Violence against autistic teen

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No offense to you personally, but I take issue with this statement. The most difficult thing for parents, doctors, and people with ASD's is that no two people with one of the ASD's have the exact same functional level in intelligence, physically, mentally or emotionally. This is why the disorders are so hard to treat. Just be cause you have AS and this is how you are, does not make it apply to everyone that has AS. Your AS is just that; your AS. Your symptoms that led to your dx are different than another person's who has AS. The AS and ASD experience is just as different for everyone as everyone is a different person with different opinions and experiences. There is no cookie cutter list of symptoms or behaviors which is why it took thousands of dollars, tons of doctors, multiple misdiagnosis, etc...for us to get a dx and many other parents have had the same experiences.

[quote="OliveOilMom"][quote="Kailuamom"][quote="OliveOilMom"]

If that were my child, with a history of escalating violence, I would have his doctor put him in the hospital for a little while and get him stable on meds to help him not be violent. I'm sure that some people are going to call me out about that, but let me clarify. I'm not talking about a little kid, and I'm not talking about an older kid who has bad meltdowns that aren't dangerous to himself or others. I'm talking about a kid who has violent meltdowns (and he may have had violent behavior outside of meltdowns for all we know, we don't know the situation so I'm just assuming meltdowns). If my child had violent meltdowns and nothing had worked to help him up until now, and he was big enough to hurt someone seriously, for my childs safety first and foremost, and for our family and others safety, I would get the doctor to admit him to the hospital and get him stabilized on meds that help him not be violent. When the violence is under control, then bring him back home. Slowly integrate him back into school, while working with therapists and other ways of helping him learn to control it. Then, when the therapists and doctor agrees, take him off the meds and see, but be prepared to put him back on them if need be.
[quote="OliveOilMom"]

Ok, now the way it really works. I took my son to the ER. He was threatening suicide ("I am going to kill myself as soon as we get home" - I made a u-turn to the ER) while he was having a physical rage in the car and trying to make me run off the road. We got to the ER, which is what his psychologist had instructed me to do during a violent rage, and the rage stopped. Brought him in. They did the assessment. My son has a history of violence. They told me he was too unstable to be admitted to the hospital. Seriously? I could not get him admitted. Maybe when he is more stable....that's how it really works. Now, if you have about $100k, then you can get your kid admitted anywhere you want.

Kailuamom, good points. Limited resources isn't the only problem. Anyone who has had a decent amount of contact with psychologist, psychiatrists, ER's and school personel and social workers know it is hard enough to get these professionals to believe you, let alone offer an effective treatment for your kid.

In addition, insurance companies don't cover most of the services that my son needed because they were 'alternative' so I paid out of pocket. Had I been in a different financial position, my son would not be where he is now.

Agreed, limited resources isn't the only problem but would likely exaserbate the issues. For me, once I realized that we were in a potential life or death moment (as I don't trust the police to handle appropriately), I pulled my child from school, didn't care what the authorities said about my son being truant, got an attorney, and used my resources to homeschool my child. (since I work, can't quit my job and DS is not ready to be home alone more than a couple of hours, I have to private pay someone to work with him).

What would I have done though if I couldn't afford the attorney or the tutor? Our school was discussing how they would call the police the next time my child eloped from the school site. I received three legal notices of truancy.

I believe this case exemplifies how little help there are for families in this kind of spot. And even when there is help, for us, it made things worse.

This also exemplifies how little community support there is for families, if within our own community, we would still blame the child and family. Every time my child had a public meltdown it took everything to hold my head high and just be there for my kid, since we are villified at every turn.

Considering that I have only been dx'd a few years and know very little about it except how it effects me, besides some reading I have done, I am speaking from my own perspective and experience. From what I gather from many other posters here, they would understand the gravity of the situation when the cop told them to put the knife down. Now, whether or not he could control how he reacted to it is a different matter.

I understand that no two people on the spectrum are the same. I understand that some function higher or lower in some areas and it's different for different people. I understand that while some may not have problems with certain symptoms, others may find them debilitating.

