Is this a version of a meltdown?

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The thread about meltdowns made me think of this. This is about my AS son (now 11). I've never heard of another kid doing what he would do (and still does to a much, much lesser extent once in a while). Does any of this ring a bell with any of you?


Before my son was 3, he never had a tantrum or meltdown. He was different from other kids in that he didn't nap, seemed WAY more intelligent, could already read a few multi-syllable words, and liked to sit for hours at a time looking at my college textbooks, and carefully turning the pages. We thought that was cute, but didn't see any of this as a sign of anything. Then, at about three, he began to have episodes where he would get uncontrollably silly. Maybe "silly" isn't the best word, but I don't really know the word to use. Not like a happy kid getting the giggles. If I had a ball of yarn (had to give up knitting), a tape measure, or anything like that, he would grab it and run like a maniac all around the house, letting it tangle up on chair legs and knock things off of shelves. He would seem to be in some kind of altered state, like on drugs or something. He'd brush objects onto the floor, and laugh in what I can only describe as a crazy way, and it would escalate for a long time. Of course, I had no reason to suspect that he wasn't in control of himself, because I had never heard of anything like this. So, at first, I treated him as if he were doing that for attention. If I reprimanded him or attempted to put him in a "time out" (ha!), the behavior would continue at a higher level. Other people tried to convince me that he was just trying to establish himself as the one in control, and so I needed to be strict. I tried EVERYTHING. I spent endless hours online, at parent support forums, looking for some answers, but no one seemed to understand what I meant. I read so many useless parenting books, and felt like the world's most incompetent mother.

When he was 5, those behaviors continued, but sometimes instead of doing that, he'd scream and hurl chairs across the room. Or sometimes he'd do a combination of both, hurling a chair across the room while laughing maniacally. I can't believe how long it took for me to see that stuff as a sign that something wasn't right. My mother-in-law came to visit and gave me a lecture about parenting, and how her other grandson would never be allowed to get away with that kind of behavior.

I remember making a reward chart, and explaining that if he could go for three days without going into that silly run-around mode (which we had no word for, so he made up a word, "The Quartaria") then he would earn a Bionicle, which had become his obsession. He never, ever earned anything, because he couldn't do it. We thought he was just so determined to win the power struggle, that he was making bad choices. (God, I was THICK!)
But it kept nagging at me, because I kept remembering how happy and content he was at age 3, and how intelligent he was. What happened? Why was he doing all this counterproductive stuff that made everyone so unhappy?

After a while, he began showing signs that even a dolt like me couldn't ignore. He would go into full panic mode when he saw certain kinds of faces, like elderly people or certain Pacific Islander kinds of faces, when we were out shopping. It was as if he was seeing something genuinely terrifying. He kept talking about wishing he could chop his own head off. Often, when in that silly "Quartaria" mode, he'd talk about chopping off various parts of his body. He'd say really disturbing things, and not be able to stop, even for a Bionicle.

Well, finally we had him evaluated (which took ages, because it's hard to find anyone with a clue). He was dx with AS and was put on a mood stabilizer, too, and that ended the really bizarre, scary stuff. (There were countless other AS symptoms, but that's not what this post is about.)

Anyway, that was years ago, but I'm still a little bit haunted by those days. It was so frightening, and there was so much that I did badly as a mother (because of not understanding), that I still feel the pain of it. I would love to hear if any of you have experienced anything like this from the perspective of the autistic/AS person.

The more I learn about AS, the more I'm convinced that it describes me, in a mild way, but I never experienced anything like this myself. I simply became a turtle in my shell (I'm a Cancer with Cancer rising, so perhaps I should say I'm more of a hermit crab. My son is a Scorpio with Aries rising.)

There is something about the maniacal laughter and out-of-control behavior that rings a bell with me. I never did that precise thing as a child. But I'm remembering an uncle who had that kind of really nervous, out of control laughter, like he could hardly stand being in his own brain and body and was trying to jump out of it all the time. He was my father's brother, and my father was an Aspie. I remember watching him and thinking, he's expressing on the outside what I feel on the inside. It was scary to me as a kid to see myself reflected in him.

Your son sounds like he was desperately trying to out-run something--the cacophany in his mind? the sensory overload? I can remember a time in my childhood where I had that feeling of trying to outrun the pain by being crazily active, jumpy, overstudious, reckless, anything to an extreme in an effort to outrun the overload and the confusion.

Your son is very lucky that he had you for a mother, because you tried to deal constructively with the problem. My parents would simply have hit me until I pretended to be normal. I don't see you as clueless, because unless you're a neuropsychologist, how could you possibly have understood what was happening with your son?

My son has "loopy" episodes where he's doing all kinds of silly things. I classify that as an episode of hyperactivity. Loopy episodes can go on and on and on. There is no definite end to them.

Meltdowns are very bad episodes that last about 10 minutes and my son is nonverbal during a meltdown...except for maybe counting the same numbers over and over again. He doesn't remember meltdowns, but feels great afterwards.

The morbid talk happens with my son too. I see that as social inappropriateness more than anything else. Every kid has bad thoughts, but NT kids know that they aren't supposed to talk about that stuff and they don't. My son may or may not know what he can talk about and he just lets it fly out of his mouth. I make him change the subject if the topic is too extreme. I don't think he has weirder thoughts than the general population though.