My Son Just Violently Attacked Me

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OP, have you gotten your son checked out? Any word?

I have a friend who's child had PANDAS. I don't fully understand what it is, but basically it happens when an untreated infection ends up in the brain. It can cause severe anxiety and violent thoughts. I imagine that in some children it can lead to actual violent behavior, though this didn't happen in my friend's case. Also, I know from her situation that the child can be very self-aware. My friend's daughter was panicking in part because she knew she was having these violent thoughts towards self and others and was very afraid that she might act out on them. This girl does not have ADHD or any other disorders. It wouldn't surprise me if ADHD would lessen the time between thoughts and actions because kids with ADHD already have difficulty with a lack of inhibition.

Who is "the system", and how does it owe anyone anything?

My son used to hit me, it peaked at around age 9 or 10, he white-knuckled it through 11 and at age 12 had a leap in development that made it easier for him to manage his anger in non-physical ways. I was also scared that my son was going to get big enough to physically hurt me.

Some things to look at here: I think your son was not threatening you, he was trying to give you a warning about what was coming. I think he was actually trying to protect you. I've seen this in a number of kids on the spectrum (most notably, the kid who tried to hit my son during a social group - who wound up teaching us more in that moment than 5 years of therapy.)

Frankly - I had that moment at my peak of labor. I stupidly had asked for natural childbirth, I was having intensely painful back labor, and my husband kept hovering around trying to help and at one point he held both my hands, whereupon I said "If you don't leave me alone I AM GOING TO HIT YOU." I am not violent and our relationship is not violent - but at the time, that was the only solution I could think of; I was managing way too much and just barely trying to hang on. My point is that this isn't necessarily representative of a pattern of violent behavior, but might be driven by circumstances.

I also have migraines that lead to vomiting: ANY SENSORY INPUT is EXCRUCIATING. If this was the case for your son, and you were talking to your son or touching him, or even if he was just trying to explain that he needed you to turn off the lights or make things quiet, I can see where that might have set him off. I have a very hard time articulating my needs when I have a migraine. (BTW, icepacks on the back of the neck sometimes help)

The poster who described emetophobia may be on-track, too - if he's terrified of throwing up, there comes a point where throwing up is inevitable...and that could cause a meltdown.

I completely understand your fear. I think this is a unique situation, and I do not think this is an indicator that your son is falling apart or becoming generally violent.

I think DW is right, you need to see if you can talk with him during a time when he's calm and figure out what was going on and what his actual needs were at the time. He probably does need medical support, but I would hesitate to go to a psychiatrist with fears of violence from a generally non-violent kid - if you do, be very careful to explain that this ONLY happens with vomiting. I would see a doctor who can help you with the vomiting part first.

I am guessing he was in extreme pain and unable to express it, and may not have the words to discuss it later. You may need to provide him with symptom lists or some sort of framework of language to use. I also would ask him what he wanted you to do - I know I want to be left completely alone in a dark, quiet room when I feel nauseous.

Well, I am back for an update. First off, as a previous poster suggested, yes, I did abandon this post after seeing how things had gotten "out of control". It isn't that I was being closed minded about suggestions or input (after all, I did post on here asking for some insight into what had happened), but a lot of what was said had nothing to do with my original post or was offensive, in my view. My reason for posting was because what happened was traumatic for me at the time and I wanted to know if anyone else had experienced anything similar or might have suggestions about what could be a helpful means of "diagnosing" the cause of Nathan's outburst/attack.

Since my original post, NOTHING even remotely similar to the attack has happened. Nathan is verbal, but his communication skills are not developed enough to explain what caused him to react the way he did. He says a bad word here and there, but it is usually because he is trying to "get away with" being naughty. He is put in time out every time he does this and is getting better with his self-control. He does not hit us, but has slapped a teacher once in the last month. What I am getting at is that Nathan's behavior is not perfect, but he is not the person who had that violent attack on a day to day basis.

Since it would require a bunch of quoting, I am just going to address several previous posts right here: Nathan is not on medication. He is not typically violent. The only other time he has had a meltdown like this (other than when he needed to vomit) was after taking Burset and coming out of anesthesia following dental surgery. We (his parents) believe in discipline and are consistent in taking away privileges or issuing groundings/time-outs. We don't "beat" him, but we can be pretty intimidating authority figures when needed (we are not super strict, but we have no problem being disciplinarians when we see fit). Sorry if this offends the posters, but I do not believe my son is/was possessed and there is absolutely no way I would call the cops on a nine year old little boy who is obviously having something terrible happen inside him to cause this type of behavior. The only other issues Nathan has besides the PDD-NOS is severely limited attention (ADHD). At this point in time, we are against medicating Nathan - once he is older and can better verbalize what he is thinking and feeling, we will revisit the medication option, if necessary.

Nathan is a wonderful kid, and I'm not just saying that because it's what parents are "supposed to" say about their kids. He is great. The kid has such a great sense of humor, is energetic and upbeat, he is full of love and I have never seen a better big brother. I think what made this attack so upsetting for me is that it is pretty terrifying to see a person's entire personality and demeanor switch 180 degrees in a matter of seconds. We have not been able to see a therapist or psychiatrist because, sadly, most of the child psychiatrists/psychologists have left my town and moved to bigger cities. It would require a very long drive to get Nathan back into a therapist (we have traveled to one about an hour away, but after two or three visits, we realized it wasn't a good fit for us). Once we find one, we will get Nathan back into therapist if his MD isn't able to help. In the meantime, he attends a private school for children with all degrees of autism and gets a lot of assistance there.

