Aggressive behaviour, mood swings, hormones and teenage.

Hi, yes she has chew stuff that we are using again and waiting to see her GP next week.  Thanks! 

Thank you! 

You are welcome. I hope this can help her

Ugh yes ovulation is tricky for me too, more for physical reasons (I can feel it happening!) but it's not very pleasant to deal with. Hopefully the blood tests will help figure things out 

Could you try the doctor to help with this? I know when my sister was struggling with women's stuff she got her doctor to help her manage it better.

Try chew bracelets and necklaces as well. You can get special ones for people with autism. My sister has some. It will be better for her teeth and skin if she could use something like that instead.

Hey,

Sorry to hear about this. 

Autistic women are much more sensitive with hormones and going through the cycle we feel things much more intensely than NTs do but it can be hard to let people know how we're feeling. I remember I had difficulties explaining it to my mum. Keeping track of her periods and how it affects her is a good starting point, you could try a journal perhaps? That's what I did and it helped me and my mum understand how I was being affected.

Also maybe try talking to the GP as they might be able to help you with this and do bloods just to make sure everything's ok with her hormone levels.

Hope this helps and you are both doing well x

Morming.  Thank you for your comments.  She has a specific pediatric psychologist specifically working with Autism.  The fluoxetine has been prescribed by him and has really helped her.  I also carry something else for anxiety for specific moments.  I have just spoken to her pediatrician regarding a blood test to look at her hormone levels and then we can move forward seeing what is actually going on with her hormone levels etc.

her blood pressure is fine.  

Regarding diet and interestingly  she does not have a sweet tooth .. loves feta, salty black olives etc .. an adolescent body is very different from a child’s and I’m interested to see what’s going on with her hormones.  

Many thanks for your comments. 

Thank you!! I’ll have a look.  Great idea and much appreciated! 

Hi thank you.  She actually has sweat bands which work really well.  I haven’t had to use them for over two years so it’s slightly distressing having to return to them but so much better than her continually hurting herself and her wrist is quite discoloured and sore looking at the moment.  She also has a number of bite sticks that I bought years ago.  What i have noticed is her desire to chew the whole time at the moment.  She’ll often have paper in her mouth, or a plaster .. in fact, anything so there’s definitely a change in her sensory necessity.   

Hi.  Thanks so much for your reply.  Yes, I have been monitoring her period cycle for just under a year.  Ovulation affects her and also just before her actual period but the last couple months are different.  I had read that  she may be more likely to experience PMDD and it’s quite hard to gauge whether she is in pain although she would normally let me know by one word comments or touching her head or stomach.    I really feel it would be good to have a blood test to see exactly what is going on hormonally for her.  Thanks so much! 

Also, just mum to mum, anti-depressants do something completely different than anti-anxiety mediation, targeting a different part of ones biology and for most (not all) of us it does more harm than good - in fact, I would speak with her GP about having on hand the smallest dose of anti-anxiety medication, which is not something to take daily but on the occasion she cannot sleep from a mind unable to shut down or when excessive overwhelmed and you have yet to work out what is causing the problem (LEDs, a perfume, wearing polyester, which is petroleum, a cruel 'friend'). Our biology is different, and this will be old news in about 10 years, but the cutting edge of science is starting to show these differences. 

If you'd like to try something natural, I'd suggest nootropics - an immune boosting compound of healthy mushrooms which boost GABA. Something with Lion's Mane. I discovered these when I was 26 and wish I'd had them when younger - my focus is a million times better and it's fixed serious gut health problems, as a natural GABA booster, and this is the gut-brain axis. 

With SSRIs you need to be careful she doesn't have low-blood pressure. Regardless magnesium and minerals will help. I have high pH bottled water I supplement with daily as well. In fact, no one had told me a low heart rate and low blood pressure would give me Anxiety Symptoms of breathlessness and shaking. I worked it out one day I went in for a check up and they said it was dangerously low. Have an orange. High mineral and sodium content water has changed this.

In a pinch anything with extra salt (crisps, olives, salted nuts, or just a pinch of salt) brings my balance back to Normal. We need natural sugar for the brain. We need the right Salt balance (we're all different). 

(This isn't medical advice, btw- it's just handy to know if your period affects your mood)

As a parent (and being a parent), I might rephrase my questions: 

NAS88280 said:

How do you deal with this aggression? 
how do you approach the subject later?
how are we able as parents o put down boundaries?  I do not believe it’s right that her expectation is she is bought something every time we go out for instance.  

What is sending her into Survival Mode? What is she responding to?

How can I help her desire wisdom and better ways to take control of her world around her?

How can I teach her to feel protected and to afford a graciousness to others? How can I help her escape when the dynamic of the situation is overwhelming her? 

How can I prepare her for going out to run necessary errands and stick to the plan? How can I help her feel purposeful and useful? Are there situations where it's best she's left at home to have introverted downtime to regroup? 

