Adult Aspergers and handling the anger problems!

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Anger is a coping mechanism...learned.
I know I have it...and I also know I am from a long line of raging maniacs. I am answering this because I have learned to manage it. The regular everyday world of the 21 year old is a pressure cooker. There is enormous pressure to be cool or to be cool somewhere..other than your family. If he is aware of that and doesn't feel 'a part of' anywhere but home he is hurting. I personally couldn't handle the whole underlying purpose of facebook. It sounds like he is a kid that 'looks' like he should be normal but isn't 'normal'.
Does he have a group of friends that genuinely like him and he enjoys? Where is he getting his validation in the world he is ok? NT girls at 21 are extra savy and enjoy extra drama. It is fed to them like baby food in this present world. If his basic nature is simple and sweet but he is forced to be cool and slick, he will do nothing but meltdown around his safe people. Without a network of support that validates him, shields him, this kid out in the world is like a lamb to the slaughter. He needs different, he needs to escape it to find what he can do and can't do and a world where he can relax and fit. This is almost cruel to expect him to handle the regular pressures that 21 year olds handle.

I think the year program will not only shield him from the next year of hell he is about to face in the regular world, being a little slow and at the same time get him out of the house where he will continue to act out. I needed shielding to get better, not more saturation. Whatever they do won't be enough, he knows they will begin again. In another place, that is monitored he will begin to see he is screaming alone in the center of the room and it is not ok. He will find how to be ok instead of putting this on his parents who don't know how to make this happen.

Thanks Louise 18 and Alone. My nephew and I are very close, I love him as if he were my own and he knows that. He is pretty good with me. As you say, we do realize that meltdowns are something that he will live with for the rest of his life, its how he learns to deal with them and recognize them. He knows we are here for him when he needs us. We all are learning each and every day since a lot of this just began within the last year. He has many friends, a few NT's and some Aspie's. These friends are close and try to help him deal with the struggles he has. Just wish he realized what good friends he has. I think he takes them for granite at times. You all have been very helpful in your words of wisdom!

I hate to be honest about this. But the truth of the matter for me is that breaking away from my family and thier expectations was the best thing I did when I was in my twenties. I no longer speak to them. The anger issues, which are probably caused by meltdowns, can only be addressed a few ways, backing off arguements (avoiding them) and reducing stress. Aspie's advice is dead on, descalation is key, but I have things to add.

Here is my advice to adults on the spectrum, with regards to parent - adult child relationships.
1. If you are a parent or family member you are not going to win an arguement with somebody on the spectrum. As stated, don't throw out "consequences" rhetoric it doesn't work on us. Ever. Don't even try, if you actually want to be in peaceful contact with this family member, realize this "peace and lack of stress above all else", and when I mean all else. Descalation is really the key skill here, alot of meltdowns once it gets to that stage cannot be controlled. You want to avoid meltdowns like the plague. I think this is should be stressed, pressuring us leads to stress. These ARE meltdowns. The fact is many NT want to be more controlling in this situation, when the truth of the matter is that they need to be less so and let things go. Nobody ever wins an arguement with an Aspie, ever, we are more stubborn than any NT. Why? We need a great deal more control because of related issues dealing with social exposure and sensory aspects of being on the spectrum, but also control in general. We regret arguing and melting down, but we are always right and tend not to cede ground. The message here, is don't even bother to argue and learn to avoid the things that cause arguements. The new phrase you need to learn is "okay" even when you feel they are wrong. Avoid conflict above all else.

2. Adjusting to being an adult takes longer. These big life transitions are more difficult. For me I ended up going to graduate school to buy myself some time. Even then adjusting to the job market took me several years. Allow them time to adjust and make mistakes, and this may take time. Alot more than other adults. For those of us smart enough pushing through college to graduate school is a viable option. But I know its not for everybody.

