Dear Ivygrl:

You shared that you are 16 or 17, a Special Education student in high school, 11th grade. You are overwhelmed with schoolwork and when you feel ignored, unheard, and/ or frustrated otherwise, you perform behaviors that you referred to as: “baby behaviors”, “bad habits/ behaviors”, “instinctive behaviors“, and “whining, crying, and wailing habits with my mouth within”:

“I cried, thinking that my caregiver didn’t hear my voice. I cried and screamed and wailed… my caregiver failed to listen to me, so I cried. I cried and wailed like a BABY, unable to control my baby behavior“.

These behaviors recently happened in the library, and “the librarians got annoyed and told me to get out until I behaved better“. Your “babysitter/caregiver was soooo angry“, and told you “that until I learned my lesson, I will never go outside ever again“.

Anger is a part of these behaviors: “I also spilled my water bottle angrily because no one will ever like me ever again“.

You tried many times to control and stop the behaviors, but failed, and as a result you feel hopeless, helpless, very frustrated and weak: “Everything is irreversible, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it… The cycle will always happen, over and over and over and over and over again… constantly and repeatedly… I’m sick of being weak… I tried to avoid crying and control my instinctive behaviors as much as I can, but it’s no use… No matter how hard I try, it’s not going the way I want it to be”.

You were prescribed medications to help you to calm down and to sleep better: “Pharmacy pill medicine was used because of my sleep problems and my calming down“.

I figure that being that you are almost a legal adult, I looked at the website autism. org/ behaviors in adults with autism. It reads:  “In children with ASD, challenging behaviors are a significant problem that can interfere with nearly all aspects of daily life. Later, as these children grow into adulthood, their bodies become larger, and they become stronger. Consequently, these behaviors can become even more severe, significantly reducing these individuals’ quality of life and often endangering the people who care for them…

“To compound the problem, most physicians and therapists have little experience treating adults on the autism spectrum… One common treatment option recommended by professionals is sedation, but sedative drugs can negatively impact cognition, sociability, and motor abilities. In addition, they do not address the underlying problems causing the behaviors”.

About another website, I read: “Adults diagnosed with autism disorders are prone to anger outbursts. An ‘on-off’ quality where individuals may be calm one second and, in a rage, the next…  According to autism-help. org, these are six common causes of anger in relation to autism disorders:

1. Being swamped by multiple tasks or sensory stimulation Multitasking has become more common in today’s on-the-move society. People expect others to be able to do more than one task at a time. But what may seem minimal to some can be extremely stressful to an autistic individual.

2. Other people’s behavior: An autistic individual may take great offense to insensitive or sarcastic comments that most may judge as light humor. Being ignored, whether on purpose or by accident, is a prevalent trigger as well.

3. Having routine and order disrupted… Many subconsciously cope with stress by following strict daily regimes. Disrupting a routine means disrupting a coping mechanism. For those struggling with high functioning autism and anger, the organization of their room can be very important to their routine. Simply moving something around in their area could cause a huge disruption to their comfort zone.

4. Difficulties with employment and relationships despite being intelligent in many areas: Many autistic individuals report feeling like their talents and capabilities are often overlooked and unappreciated…

5. Intolerance of imperfections in others: Both physically and mentally, the individual may have stressors indirectly caused by people. Big noses may be one. High-pitched voices or people who speak too fast may be another. Allowing them to express these pet peeves may result in further understanding of their anger-related behavior.

6. Buildup of stress: … Many autistic individuals must be taught how to process their stress and emotions.”

Back to the first website I mentioned, it reads that a root cause for these challenging behaviors in individuals on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder is HIGH AROUSAL LEVELS, meaning that lights or sounds that don’t feel too bright or too loud to people with low/ average arousal levels, feel too bright and too loud and therefore, too distressing to people with high arousal levels.

Also, bodily discomforts such as perspiring or being constipated bother people with high arousal levels a whole lot more than it bothers people with low/ average arousal levels. Same things with emotions such as anger, frustration, sadness, etc., these bother people with high arousal levels much more than they bother people with low/ average arousal levels.

The extra anxiety, tension and distress that highly aroused person feel leads to some of these challenging behaviors, behaviors that are aimed at relieving and releasing the anxiety, tension and distress.

In addition to the above, these challenging behaviors may be sometimes motivated by a desire for positive or negative attention, a desire to avoid something you don’t want to do, or a situation you don’t want to be in, etc.

In summary: here is what I understand can help you a whole lot: (1) See a medical doctor for a thorough physical checkup: identify and seek medical help for any medical problem that can be fixed or made better, such as inflammation, constipation and fungal infections. The healthier and more comfortable that you are physically, the less arousal that you will experience, and the less the physical need to release aroused distress via those challenging, undesirable behaviors,

(2) Have low-intensity lighting in your room and in your home (no bright lights), avoid loud sounds, wear comfortable, loose clothing, etc., whatever will make you more comfortable and lower your arousal levels. It is very important that there no one screams at you or at other people in your presence. The quieter your homelife, the better it is for you,

(3) Eat healthily and exercise daily,

(4) Avoid multi-tasking at home: do one task at a time. See if your teachers can give you less homework: one homework assignment per day, or every other day, not more,

(5) Have your psychiatrist re-evaluate your medications,

(6) Ask your teacher/ counseling center in school for help in learning to be assertive: to ask for what you need in ways that are likely to get you what you need, to request that people don’t joke with you in ways that annoy you, etc., to express your anger in ways that make you feel better about yourself (using words instead of crying and wailing), as well as help with lowering your stress level in ways such as breathing exercises, guided meditations, yoga, etc.

(7) Keep a daily routine that includes some activity outdoors at least once a day, so that you are not always indoors.

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by .