glassman kept escalating Shaun when he should have backed off.
You cannot reason with an autistic person during a meltdown, you have to let them calm down first.
I have meltdowns a lot (mostly from sensory issues) and I don’t care what you have to say when I’m having one. All I care about during a meltdown is getting away from people to calm down, and obstacles to that tend to get knocked aside.
Glassman made himself an obstacle. Shaun went through him to escape. It’s exactly what I would do if that was me. Backing autistic people into metaphorical corners almost guarantees a meltdown just like squeezing a balloon guarantees it will eventually pop.