Intermittent Explosive Disorder

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Hello all,

I am new here by the way, just know me as Julz. I'm 18 and not only am I Aspergian, I also have a mental disability called an Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Not many people have heard of this disorder and I've not ever met someone who has this at all.

An Intermittent Explosive Disorder (abbreviated to IED), as I quote from Wikipedia, is a behavioural disorder characterised by extreme expressions of anger, often to the point of uncontrollable rage, that are disproportionate to the situation at hand. Aka, you can explode anywhere, any time whatsoever and without warning over the smallest of things. For example I once got very angry and frustrated over not finding the mop to wash the house floors. I also recently had a breakdown after I was overwhelmed on my first day of Diploma of Music.

I'm wondering if there's anyone else here who suffers from this disorder. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 17 with both Aspergers and this. As soon as I found out I had IED, I went 'OH MY GOD, THAT'S WHY I HAVE SUCH A HORRID TEMPER'. I couldn't believe it. I knew I had autism but never that! So does anyone here have IED by chance? I could help you handle it and maybe you could teach me about it as well.

I read about that once and thought "OMG, that's Dad" and like you reconsidered when I read about Asperger's. He was very rigid in his routines and had unusual obsessions.He was also socially awkward. I can't say I've never been to the point where I couldn't control my anger but it is very rare. I turn everything inwards.

Sounds like my adult son. Never heard of IED. We just figure it is part of his ASD,OCD, depression, OCPD, anxiety, etc... Guess I will look it up. We have been doing therapy for this by working on his anger management and hot thoughts and maladaptive beliefs. It is helping, but it's slow.

I've heard of IED before but I was not diagnosed with it or suspected of it by docs/psychs. Aspies are prone to having meltdowns which seems a lot like IED from what I've read but maybe less extreme. I've had quite a few meltdowns as a kid & still do but not nearly as often nowadays. I think a lot of it was related to things going on my life at the time that I kinda kept bottled up for a bit & then everything would suddenly burst out at the slightest little thing/problem/issue. I'm not sure if this helps at all but I found that releasing my anger, frustration & things in more contorted ways to be helpful before things got bottled up for to long like ranting online or having lots of minor arguments with my family instead of flipping-out

I have what I call rage attacks. Itsy bitsy things set it off: a thought, a comment by someone, something on the radio. I attribute mine to Complex PTSD which I have from childhood/adolescent sexual and mental abuse. I could not respond to the violations when they occured and I think the stress fried my brain so that now little stresses make me go ballistic. I can't completely stop it but I learned how to direct it so I don't do damage. Listening to brainwave entrainment music (which I only just discovered) seems to help a great deal.

OK, now I'm scared that I have it.

Wait... isn't IED an acronym for Improvised Explosive Device? As in when insurgents take unexploded ordinance and hook some wires to it to create car bombs and stuff?

Wow. Irony.

I, and those close to me suffer from IED. I hope to get rid of it someday.


I'll be reading the entire thread when I'm not so pressed for time.

I have this and it's worth looking into if you haven't already looked into it.

I had a breakthrough recently in therapy with regards to IED.

For me, it usually manifests as, "I can't catch a break from the world - every time I sit down, I have to get back up again..."

Further events will stress me out and I'll keep a lid on it and no thought given to it.

And then it's the straw that breaks the camel's back; something so small sets me off and for what seems like an eternity, I'm throwing things, pounding, pitting, yelling, shouting, screaming, etc. When I get out of that mode, I.am.so.sorry! I don't know what came over me.

I've told my family, those who live with me and have to suffer through my episodes of IED that it's not their fault. I'm not even yelling at them. They did nothing wrong.

I realized, "if they did nothing wrong, maybe I did nothing wrong when I was a kid and my father used to take the wire coat hanger to my butt. The 2x4, the leather belt... I wondered for years what I could have possibly did to deserve that. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just blind lashing out.

It's what I learned. It's what I know. I must unlearn what I have learned. I need to find another way.

AAAAHHHH HELLO! I am a girl, i have aspergers and ied hello my life sucks! How do you not destroy everything?

I have heard of it but I don't have it. My uncle however had a bad temper and he would punch holes in his walls. But he would always patch them up and it was very easy to make him mad. It wouldn't surprise me if he had this. My mom said he just had anxiety but I think his anxiety may have attributed to this.

Not entertainment; entrainment. They are also known as Binaural-Beats, Isochronic-Tones, etc. They operate on the principle of subjecting the brain/mind into mood-affecting frequencies. Some frequencies will cause irritation, such as someone scratching their finger-nails on a chalk-board, and whales beaching themselves as a result of sonar-frequencies from weapons of the U.S. Navy, but similarly, just like there are irritable sound-frequencies that create various forms of agitation, certain other sound-frequencies have also been researched and shown and demonstrated to have calming or soothing effects, and seems to work best when one is in a meditative-state.

emtyeye wrote:

... I can't completely stop it but I learned how to direct it so I don't do damage. Listening to brainwave entrainment music (which I only just discovered) seems to help a great deal.

Brainwave entertainment? Is that helpful for anger and anxiety?

My two pennies into the hat.

In my area (midwest US), the only time I've seen IED diagnosed is in children under 18 so they are not saddled with a bipolar diagnosis. Insurance will pay for therapies for IED. They really fight bipolar diagnosis for kids.

The IED diagnosis is new, and I believe just came out with the DSM V. I understood it was put there so kids weren't just dumped into the bipolar bucket because no other diagnosis was a better fit.

My husband has Aspergers. His depression, anxiety, ruminating, meltdowns, lack of decent executive functioning skills all stem from his Aspergers. This is the kicker. Our insurance will pay for NOTHING if the main diagnosis is autism. Why? There is no therapies that will get you back to "normal", if you are an adult. At least that's how my insurance rolls.

So...my husband's psychiatrist puts down he has anxiety, OCD and depression because insurance will pay for that.

The psychologist, who diagnosed my husband, says the bulk of testing clients roll in with a boat load of multiple diagnosis.

OCD, GAD, SocAD, depression, misophonia, food aversion, anorexia, agoraphobia, schizoid personality disorder....

The issue is, if you only put autism as the diagnosis, will the insurance pay for therapies? Mine absolute will not. This psychologist is mostly private pay. When he sends the clients away he will also include depression and anxiety as secondary diagnosis, so the treating psychiatrist has a billable diagnosis.

I'm wondering if you are just having meltdowns from stress and sensory overloads, and the IED was put there for handiness sake.

Meltdowns---->no coverage for therapies.
IED----->coverage for therapies.

I've worked with kids with ODD, and been around kids with IED. They present differently.

I hope whatever your diagnosis is that the meltdowns decrease. Those are so draining.