If you want to talk about taking offense, the original remark about the boy possibly not understanding what was going on rubbed me the wrong way. I interpreted it as "He has AS, he probably can't understand tense situations like that" when that isn't true at all. Many of us can. Many of us can't. But my point was that just because he has AS don't assume that he can't understand it. I am sure the poster didn't mean it the way I took it. However, I see many people saying things that imply that they assume that we are unable to grasp things that many of us can grasp. It's offensive to me, as a person with AS, for others to automatically go to the AS and say that someone can't understand it.

As to whether or not he did understand it but was either unable to control it, or had something else going on along with the AS, we will probably never know. Either way the cops should not have shot to kill unless the kid was pointing a loaded gun at them. In that case all bets have to be off, as bad as it is to say, because they could pull the trigger with intent, they could be tense and have a muscle spasm, etc. I would hope that they would be able to talk him into putting it down, or one of them is a sharpshooter enough to shoot his arm so he drops the gun, etc. I'm not a cop. I'm not trained in that, so I can't say what my experience in that situation is.

I can only tell parents my experiences with AS, what it was like for me as a child and as an adult. If my reactions to things aren't exactly like your childs, then as you said, no two people on the spectrum are the same.

If my experiences and opinions, as someone with AS, are offensive to parents, I'll be glad to post only in other sections.

I did not take offense personally. It was my opinion that was attacked, and I am aware of that. I am not angry with you at all. I am not angry with anyone here. I also understand that parents know their child best. I just remember times when I was a child and couldn't find the righ words to convey an idea or feeling so I was misunderstood, and many times I relate those stories to parents, in case their child might be feeling similar not to say "well, I have AS so this is what your child must be feeling"

I can only speak from personal experience, as can we all, either as people on the spectrum or parents of children on the spectrum.

OliveOilMom and various other posters - one of the things we do on this board that is incredibly helpful to me is work out how to talk to each other. I hope we can all assume that nobody is intending to offend anybody else, and try to hear what each other have to say, and keep talking.

There is no need to agree, especially in this situation which affects us only hypothetically. I hope I'm not stepping out of bounds to say I think we can all have and voice our own opinions.

There have been times, mercifully few and not recently, when my son was violent towards one of his few friends. I talked about these incidents later with my son, and according to him he was pretty much unaware of what was going outside of him at the time. People were present and telling him to stop, but he was only vaguely able to recollect that they had been there and didn't remember that they had spoken at all, far less what they had said.

I have noticed a tendency, over the years I've been on sites like this, for people on the Spectrum to seek to dissociate themselves from the violence, aggression, lack of control etc which can be a part of Autism. It's not uncommon for people to try to shift the blame, as it were, by insisting that there must be some other condition present which causes the violence or whatever, or that the violence is a direct reaction to mistreatment by others who should have known better.

It would be like me trying to deny that some Scots have a drink problem on the basis that I'm Scottish and rarely drink. Those who do drink to excess must do so because they have an English granny, or English neighbours who drive them to it on purpose.

Denying that some people with Autism or Asperger's can and are violent does no one any favours.

Oh, I'm certainly not not offended by anyone nor angry, nor do I think that anyone means anything personal toward me.

I only wondered if my input was helpful or not because I was able to learn to deal with things that others can't, although at times it's very hard. As I said in my post, I was only dx'd a few years ago, and because of my age and the fact that I learned to handle some things (and some things I didn't learn to handle) I dont really need anything for my AS in terms of therapy, meds, assistance, etc. I did some research into it and learned some about it, but at the time I was only interested in the aspects of it that applied to me, as anyone would be when dx'd with something. I learned a lot about how my brain processes things differently and it explains a lot to me about how I react, and looking back at my childhood, I see a lot of the behaviors mentioned here. That's when I post about them.

Sometimes I had never even given a behavior or feeling or incident any thought for years, and never would have related it to AS until I read a few posts in a thread about someone else's kid doing something very similar. I think about it for a minute and remember how I felt and what I did, etc, and so I post my experiences and what I felt and thought and how I perceived things to be so that maybe it would help another parent if their child had the same feelings similar to the ones I had.

