Hello

Hi, 

i have recently been diagnosed with aspergers. It had taken 3 years of going to Cahms to finally get my diagnosis, I'm so releived that I finally know why I sometimes do the things i do and why I always feel the way I do. I am aged 14, as a little one I was a very angry child, silly things would make me explode within seconds, id never know why I would get so worked up over something so small, it confused me. When I was 11 years old I had been refered to Cahms as things where getting worse for me, I would get so worked up over nothing, screaming, crying, swearing and my mum had come to conclusion that there was something wrong. So i had started Cahms I was going there monthly for a while, i would talk allot to them about things such as my anxieties and the small things which would make me explode. It felt good to talk about the things i do and not feel as if Im being judged for the things which i did. When I was 14 years old, at the beginning of year 9 I broke down, my anxieties where taking over me, every night I was crying, I kept thinking that I was going to die, school was to hard for me, the noises and the people it was just to much and I just couldn't handle it. An appointment had been made at cahms to see a Doctor who deals with medications and stuff for people who suffer from anxieties and ocd's ect, so I went and I told him everything, I told him what was happening to me. By the end of the session he had put me on a medication called Sertraline for my anxieties, and depression, but I had also found out that I actually have OCD as I get stuck on thoughts about dying etc which is a type of OCD. At first I thought the medication wouldn't work, but it changed me, but I don't know whether it changed me in the good way, or bad. My anxieties had gone, not completely but to an extent where I could handle them, I wasn't an angry child anymore. Throughout time I went upper dosage with my medication I am now currently on 100, where I had started on 50. But this changed me, in a way it's good but it's not because I feel as if I'm trapped in a bubble where as before I was able to escape, i no longer become angry but I'm more sad and stressed as I keep everything inside. I find it hard to show how I feel and know how I feel. I am happy that I have finally got my diagnosis as now I have the answer to why I am the way I am, I attend therapy every Thursday at Cahms, I am waiting for my report which states my diagnosis so I am able to get help in school. I suffer allot from meltdowns, and they are really fustrating and hard to deal with, if anyone has any advice of some techniques which I can use to help me, as I have a time out room at home which involves a beanbag so I can calm down, but I can't really do that whilst I'm out or in school. So if anyone has any advice or tips to help me It would really be helpful to me

thankyou so much for listening. 

Hi

Thanks for the reply, will look forward to less screaming as they get older!    Yes I definitely see my behaviour as a child and how out of control I felt. It often seems like there is nothing I can do to stop the screaming though, it's like they just need to do it!  I will have a think about how I would have wanted to be helped though, might come up with something....

Many thanks

Hi there,

Just wanted to say I understand how you are feeling - one of my children is particularly prone to meltdowns too. Mine are a bit older than yours by the sound of it, so we get less of the screaming now, but I find it very hard to deal with that kind of behaviour. I think over time I've begun to see my own behaviour  at their age in them, and remember how I felt, which makes me begin to intuitively realise what I need to do to calm the screaming. Often that just means recognising that the thing they are screaming about is really, really important to them at that moment, and they might not even know why - but once I show them that I see that, they often calm down very quickly.It's not easy of course, as it means going nearer the screaming.

And I know it might feel like giving in to the screaming, but I've felt that just articulating how they might be feeling and giving them the words to describe how they feel, without actually giving them the toy etc (which they have often long forgotten about) can really help - because they (and we), with ASD traits, probably feel things more intensely than NTs, yet often are less able to descibe our feelings? Forgive me if this is all way off the mark, but just wanted to offer my thoughts and theories and let you know you are not alone :)