Let me explain further. It's important to understand Hyper-Sensory Perception (Bayesian Theory) and Monotropism. Their strengths and limits. 

From a great deal of being connected to forums, sites and hundreds of others, the consensus is almost all autistics are impacted by Sensory-Perception (internal and external) to a greater intensity. The kind most who are not autistic would find themselves curled up in a post trauma survival state. In fact, there's a rumour out there that the Non-autistic brain can tap into and have a Real-Time shared experience with mushrooms that activate the part of the brain most autistics are using to make sense of the world. Think of it like a Left brain / Right brain difference. I've spoken with individuals who have undergone supervised micro-doses and have said, it's healing and amazing, but they felt they'd go 'mad' if life was this real all the time. 

Next, let's add inhibition / regulation. Most of us by 50, can think through a situation with a bit of wisdom, appropriating ethics and perform the kind actions which we are conscious of being social etiquette as a genuine desire to connect with others. We can make the effort and choose the selfless action consciously. This takes years to: 1. Recognise how I'm being impacted. 2. Not compound the internal struggle by being judgemental, but 3. having learned to go to a thesaurus, piece together the word which is approbate to the feeling, 4. Use theatre techniques and yoga techniques to breathe through and approve of the feelings, after all they're just nuanced daily intensities 5. Get it out of my system in a safe and controlled way. 6. Troubleshoot and address the physics or the psychology behind the impact. 7. Create appropriate boundaries or fix the problem (VOCs, an electrical buzzing in the wall that's daily irritating, a relationship with someone who is toxic for me - maybe great for someone else, prioritise an ever growing to-do list, and so on).

That ^^ is how we thrive. A little Spinoza, Kant, Deleuze, a good deal of physics, integrating the self, expanding my knowledge of classical literature and linguistics and so on. It's conscious intention. It may sound overwhelming but Autistic being can have the capacity to intense and extraordinary measures and maybe just because our boundaries are always crossed and our way of being continually misrepresented. I've simply re-focused it into solutions thinking: the Library, the classics, and so on. When I have not been allowed to assert these boundaries, it will go wrong. 

On a good day, an autistic experience where a thing is beyond my control, My intensities and anger will be right there at the front of my mind screaming at me. I'll speak out loud and walk through them. But I've needed proper mentorship. I've needed to understand how to excuse myself from Social situations when I can actually notice there is something off with my balance. 

After I left an 8 year relationship which wasn't good for me it may have been fine for someone else, I noticed that time of the month was a walk in the park - suddenly, I wasn't unable to cope . And what had changed was a great of ongoing stress, built up and overwhelming my ability to manage or focus or grow! 

Now, add a few unresolved issues  and they WILL be heightened when these hormonal surges are knocking my inhibitions off balance. Because I'm already sensing the world as too real. The combination of the Monotropic Brain + Hyper-Sensory (or an inability to dull the senses the same as our peers) means that we are biologically impacted to a greater intensity by life. Unresolved matters, and Interruptions in a natural flow-state, which younger kids might simply always exist in, those 2 things will be the death of me - if not minded. The world currently does not allow days and weeks of uninterrupted focus. It should, as this is how Autistic and ADHD inertia have brought about new possibilities with technology and science. We've always existed, the current state of Modern life with it's smash-cut edits to adverts, and constant interruptions which some personalities love, is not normal, it just appears to be this way. 

The main point here is one cannot look on the surface and say, this is all there is. Freud likened Psychotherapy to Archeology. What is on the surface is a consequence of something else. It is simply a marker, something more is going on below the surface which I cannot see. To every action there is reaction. Find that action & make the change there and the desired behaviour should follow. But remember, anger is the appropriate response to being violated. 

I can't comment on the periods but as for biting you could look at getting her something safe to chew. I used to bite my hands and fingers and eventually my mum bought me some chewlery. My sister also has autism and used to bite her fingers and she was bought a chewlery necklace. She still uses them now but her skin and teeth are protected from harm.

NAS88280 said:

She has historically bitten her wrist from an early age.  When she is upset she does it harder until it bleeds sometimes.

Have you considered getting her a leather wristband that ahe way enjoy biting instead of her arm? Something without studs would be best to avoid chipping her teeth.

The damage to her skin will be avoided and she will still get the pressure sensory input from it.

I'm not a parent so can't comment on that but in terms of teenage hormonal influence, my first suggestion would be period tracking. Autistic people can be more sensitive to the changing hormones throughout the menstrual cycle, we report more pain, and we're much more likely to experience PMDD than other people are. If your daughter isn't able to tell you how she's feeling then it's even more difficult for her so I think keeping track of when she's on her period would help to identify whether it's affecting her behaviour.

It's great that she's handling the practical aspects of it so well though! Puberty can be a really difficult time for autistic kids (as it is for lots of other people) so anything that makes it a bit easier is a huge bonus.