Thank you to everyone who has provided useful input on this thread. I appreciate it.

Thanks for the update. You can get some really great advice here, but sometimes you also get some tinfoil-hat stuff. You just have to take the good with the...other.
Glad to hear things are going generally well for your son.

Glad to hear from you, and glad things are back to normal for now. I hope it continues like this, and that you find a successful plan to manage when your son is nauseated.

Therapy has never worked for our DS, because it requires a degree of communication skills he just doesn't have. (The Ross Greene website and books have been helpful in giving us resources to get helpful information from him, though.) Therapy for my husband and I has been critically important, both for finding the right frame of mind to parent him and to build the skills we need.

There are therapists who work by email, phone, or skype. I am not sure how to find a good one, but I think it really might help to find someone who specializes in autism who would be willing to help you long-distance. I have pretty good google-fu and will be happy to do some research on your behalf if you want - just send me a PM.

I think just about everyone intends their response to be useful. Obviously on the Internet, it's likely some responses might fit your situation better than others.

Am glad things are better for you

Thanks for the update. I'm sorry some of these posts upset you, but with regards to free advice - especially on the Internet - sometimes you get what you pay for and most times what you get isn't what you even asked for, much less need.

My son is a serial hitter but that's because he's nonverbal. You're ahead of the game if he can verbalized his feelings - even if what he said was scary. I think you're doing a good job of handling it.

One thing I would caution, though - and yes this is free advice so take it for what it's worth - is that something like this were to happen in school or even when you and he are out in the community you may find yourself pressured to take measures you may not like or believe in. For instance, once we had our son on medication and he was in school any attempt to abandon one thing - even if we weren't convinced it was working - was met with extreme resistance by everyone else who worked with him. It can be very frustrating when your integrity as a parent is called into question. In that case, it would really benefit you as parents to seek counseling of your own and keep yourself educated in order to combat ignorance.

I completely agree. The unfortunate truth is that schools do not really have the resources to serve our children, and therefore have an unconscious vested interest in finding someone else to blame. That is a broad brush, so obviously each situation is unique, but the driver of someone you sought out and are paying (or your insurance is paying) is different than the driver of a beleaguered public servant.

It sounds to me like the nausea is triggering an anger-panic reaction. Nausea is a scary and extremely uncomfortable feeling for many (all?) kids, and is a considerable loss of control with no real sense of when it is going to end. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread having had a similar reaction as a child, and I know of a few NT as well as ASD kids that react angrily when nauseous.

I agree with the posters that suggested trying to talk with your son about it... Maybe now that the episode is a couple months back, he can talk about it more calmly. I would just ask him in a kind of structured instead of open-ended way, kind of like "I want to talk to you about something that happened a while back. I want to understand what happened when you were nauseous and ended up having a meltdown. To me, it seemed like you were very angry (at me and your father) and like you were panicking. Is this correct? Do you remember how your body felt and what you were thinking? How can I help you next time to get through it better, because hitting is not an option." Etc. etc.

After that you could give him some time to process and mull it over. When he is ready to broach the subject again you could make nausea a topic to study and understand over the next few weeks/months. What is it, why does it happen, how long does it last, what can you do to cope with it, what can we as parents to do help you through it? Maybe you can find some kid-friendly books/cartoons/YouTube videos or social stories about it. Practice simple relaxation strategies. Talk about what you do to cope with nausea. Someone mentioned ginger ale and placebo effect... good idea! If nothing else, he may at least know a bit more what he can expect next time and the meltdown may not be as intense. You could try to reiterate that hitting/spitting is not an acceptable coping strategy, and he needs to try something else. You could make a list with him of acceptable strategies to cope, and tell him that if he begins hitting next time, you will leave the room.

Best wishes!

Didn't read through most of the replies, so I don't know if this was brought up already, but, if I was to take a guess, people on the spectrum don't so much as "get better". It's more like we get better at coping with our abnormal behavior. But it can be very easy to throw it off, I mean, the best way I can describe it as, we're acting all the time. Added stress from something unexpected and out of the routine, like being sick, may really throw off someone from acting, because we act according to a script; "oh no, my stomach is upset, this wasn't in rehearsal... This isn't on the script... I don't know what would be the appropriate response... What do I do??? How do I deal with this??? I think I'm going to puke... I don't like this feeling... *panic* THIS WASN'T MEANT TO HAPPEN, I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME... WHAT IS HAPPENING??? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING??? IS IT SOMETHING I DID??? IS IT SOMETHING MY MOM DID??? AHHHHHHH!! !". End of event, he pukes, his stomach is feeling slightly better, and he's realized what he's done. He more than likely realized how he reacted was not the "proper response". But it wasn't on the mental behavior script.

I'm not a 100% sure how you should react to this, the fun thing about autism is that no two cases are really alike. So I would have a hard time coming up with a suggestion to help lower these incidences without knowing more about the child, perhaps it might be a good idea if you guys talk to a behavioral health specialist.

I'm so sorry to hear that, but the good part was you and his dad's reactions that you didn't hit him, I hope things go well time, I'm sure he was just overstressed and had this treatment, but the important part also was that he knew he was doing something wrong, and he apologized for it!

Don't worry, your son is ok