19 days ago
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Autism and anger
Hi there, I'm fresh out the gate on this app. I'm really looking for some ideas or experience anyone might have had with ASD kids and intense anger. My guy is 9 and has always screamed during meltdowns but the last 6 months it's gone next level. I feel like I'm living with an S.A.S officer screaming in my face & interrogating me every single day, multiple times a day. I don't know how to deal with it any more. It's beyond what people are designed to cope with. My main concern is helping my son but secondary to that is the constant screaming & aggression is starting to trigger me into getting so angry. And I know its not his fault but I have to leave the room and scream into a pillow or I feel like I'll explode. He won't talk about emotions even though we've been working on it since he was 2 & 1/2, I think it taught him how to recognise emotions but not express them. He won't talk to the psychologist which took 10 months to get into & I don't want to lose her but currently it's pointless seeing her, he won't talk to me either. He's doing equine therapy, O.T, I'm trying boxing, I do breathwork with him, I took my massage qualification and became a qualified Paediatric Massage educator and work with body pressure & massage with him everyday but he still is completely incapable of even a little bit of self regulation & I don't know what else to do here. I don't want him living his life so angry, stressed and heightened all the time. & I'm struggling. Any advice? Thnx
9
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You are exploring a lot of options I would have suggested trying. What are his diet and sleep like? How is school going? My guy is a screamer as of this year and higher pressure at school (no resources) plus inching into puberty are the main culprits. I reassure him that he can tell me in words how he is feeling and I am there for him and will help. It works after the initial scream. I am trying to cut it out as well by creating learning resources for the school that work for him. That is where the pattern immerged from frustration/inability to communicate frustration, then it went from LSA tiffs on writing activities to sibling disagreements that previously were easy to manage.
Sounds like my 7yr old. She is constantly in rages, swears at me, says she hates me….all the things. It helps me to remind myself it’s not her, she doesn’t mean it and it’s just her going into survival mode to work through things that have triggered her. It is NOT EASY that’s for sure. I’m Geri g much better at just letting her go for it and trying not to respond to much, as you are right it automatically heightens you aswell. Little by little and baby steps sometimes once she calms she is then upset that she got so angry and treated me that way. The other day she said to me “when l grow up l don’t want my kid to have autism because l don’t want them to scream at me all the time” she then cried. It’s helps to know during these times she truly looses all control.
I absolutely understand how it feels to lose control of our emotions after our kids scream at us. We do have our limits too! It’s hard to keep our cups full and we can’t be the perfect model parent who always has everything under control. It’s just not realistic! We do our best and personally I try to turn my blunders into what I call cleaning up and fixing situations where I admit to my kids I’ve made mistakes or not handled situations in the best way and then I apologise and in that sense try to ‘fix’ my mistakes. Not easy at all! I really struggle with this and I find that if I’m constantly frustrated with her anger episodes it easily puts an unconscious emotional wedge between us. I’ve just realised how big this can be and am trying to be conscious of opportunities where I can show affection to (hugs) or sending some time together where I can and rebuild our emotional bond that I find gets damaged because of the uncontrollable rage and meltdowns in our household. Hope having a shared experience and my suggestions may help a little.
Hey Shelly- can I say, from everything I’ve read here it sounds like your little man is very lucky to have you- sounds like you have tried so much and put so much into place for him! Keep going- it will get better! Hope you get some time just for you- sound very stressed and worn out :( my boy was similar at 9/10 I think hormones - all the little things we do each day do make a difference.
Hi Shelly, you are an awesome mum! So many great things already in practice. I have a 10 year old ASd2 who have huge verbal and physical meltdowns. It is soooooooo hard and isolating. I hear you! We have started behaviour therapy this year but it’s only early days so we will see how that goes. One of the best things we have discovered that has helped was the book “The Explosive Child”. It just puts everything into perspective and helped me understand him so much better. It’s definitely worth a read or cheat like I did and sign up to Audible for a free trial and download it. It’s an abridged 2hr version and was so good! I hope this helps and I know I’ll be checking in on here for tips from anyone else!