Anger issues with autism

Hello everybody 

I have autism and I get angry a lot does anyone else experience getting angry a lot for no good reason. 

Feed back would be good 

Thanks 

Parents
  • Hi there,

    You say for no good reason... but if you sit down and think about it, it could well be something quite small that's triggering you each time.  I get unconscionable degrees of anger through the simplest of things.  Often if it's about being clumsy or foolish. It especially happens if I do something that, whilst small, can delay my rhythm in some way.  If I'm at the bottom of the stairs hoovering and I pull the cleaner a bit too hard so that the plug comes out at the top of the stairs and I have to go up and plug it in again... that'll get me shouting with rage.  Or dropping a buttered knife on the floor.  Nothing very much, but is sends my anger right up the scale.  Running into a traffic jam that'll delay me even by as little as a couple of minutes - and even though it won't make me late, anyway.  Getting lost when driving is the worst.  That can really bring out the rage.

    They seem like minor inconveniences a lot of the time.  But to me, they're a very big deal.

  • Could it be to do with flexibilty/rigidity of thought and how your expectations and reality of the event differ?

Reply Children
  • Well youre very kind for going out of your way to help! 

    Traffic  especially town centre drives me mad. The other night i drove us to a small town, there were taxis taking up parking spaces, cars turning down narrow streets behind me, windows were steaming up, it was raining, my partner was trying to tell me where he had seen a car park etc..i did well as often im ashamed to say that i snap but theres too much input! With a colleague this is completely different as i imagine you have to maintain the calm!!

    I know what you mean aboyt events throwing you out. Its not like 20 minutes makes any difference to anything but maybe because being late was out of your control you felt the way you did. 

    At the weekend my parents came to help plan a garden project. Id already marked out where it was going then my dad said we would be having to move it 2 feet further down. 2 feet is neither here nor there is it. But oh no i was going to lose space for the veg parch! He knows best and he is doing most of the work for me. But i could feel the tension rising in my chest as this was going against what i expected as id had it marked out for 2 weeks. It threw me. I maintained my calm and after he had explained properly i was ok. 

    In other situations it feels like the other people are conspiring against me because they think my idea is rubbish and they always know best. Like they will discount my idea just because its come from me and not because of its value. This makes me feel angry but its how i interpret the situation and often have given things a lot of thought so feel my idea or decision is the best one.

  • I think that's exactly it. 

    I remember in my last job a colleague asking me one night if I wouldn't mind dropping her home as it was raining.  She lived less than a mile away, but in another part of the town, which meant driving through denser traffic.  I didn't want her to get wet, so I reluctantly agreed.  I think she was alarmed, though, at how uptight I started getting once we hit the traffic.  I ended up having to go home a different way, which made me about 20 minutes late.  That really threw me out for the evening... and I ended up going to bed later and not sleeping.