Blaming God

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For my aspie daughter, faith, God, church has been a part of our lives. Now that she's older, no pressure to go and she doesn't. But she can get really angry sometimes and tends to put anything that goes wrong as God's fault. (Yes we can get into that deeper theological discussion about how ultimately God controls all things but save that for a thread in Politics, Philosophy and Religion.) On the other hand, she does give God credit for good things too.

It just seems her anger has only one setting, hot. I can understand anger at car wrecks, a really jerk of a boyfriend, but the can't find your keys, fight with sister over muffins, would rate a lower setting in the way I think. (Yes I know, we don't think alike).

And getting upset and saying you are going to kill somebody, gets the wrong kind of attention especially at work.

What ways do any of y'all (yes I went to school in the south), find helpful in dealing with anger?

My daughter has a temper, and we found several activities that seemed to help her with it. Karate, target practice ... anything aggressive, but also focused and well disciplined. The philosophical teachings that go along with Karate seemed to especially resonate with her.

She should be told, in no uncertain terms, that talking about killing someone at work is a big no-no.

I do the same thing, even though I self-identify as an atheist. Because if god is all-powerful, he can lift a finger to help even a little bit, but is choosing not to. All while giving despicable, rotten human beings a life of never-ending joy. (Koch brothers, my former boss, gang members, etc.). In fact, that's how I ended up an atheist in the first place.

As for dealing with anger, there are ways I cope, but they'll sound pretty offensive to your religious mindset. So it's best if I keep silent (unwritten) on those.

Aspie1;

Well I appreciate you consideration for my "religious mindset." There are many here on WP that would take that as a cue to convince me other wise. You stated where you are coming from and I disagree, but faith by definition is not all logical.

Your coping mechanisms do work for you? As long as you aren't hurting someone else or hurting yourself, I will withhold my moral judgement. I have things in life that I struggle with as well, so I'm probably not as upstanding as you may think. Also, having been an Army chaplain, not much of life is that shocking anymore.

So feel free to offer suggestions that work for you, here or even through a PM. I appreciate that you read the thread and took time to post.

Chapstan,

To put it diplomatically, my coping mechanism basically consists of saying something mean and directing it at god. Sometimes I go on for a minute or two. I highly doubt it hurts anyone, unless a religious person overhears me, and even then it's not directed at them personally. I'm pretty sure that's not an option for your family. But just saying.

Now, here's something you might find useful: http://www.aish.com/w/note/. It's a website to request a note to be into the Western Wall on your behalf. In the Jewish tradition, if you put a note there, it'll reach god directly; he can read any language. Yeshiva volunteers print them out and put them into the Wall, into the cracks between the stones, to be exact. (Criticism of god's actions is tolerated, but anti-Semitic or hateful messages are rejected.) Aish is a Jewish organization, but you can use their service too, since the Wall is holy to all three Abrahamic religions.

...or anywhere.



How old is she?

On anger, it might help to come up with a rating system of some sort and help her gauge how bad certain things are. Rate things that happen to you out loud and talk through the process of realizing how something isn't really *that* bad.

I do this with my son--he has quite the temper too (and he's a red head, to fit that stereotype ). It sometimes helps him.

On blaming God--it might just be the stage of faith she is in. Have you ever researched anything about stages of faith? It isn't static.

Wait, what? Am I reading this right that you're asking Autistics for advice regarding your daughter's Autistic religious behavior, but we're not supposed to tell you anything that is different than your NT religious beliefs?

Aspie1-

OK yes there are probably many people who would almost choke if they saw you giving God the finger. But I don't need to protect Him, I think He can handle anything and everything and He probably hears a lot of that kind of blaming.

Of course I've heard of the Wailing Wall but was unaware they had added indirect web access.

Screen_name- my daughter is 20. There was one time in school, she said something about getting her uncle's hunting rifle to hurt someone. I don't think she meant it, but we still had to have a conference with the principal.
Yes I have studied the stages of faith. I probably still have a book somewhere.

Girl_Kitten- there are many threads in other parts of Wrong Planet that get into God, no-god, various different belief systems, and if you want to butt heads on that we can. I don't think my bashing you will change your mind, but I guess I have asked you for insights into how those on the spectrum might process these things, which by definition is different than my NT ways.

Ok, THAT I can work with! In my very limited understanding, I know that my lack of social intution extends from spoken language to social appropriateness to social pressure to believe or revere one thing or another. The good part of my ignorance to social beliefs and reverence is that I was not very susceptible to peer pressure as a kid; the inverse is that I can't be pressured to believe in a god or act "appropriately" towards a god the way that others want me to.

I think this is similar to what is happening for your daughter. If she feels a lot of frustration in her life and doesn't have an inherant social intuition not to take it out on people and supreme beings all all ends, her interactions will look different than yours. It's super-important that she learns not to threaten violence to other people, as a blanket rule. When in doubt about what is considered a threat and what other people could find scary, don't do it. She does need to get her anger out some way, which is why that her yelling at her God is probably not that bad (compared to threatening to kill co-workers). Even though it doesn't seem respectful and is not the type of worship that you see as socially acceptable, she may need to be allowed to be angry and Autistic towards her God in order to hold in her frustration and act NT to her co-workers.

