Worst day in a while

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This is the worst day I can remember in a long time. My son, who is severely autistic, was in major meltdown earlier - I've never seen him so bad. For an hour he was screaming at the top of his voice, throwing toys and even furniture about. I tried to stop him toppling over a chest of drawers and he went to physcially attack me - for a minute I was afraid of my own child. He may only be seven but he's strong. That look of pure rage in his eyes was terrifying. I'm sensitive at the best of times but my own child wanting to hurt me is just the ultimate.

I ended up putting him in his room - not ideal I know but my presence was making him worse it seems. I feel as though I just can't cope with this. I've got someone coming at 2pm to help out thank goodness. i don't feel well at all. I can't stop crying now and needed to rant somewhere, sorry

I'm so sorry that this is happening. I'm very glad that you have help coming so that you can get out. Please take care of yourself.

Agreed. I hope you and your son are feeling better now.

I'm so sorry, Redplanet. I'm glad you've got help coming soon- you need a break. Hearing your child scream is always very stressful, and listening to him do it for an hour must have left your nerves in tatters.

As for the rage, try not to take it personally. You know he's not really angry at you, he's frustrated with the world and with himself. You're a great parent, he's just having a very bad day. And you're not ranting, just venting. Vent as much as you like.

I'm a parent of twins, and I know when they were small, I was often exhausted. But I really take my hat off to you- caring for a child with severe autism would be a much, much bigger task. Try to care for yourself as well, won't you? I hope your day gets a lot better from now on. All the best, Jenny.

I have AS, so i have never gone into breakdowns like that, however i am a teen so i can be very mean towards my parents at sometimes, though everything i say, i really do mean, i still would be no where with out my parents. I know its hard, my mother has already had to go to therapy, because she didn't know how to treat me, and how to react, ect.... However i don't think that your son is truely angry at you, i think he just dosent know how to handle what hes feeling right now, i wouldn't take any of it personal, i'm sure if it wasn't for you he wouldn't have his life as easy as it is. I am just spitt balling, but if you care enough to come on to a forum and ask someone for help with your son, i think you are a well rounded father. hang in there

Yeah, I have AS, and although I've never lost it quite like that, I have lost it, and been very mean and angry to my mother and other times to my ex girlfriend. My father, who also has AS, is the same, except he is undiagnosed but he is so similar to me I'm sure he has it, but he's having a hard time admitting it. Anyway...

I've gotten so angry in the past, and when I'm angry, I'm not enjoying it, I'm very sad and confused inside. I can't process my emotions. It is something that recently I am learning much better to cope with, and have more hopes for the future.

I am learning to cope by understanding myself, and asking those close to me to learn about autism so that they can understand me too.

So I would get real mad, and then everything my mum tried to say or do would just make me more mad. Everything she did annoyed me, I would reject all of her attention, even though somewhere inside I wanted attention too. It's very confusing. What causes my anger is when something happens that I am not expecting, that I can't control, that I can't deal with, or that makes me feel bad. For example if someone buys me a gift that I don't want or don't need, I don't know how to deal with the emotions. I feel so sad and upset that this person wasted their money. This can lead to an angry outburst if the person is very close to me, such as my mum. The closest person to me is the one I feel the most emotion for, and therefore I get angriest over.

So that he goes wild at you, you can quietly take it as a compliment, because it means he likes you the most, which after all is obvious, because all children usually like their parents/nannies/carers the most. It's because they always do the best for us, make us feel most secure, assured and loved.

Now that is something that may help you, but it doesn't stop the tantrums. I think the only way to get through them all is learning more about them. If you can learn all the triggers, you can try not to set them off, and if you can learn why the triggers exist, and how to extinguish a trigger, you will have a few tools to help you. The confusing thing is half the time you have no idea what you did wrong. This is because your mind works different to an autist mind. So to find out, you have to try think like an autist. An autist is extremely sensitive to their environment, focused on the details so much, picking up things you would never even notice or care to notice. Therefore, you have to try to take a lot of care to make sure everything in the autist world stays as he thinks it should. At least for now whilst he is so young.

Um, the failsafe way of getting through a tantrum is time, as you have seen, all tantrums will simply burn themselves out after long enough. If you leave them alone, as much as this may hurt, it is a way to get past the bomb once it has exploded.