I do feel that some parents discount my opinions, and those of others, who are higher functioning and had to force ourselves or be forced to learn things and do things and tolerate things. It doesn't happen frequently, but when it does, I do get a bit offended, but never angry or mad at the poster. I also don't think they are upset at me, but maybe upset that I'm speaking about my experiences that are different from theirs. I also think, and this is in the forum in general not just here, that those of us who were older and were able to force ourselves to "act NT" without even knowing what an NT was or that we weren't ones, and by this I do not mean that all of us from my generation were able to do that, not at all, but that those of us who were able to, face a subtle "you're not autistic enough" attitude from many of the posters. This also applies here from some parents who seem to discount information from us because we are where we are today. I do not mean specifically me. I like reading over old posts and going back through the pages, and I've seen it here, and on the regular forum. Mainly there, but here it seems more defensive. I know that I personally do not mean my comments in any offensive manner, I can't speak for all posters of course. The thing is, you may "know" us now, but you didn't know us as children and have no way of knowing to what extent we were effected.

I am not trying to get on to anyone here. Not at all. The opposite in fact. It's more of an olive branch type thing, not that there was any war to declare peace from, but that there seems that there could be strife brewing (and again, I do not mean only myself) and I would like to nip that in the bud before it can get a good foothold. I have tried to avoid the topic because I don't want to come across the wrong way, but it's been brought up.

Anyway, thank you for your post and I completely agree with you. Many times I can come across as sounding harsh, although I wouldn't sound harsh saying it if you were to hear me speak the words. I don't think the internet conveys enough information to give the speaker/writers intent. At times, when I am under tremendous stress, as I am now, I tend to be more blunt. I don't mean it in a mean or rude way at all, or an offended way. Just that sometimes it's easier to just type it out without rephrasing it.

I'll go ahead and scoot and do the little bit of housework that's calling me now, but I just wanted to say that I'm not offended, and I hope no one else is.

I agree with this post. We have to recognize that for some individuals, violence and aggression are connected to their AS, and trying to deny it keeps the family from finding the most viable solutions. I realize that is an uncomfortable concept for members who have never been violent or aggressive, and I try to be sensitive to that, but it remains a reality. I've posted on this board far too long not to see it.

It is not part of the disorder. It is how some humans act when they don't know what else to do,or feel threatened. You can place 100 NTs in situations that are equally stressful and frustrating to them and a size-able handful will eventually act out violently.

This is true: it is part of being human. People who are autistic are just as human as anyone else, and have just as much propensity to be violent, or criminal, or humanitarian, or anything else. What I meant was that being autistic does not preclude violence, which is an assumption many people make.

I think all humans have the capacity to be violent in a flight or fight situation. Unfortunately, autistics are more likely to get pushed into that flight or fight response in situations where NTs don't understand, then causing escalation, resulting in violence. I think it is more common in autistics because of the communication trouble with NTs.

From what I hear from the adults here, it sounds like most high functioning folks learn how to deal with that as they mature. However, I think it takes a while to get to that point. So as a parent, I hope that NTs in positions of authority, have some understanding of autism, so they can prevent escalation into the flight or fight response.

So, in this case, I think it was perfectly appropriate that the police have an understanding that an autistic kid pushed into a flight or fight position could react unpredictably and out of control. I believe there should be a plan for how to either de-escalate or immobilize, if need be, any person when they have advance notice that loss of control could be an issue.

I do think violence's normally a reaction to some sort of stress, and I will always encourage parents to try to find and mitigate the sources of stress. Physical reaction is the first instinct of my son, when he isn't in control of himself, it isn't like he ever plans ahead to be violent, so the key is to keep him from losing control of himself. He knows that he is supposed to get help for stress before he loses control, because when he is in that state anything can happen.

Some people cannot reach that level of awareness, in which case things get more difficult.

The family in this story ... I mostly worry how much help did they get trying to help their son reach that level of awareness? How much help did they get trying to understand the stress factors and learning to control their child's environment? Should they have pulled him out of school, since that was obviously a stress factor?

Most of the families that come to this forum early enough (children young enough) seem to be able to find better outcomes for their kids, no matter how rough it is at the time they start posting. And the answer seems to mostly be in the above process, maybe combined with appropriate medication. I wish that all families had access to that type of information, because without it we don't know what results they might have had.

You know what, I am sorry but this is murder by cop. Cops need to learn some skills. If they cannot disarm someone with a knife without shooting them, they should not be cops in the first place. Seriously, I wanted to vomit when I read this.

I'm sorry, I know cops have dangerous jobs but this is heartbreaking. You're average citizen would be able to handle this situation better than cops did in this case.