3. This is the most important: Arrange things so that they have as much control over their life as possible.

Basically...this adjustment is very difficult. If you are wondering the extent I took number 3. I no longer communicate with my family because they wanted to much control of my life and what I did in my life. Remember, we are black and white thinkers and uncompromising, you either accept our path fully, or don't. You can explain the downsides, but you have to remember when an aspie says they are going to do something they are going to do something thier way, they may change course, but it will be in their own way. Just swallow it and move on. My parents learned this the hard way, they don't argue with me anymore because they don't talk to me anymore. I think this is the fact that parents of Aspies have to swallow, we have to do this with almost total control. Remember family is no more different to us than any other relationship with a human being. Blood is no more important to us, than any other type of relationship and we can end it just as quickly. Our relationships are very conditional with family. Ultimately it is how much you value that relationship, if you value it you have to be unconditionally accepting at this stage and try to reduce stress.

Trust me if the large stressers are removed meltdowns reduce significantly. Identifying them can be tricky. As it was stated de-escalation is key, and much of what is key for an aspie runs contrary to what people are taught. You kind of have to avoid emotive discussions. Meltdowns are exactly that, when our emotional processing melts down.

Also therapy is only helpful if the person themselves wants therapy. You cannot force that either.

Like it or not cutting off contact with family was my only option because of the extent I needed control over my own life rather than them dictating terms of my life. #3 is that important for those on the spectrum. Please realize, we are not intellectually disabled, don't treat us as such, but also realize we can be very uncompromising. We need to define our lives in ways that suit us above all else and we have reasons for this. This means living as stress free as possible, and we can make radical changes to make it stress free as possible.

The truth of the matter is they have to completely back off, they are no longer in control. I know this is hard to hear for parents, but creating an environment of forcing things is not going to help. Like I said, if you value your relationship with adult children who are on the spectrum, realize these three things. Also realize from this point on they are in control, because you cannot be anymore. They will make mistakes, but they need to learn from thier own mistakes in thier own way. This will make things difficult, but let me be honest, this is the level of control that needs to be here.
Don't try power games with somebody on the spectrum, it only makes things worse.

I should add one more. Like I said, this is something that needs to be done with all people who have an autie or aspie in thier life, whether they be parents or partners, a social veto. Don't make things you see as social obligations requirements. Basically if they don't want to go to something that is social in nature, they don't. Get used to the term, it really should be central. This includes family parties, funerals, weddings, etc.

Starygrrl: my neck is cracking from all the nodding i made while reading the billion of words you wrote , and i absolutely agree with each of them.
One tiny thing to add: the other option while being pressured to do something, (other than cutting one's family out of one's life) would be to clam up and wait until they stop pressuring you to begin thinking about what you need and want to do. No amount of advising, ordering, and hinting will help executive disfunction: it fires it up.
As Starygrrl stated, aspies need to be in control, and to be in control you have to evacuate the white noise that is other people's ideas of what you should do before you can find your own ideas.
The more advice we recieve, the slower we will be to start doing anything.

Leise, apologies I'm not being encouraging, but I'm not saying that there aren't ways to stop/reduce the meltdowns, just that there isn't a quick fix, and methods designed for anger problems in NT's aren't likely to work (then again they might, if he can catch meltdowns before they happen and apply these techniques to himself). But there are lots of things which could be tried, all of which stand some chance of making a difference. If CBT for anger doesn't work, CBT for oversensitisation might. If he's socialising a lot, social skills training might help. Emotional learning might help. More careful sensory regulation (such as a sensory room) might help. Meditation might help. A beta blocker before he goes out with friends might help. Keep trying different things until something works (probably a combination, and what he learns in CBT will probably be part of the combination). And I still think it shouldn't be escalating to violence, especially if it happens sometimes but not always; something that's done to him when he's in meltdown is escalating it, which needs to be identified and stopped (it's probably a sensory trigger, such as being grabbed or hugged or unable to get out). Drawing up a crisis plan might help. Actually, you may also find the problem clears up spontaneously, because from what you're saying, it sounds like the effort he puts into socialising, and the frustrations arising from misunderstandings, are a big meltdown trigger. No trigger, no meltdown. If for instance he stops socialising or does it less often, or if he becomes more aware of situations and less surprised, or he gets better at articulating his needs, there might be a big spontaneous improvement. Another thought: have a look if greater anger might be a side-effect of the antidepressants he's on – it's rumoured they can have this effect in rare cases (though I'm not denying they do a lot of good for some people too). Did the timing of his 'getting worse' coincide with going onto these? The difficulty is that they have a disinhibiting effect, and if his depression was misdiagnosed they could be causing hypomanic patches.

