Living in Hell

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If he's like my son in this - he doesn't want to blow a gasket: it must scare him, too. Having him work with you will make it lots easier. Good luck!

I'm sure it is hard for him to control, but having a plan is a great idea. If you can both agree that when HE is reaching his explosion point that you will tell him he needs to go take a break, that he will listen...regardless of if he thinks he is right or not. You will remind him that this was your agreement and you are doing it to help him and everyone involved.

When he calms down, it may help to write down a few calming activity options so he can just see the options and choose instead of trying to think of something in the moment when he is all worked up.

Once he has calmed down, you two can talk about it and come to a solution when he is more emotionally stable.


It will take PRACTICE and TRUST for this to work. He might really fight you on it the first couple times, but after a while he will see the pattern and be more willing to take a break when you tell him that he needs one.

My husband is bipolar and we have a similar system set in place for when he gets argumentative, mean, etc. It took a while to work smoothly, but having that "emergency plan" set before it happens is helpful. Especially when both people know that it is needed and trust each other to try their best.

Well I found out his tick. It's very subtle. Some people curl their lips, other people ball their hands. His left eye briefly droops down before he gets angry. It usually blinks down if something annoys him, but the more annoying it gets the slower it blinks down and he furrows his eyes. It's a really odd tick, but it's his tick. So we'll work on that.

Wow, nice work! Next question - is he aware of it when it happens? It will be easier if he can identify it himself.

Not entirely. That's the next thing.

Is the older brother on meds for his bipolar disorder? My husband is bipolar, and me trying to talk sense into him when he is not doing well is useless--better to stay out of his way and try to avoid aggravating him. Manipulation, avoidance, and accomodation will work better than confrontation and logic, especially if the older brother is at all paranoid. (Therapy and meds work best, of course, if the person will cooperate.)

One thing that I am trying to do with my younger son, who is higher functioning and smaller (aged 4) than my older son (aged 7) is to get him to stay away from my older son when my older son is in a bad mood. (It is pretty obvious when my older son is in a bad mood; training the four-year-old is harder.) I tell the four-year-old that he is not to talk to my older son when my older son is in a bad mood, to physically stay away, to do a different activity, and to come get me instead of trying to solve problems himself. (The four-year-old's solution is usually to tell my older son that he is acting like a baby, which causes my older son to completely erupt.)

I know that these are teens that you are dealing with, but it might help if the higher functioning of the two can learn to stay away from his brother when he is not doing well.

The ABA therapist is in agreement with me on this.

We recently have him taking meds for his bipolar. The doctor suggested it he said he sees it as necessary with P-boy. And usually P-boy stays away from everyone in the house by locking himself away in his bedroom. J-bird has become increasingly frustrated lately for unknown reasons. I cannot seem to pinpoint what is agitating him. He usually doesn't even mess with P-boy. But those two have been at each other's throats for a couple of weeks now. Back and forth back and forth. And P-boy is not good at high stressed situations. He just snaps at some point and completely loses it when the stress continues. J-bird knows not to get his brother to the snapping point, but increasingly lately it seems to be happening more often that J-bird has decided to press P-boys buttons.