Thank you, that is quite insightful.

My daughter that has aspergers, is a great young woman, definitely her own person. I'm thankful she can and does talk to me about many things.

So if peers and other social forces don't overly pressure you to change your mind, what kind of things do shape your thinking, feelings?

I have a very strong internal desire for fairness; I've heard that Autistics sometimes come off as unempathetic towards others' emotions, but have a very strong internal sense of justice. My thoughts can be swayed by well-reasoned and logical arguments. I don't respond well to and don't really understand subtle hints, claims something is "cool", bullying, or authoritative demands. If you want me to do something, you have to either convince me that it's logical or fair for me to do it or that my taking a stubborn stand against what you want me to do is not worth it.

Be aware that this is a general trait of many, many people on the spectrum. Binary thinking goes along with rigidity, and it's an uphill battle - so the first thing you need to do is be prepared that this will only change given a LOT of time, consistent help, and practice. Asking your daughter to change this inclination is asking her to make a change in her brain's wiring.

Second, violent language is also common in kids who exhibit this kind of binary thinking. You're right: she needs to learn time and place rules ASAP.

I'd tackle the language issue first: she needs explicit instruction on gray-area emotional language. You can offer her appropriate scripts, e.g.: "It is really annoying when your sister takes the muffin you want. You can say 'I'm so annoyed!' instead of 'I want to kill you!'"

We've worked on this issue with my son for years, and are just starting to make inroads. A couple of things helped: the Secret Agent Society video game offered a whole description of the physical symptoms of different emotions - one of the things we learned was that my son was coding all emotions as either "happy" or "furious" instead of being aware of sad, scared or surprised feelings. Having a physical roadmap was really useful to him.

Emotional Intelligence - while kind of bunk for NTs, I think - is also helpful in creating gray-area language and teaching its use. There's a thread here: viewtopic.php?t=226859

We also had some success with the OT program ALERT http://www.alertprogram.com/ Most occupational therapists that work with kids on the spectrum offer this program in a group setting. Basically, it involves defining states of alertness and then trying out all different kinds of things and seeing what effect they have on alertness levels (meaning, what things make you calmer and what things make you energized)

Something I like to occasionally remind NTs - so, there's a lot of talk about hand-flapping as an autistic trait (bear with me here,) as though it never happens to NTs. Watch any beauty pageant and see the first thing the winner does: old-fashioned, autistic-style hand flapping. The reason this is important is that it gives you a barometer of where people on the spectrum are emotionally compared with NTs - it takes winning Miss America to create enough overwhelm to flap hands, whereas most of us live right on the edge of that level of overwhelm most of the time, particularly when we are kids.

This also explains why many kids with AS are a lot quicker to anger than their NT counterparts: just getting through the day, good or bad, is THAT stressful.

EXCELLENT post, momsparky!! I especially like the part about most of us live on the edge of overwhelmed----SOOOO TRUE!!

chapstan, does your daughter also say she LOVES things, easily? I'm thinking it falls into the "thinking in black and white" category.

With losing her keys and getting extremely angry, I'm thinking there's several different things that MAY be going-on..... Firstly, it's a PHYSICAL thing to which she can sorta transfer her energies. If she were to be just sitting on the sofa, and all-of-a-sudden, she blew-up, people would think she's a NUT-JOB----BUT, if she's blowing-up, at her KEYS, well then, THAT'S okay----if you know what I mean. She can say THESE are what made me angry----whereas, if she just blows-up, with nothing to show for it, so-to-speak, than it's not acceptable. It's "displaced emotions"----NOT because she, necessarily, got angry at somebody ELSE, and is taking it out on her KEYS; but, most likely, she is angry at HERSELF, cuz she can't make her brain "behave", the way she thinks it SHOULD.

The other thing is something that echoes momsparky..... She works herself to death, ALL DAY, to be calm, social, attentive, etc., etc., etc., that the least little thing can make her blow-up----cuz, as momsparky said, we're always on the edge----think of a ticking timebomb.

Another thing it MIGHT be is her using words to express "extreme", because she doesn't think people are understanding what she's saying. She MIGHT feel that she can't FIND a word to express how badly she's feeling, on the INSIDE; but, she knows people know a word like "kill" is extreme / encompasses many depths, and so-forth, so she wants to use that word, because she can't express herself, any-other-way, that will get people to understand "this is extreme, folks". People don't understand what Aspies go-through on the INSIDE; so, the only thing we can do is SHOW it, on the OUTSIDE, if that makes sense.

There's been times, on here, that I've said I wanted to PUNCH somebody (someone I encountered IN PERSON); but, I say it, that way, cuz it's challenging showing emotion through a computer screen.

Your daughter's INSIDES feel extreme----she just can't think of any other way of getting that, across----and, I don't mean she's doing it CONSCIOUSLY, as in, trying to say something that will get the most attention----she just needs to, as someone else suggested, learn a different vocabulary.