I was probably exaggerating the likelihood that he was harmed by being institutionalised. The regime must be different where you are from what I'm used to. Where I'm from, for emergency committal without a long legal process, there's only really prisons, police cells and mental asylums, and mental asylums are mainly for knocking people out with large amounts of antipsychotics and sedatives (at least, that's what I've been told by people who've been in them during crises). The psychiatrists must have thought that he shouldn't be there, else they wouldn't have let him out. In my mind, the only times it might be justified to call police or men in white coats is in a crisis situation itself, if someone's very likely to be killed or maimed. I know your relatives are frightened he might do something really bad, but actually, it's very unlikely (I've only ever come across one case in fact, despite a large literature on meltdowns). Two days later after being hit on the arm just does not sound like that kind of case to me, though I'm trying to be understanding rather than judgemental. Especially if they can find out why the meltdowns are more violent on some occasions than others. My reaction is partly because I'm speaking from an experience where I've occasionally been threatened or physically assaulted during meltdowns (nothing even as bad as being locked-up), and as a result, developed anxiety and depression (it's a logical thought-process: I'm at risk if I go into meltdown, particularly in certain spaces; I can't control whether I go into meltdown; therefore I'm always at risk – and should avoid those places, people, situations where the risk is particularly great). It reduces the frequency of the meltdowns at first, but there's a saying about anxiety: each time you leave a situation through fear, the fear goes down but the anxiety goes up. Anxiety raises sensory arousal (fight-flight response) which itself increases the triggers for meltdown. This means more situations put me in meltdowns than in the past, my social functioning has gone down dramatically, and I seem to be in 'pre-meltdown' states much more often than before (I'm quite good at keeping them short of full-scale meltdown, but only with an extensive cocktail of drugs, stimming, meditation, relaxation and channelling, and even then it doesn't always work). If the message gets through to his unconscious that he's at risk if he goes into meltdown, this chain of reactions is a predictable response. To be honest, I understand it's hard to take. I wouldn't want to live with someone who was constantly shouting, especially if I couldn't figure out why. I wish I could stop others suffering when I or someone else has a meltdown. There seems to be a deep response in NT's to assume they're either under attack or else to blame, which stems from the circumstances in which NT's would become angry. I think that understanding that it isn't either his fault (he isn't playing for power) or their fault (they haven't brought it on in a way they could predict, and possibly at all) should in principle make it easier, but it's hard to unlearn ingrained responses. Also perhaps to think of it as directed at the situation rather than them. Think of it less like anger and more like an epileptic fit (which I'd guess can also be disturbing to witness, and occasionally dangerous). Also, the more you know about how meltdowns work, the less frightening seeing one is. Feeling the situation makes sense, and knowing in advance how to respond, can have a big reassurance effect when dealing with unpredictability.

Louise: “Try and encourage him to interpret things in the least favorable way” - I can see how this would help (no disappointment removes a meltdown trigger and uncertainty), but won't that cause him to develop APD? I thought that was meant to be caused by always reading ambiguities in a negative way. Hmm, come to think of it, APD might be better than meltdowns.

Alone: Why do you get the feeling this is a learnt problem? Meltdowns aren't a coping mechanism, they're a breakdown of coping. They seem to appear spontaneously, often from a very early age. Brain scans have shown the parts of the brain using in learning switch off during meltdowns. Other kinds of anger can be a learned coping mechanism. CBT will tell you anger is a coping mechanism because statistically, that's what it's most likely to be. That's partly why I say that meltdowns aren't a standard anger management problem. Meltdown isn't really anger anyway; anger is a symptom of meltdown, arising from the fight-or-flight response which is triggered in meltdown. This is assuming of course that we're dealing with meltdown here, but that's what it sounds like to me. In any case, people don't miraculously find “how to be OK” because they're suffering, or not getting effects. If you were right then people in solitary confinement in prisons should stop being angry as well. In fact it seems to make people worse, they come out desensitized to violence.