He will always love you afterwards, remember that, as people have said, he really doesn't mean it. I felt I have furiously meant every horrible word I've said during the heat, but I've never once not solemnly regretted it afterwards. I am much better now thankfully, but my father is not, he's wild. I also find the same with my father, he goes wildest at the people he is closest at - that is his mother (he does not have a father), me and his girlfriends. Always afterwards he is solemnly sorry. His friends down the pub do not see this side of him. Maybe when he was younger they saw it more.

Other triggers are : When an unexpected situation arises, such as family friends come over, when I see an injustice or feel someone is being dishonest, depending on the sensitivity of my mood, sometimes even the phone ringing can freak me out. Reactions can range from hiding in my room, to crying, feeling depressed, or all out tantrums. This is not all recent, but I am describing the whole range of things I have been through over the years. Nowadays after all this time I am getting better at coping, now that I am learning much more about Autism/AS.

Autists are not being stroppy or lazy for fun. The chief reason is because we can only focus generally on one thing at a time. And we do so with such intensity, that all other things fall away, this includes personal hygiene, and when any extra thing unexpected appears in our lives it sends us wild. It makes us very sad, upset, confused, anxious, angry, or depressed. The key is in understanding that this is not bad and does not need curing, but is just different. The autist with his or her depth of thinking can learn about things that more versatile minds cannot remember or focus on, or whatever the Autist is into, it will be able to work in the right environment. This can be utilised, I think in the future we just need more education and special schools for it.

I'm sure things will work out with your son, every situation is a bit different, but fundamentally, people and emotions are pretty much the same I think.

Sorry to hear your day's been so trying. Having been on the other side of a meltdown like that, though, I will tell you that leaving him in his room for a while is the best thing you can do at a moment like that. As long as there's no danger of him hurting himself, the thing he needs most at those times is time - to vent, to cry, to cool off. It is extremely frustrating sometimes to cope in a world that seems to have been set up by aliens who don't think or even physically function the same way you do (which is precisely where we find ourselves). Sometimes our response to that frustration is entirely inappropriate. The smartest thing both parties can do is disengage from that confrontation and go to separate corners until some emotional equilibrium is reestablished.

Thanks all of you for your replies and perspectives, it's been really helpful. I was reallu upset yesterday and I appreciate your kindness.

Yes leaving my son alone did seem to help in the end, although initially I was worried about him smashing his window or injuring himself as he was throwing heavy toys about. In the end I had to weigh it up and just leave him to it.

I'm his mum, not dad (although my username doesn't give anything away so I don't blame you getting confused!) and I'm on the spectrum myself, although not severely. I have some understanding of how I think he feels (hard to know as he's non verbal). I guess it just scared me yesterday as normally his meltdowns are over in 20 minutes or less, but this one went on for over an hour. It was the worst one I have ever seen,by far.

I think he understand that he'd upset me a lot as he came out much calmer in the end and saw me crying. He doesn't really "get" emotions due to his learning difficulties, but I think on some level he did know. He kept watching me out of the corner of his eye and then he went off to play with a toy.

I'm trying to move on from this but it has shaken me up a lot. I've seen another side of him and it wasn't nice. He's still my son and of course I love him, but this really was awful. I think a lot of it is due to the change of routine being the Easter holidays, and as he's older he finds routine changes more difficult to deal with. I hate a change in routine so I can understand that to some extent. He's at a special needs club for the day today so I can relax a bit.

Thanks again for your replies - I've read through them and have taken them on board.

Wow you've met the dark side and yes I must say it is not good

The dark side is the raging animal beast that lives in all of us!

Unfortunately for you, sounds like your son has a lot of energy

The more strength a person has, the more wild their dark side can be

It's going to be some life task for you to outwit this beast and learn to tame it and help him to tame it :music:

I wish you the best of luck! At least knowing about Autism this early will help you do everything you need to as quick as you can.

I can see how upset and shaken you must be, because I expect you will now be scared of it happening again

My advice is to have faith and be prepared to try new tactics every time. One tactic you can try is try complete ignorance!

If he starts a tantrum! Ignore him immediately! Just leave, and give him a good 10-20 mins to cool down before he even gets worked up

Instead of trying to help him and adding fuel to the fire, try leaving the room

It is just a suggestion for you to try, it may be a way to chuck sand on the fuse before it reaches explosion

Eventually you will find the right recipe to deal with it

PS

I thought you were father because on your profile it says male ^^