Starrygrrl: great post. I really feel like this myself, and I wonder if my big mistake has been to not live more independently. I'd say to NT's reading this however, to be very clear: we need control over our own lives and life-contexts. We aren't out to control YOUR life, the way a narcissist might be; our need for control is not social, and it's not proactively directed at you (I say this because I know some of you will read this and think: Help! Aspies want to run my life! and I'm pretty sure that's not what she meant). Aside from a few special cases (such as reliance on someone else or 'moral' objections), I doubt most of us care what you get up to when we're not around, or what you do within the range of things we don't find sensorily distressing. And as Starry already said, we need control over our own lives/contexts for particular reasons, which have to do with intense, irreducible sensory needs which in our own experience, may well be the same as 'reality' (hence why we're 'always right': very often, the counterargument is, in one's own paradigm, either simply absurd or obviously empirically wrong). I do feel nowadays that I can often compromise with other people, I've even changed my mind sometimes because of things other people have said, but it's very much within my own perspective, and it takes a lot of work to do it. It's like translation: I have to learn to see a situation from two frames at once, and then find a way to bring them into contact. The more I understand my own sensory needs and social limits, the more compromises I can make, because the refusal to compromise is bound-up with avoiding overstimulation and stress.

I didn't get the feeling that Leise's family were putting on social pressure though, aside from the attempt to stop this guy having meltdowns. Leise is suggesting he's putting himself under a lot of pressure to socialise and to perform socially, and getting frustrated over the usual things aspies find difficult – she's mentioned ambiguity, rejection, overexposure and being sanctioned for faux-pas at various points. My hesitant guess from what she's said is that this social frustration is the main stressor. And if this is part of his own frame in terms of what he wants to do, then living independently wouldn't make it go away (having the meltdowns in private might make them less traumatic for others though).

To all of you - I totally understand what you are saying and it makes sense that as you become adults you should have the rights as anyone else to make your own decisions and do things the way you want. Guess us NT's have a lot to learn, huh? To Starrygrrl - it seems sad to me that you have no connection with your family but I guess you have your reasons. I just hope my nephew dosen't give up on us, because we will never give up on him ... no matter how old he is!

Don't be too put off. People are trying to help, and to warn you off problems some of us have had. There's ways to work round meltdown problems, so there's hope for your situation. And we often have a lot to learn about NT's too

You made good points aspie1968 but I still think that this kid is in a pressure cooker. I honestly have no control over the meltdowns when I feel I am in a spin, some kind of overload. I think this kid has been just under the radar, fitting in enough to get by up until now. He is not an aspie but a HFA with a slightly lower IQ. I think, I am assuming here so correct me Leise, he has had a network of friends and his time in this group hasn't been complete rejection. But now he is 21 and it is reality time....his friends graduated and some in the social network go to college and have a more complicated social life. He is kind of being left behind in subtle ways. Girls respond but not the ones he wants to respond. It sounds like the HFA is catching up and girls are interested in what girls are interested in at 21...boys, socializing, partying and he isn't keeping up. His safe world in school has broken up.
This is devastating for him. He needs a rescue because he will fall farther and farther behind. (ie quit his job) He needs something else besides what he had to feel ok. I have no idea of what that could be, I just know he is in pain. It is very hard to watch the world move on and stay locked in your mind wondering why.

I had problems similar to this when I was younger. Therapy to help me see things more in grey than black-and-white, and assertiveness and emotional-competence helped me. But with your son's low IQ he'll at least take longer to grasp such concepts, if he can grasp them at all.

Sorry I can't offer anything more practical than my compassion.

Alone, I suspect you're completely right about the pressure-cooker thing - was just querying whether it was a learned response or would be helped by melting down in a room instead of with parents. What you say sounds exactly right in terms of what it must be like to try to engage with 'normal' social life at that age (can't say from experience as I was socially inactive back then). And a change of scenario might be a great idea in the circumstances (the other option, I think, is for the autistic man to 'ration' his social contact to levels which are less stressful). The thing with the year course would be to make sure it doesn't amount to casting him out into another pressure cooker minus his safeguards. All the same status/normal conduct expectations might be going on but without his spaces of retreat. If he was in student halls, this might be a transition from social frustration a few hours a day to social frustration 24/7, with the stress of transition added in. I'd also say: they (or he) should make sure the people in charge can handle his meltdowns at wherever it is he's going. If it's designed with autistic people in mind they probably have this covered, but if they're used to people with learning difficulties/people coming out of institutional care and are focused on practical problems like housekeeping, they'll need a bit of awareness training themselves before they take him on. Or at least a crisis management plan. To avoid scenarios like: he's learning cooking, he burns a meal, gets frustrated, goes into meltdown, other students/staff are scared, someone calls security/police, they grab him during meltdown, he pushes/hits them... This kind of thing can be avoided with preparations I would think, but it needs to be thought about if he has meltdown problems.

Just wish we knew what to do for him. He has been so much better the last week or so, but just in the last couple of days he's been getting quite frustrated. It always starts with a girl or her mother telling him to quit calling and all hell breaks loose. We realize he is having the meltdowns and we try to console him then leave him alone ... he follows and cusses using every name in the book. Seems like now it is not just with close family members but anyone. He is a big boy and I'm worried he may hurt himself or someone else. He begins seeing another therapist tomorrow (behavioral) ... hope she's the one that has the answers. Thanks again for everyones feedback it really helps!

Ah... we're getting closer to identifying a trigger, it sounds like frustration-handling is the problem. Perceived rejection, or reminders of rejection, could be precipitously raising his stress levels, causing the meltdowns. He's probably reading "stop calling" as "don't socialise, I hate you, you're worthless" (maybe with "because you're aspie/HFA" on the end) - and he's feeling unable to communicate effectively with people (or potential partners specifically?) and possibly also self-loathing - hence the meltdowns. If so, the trigger is linked to a schema, hence something a cognitive therapist could in theory reach - he's misinterpreting a partial rejection as a total rejection of him as a person, and probably has no idea why this keeps happening to him. To stop the meltdowns he either needs to not get so frustrated at rejection, to not undergo rejection in such frustrating (for him) ways, or to not go from frustration to meltdown. There must be relationship therapists or anger management therapists who deal with rejection-frustration. Perhaps even self-esteem specialists. Which in principle makes it very treatable.

Suggestions: Google "handling rejection", there's loads to work with; while you're at it, try "autism frustration" as well. Also, look into social awareness training or whatever it's called (or its relationship equivalent), this would probably help if communication problems are the issue. Why are they telling him to stop calling - is he calling too often / at bad times / people he barely knows? Might he be able to make and self-enforce rules on when / how often / who to call so as to reduce the likelihood of getting frustrated (e.g. don't try to call a particular person more than once a day / stop calling after a week of non-answers)? (Might not be possible if he's now got this issue as a constant frustration trigger, so his parents can't even talk about it...) Could he be encouraged to use alternative forms of communication instead of phoning (e.g. email, IM, Facebook)? What about a beta-blocker / meditation / relaxing stimming / calming exercises PRIOR to making any phone calls which might lead to rejection (heading off the meltdown before it happens)? What about showing him some films or novels (simple ones if he's low-IQ) about love/attraction and its complications - so he realises rejection is normal, and hurts for everyone? If he's religious, how would he take to the idea that certain relationships aren't destined to work out, that rejection is for the best in the long run? And emotional awareness training re frustration: it's possible frustration is transmuting into meltdown because he doesn't know how to handle it / what it is, and that ways can be found for him to catch it and calm it before it reaches meltdown point. Take away / desensitize the trigger and the meltdowns should go away, or at least decline in severity and frequency.

Aspie1968: Everything you said makes sense but we can't get him to stop ... he goes from one person to another, He did have a girl (also an Aspie) say she would go off with him the other day but she had been sick with a cold for a few days and her mother thought it best that she not got out until she felt better. It was not a rejection, but he took it that way. He has become very rebellous lately and will not do anything anyone asks. Seems more out of spite than anything else. He wants to go out to eat with a friend (male or female) everyday and gets upset when some people can't. He has money in his savings but going out everyday (which he wants to do) his money is dwindling fast. Especially since he's not currently working. No one can go out everyday but it's hard to make him understand that. So, seems like one problem after another, but you have been very helpful with your responses. Anything else you may suggest would be greatly appreciated.