Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi ,
This is my first post on the forum. I have a nine year old boy who has been diagnosed with ASD for about a year now. He is very good at masking all the things that upset him whilst at school in fact we met with the head today who said he is a model student. The problem is it’s so hard for him to hold it together all day that at home where he can “get away with it” his behaviour is awful. The school are helpful but I really think he needs a professional to talk to. He refuses to talk about his feelings with my wife and I. Anyone know of any good counsellors etc in the Exeter, Devon area.
Thanks
Hi, disclosure first I am a parent of an ASD child and NOT an expert, i simply have spent a lot of time researching to try and equip myself.
Please, as quickly as you can look into autistic burnout and ask members on here to tell you of their experiences. I am a parent of a much older teenager and if I had had this knowledge years ago it would have helped me enormously. In particular look for accounts and articles written by autists, who can describe the experience more eloquently than anyone else. There are also a number of early research programmes taking place so a growing number of academic articles and interviews with professionals. The school will almost definitely not have heard of it and they'll still be struggling to get their head around masking. It is likely, if your son finds school difficult, that he may already be burned out or be on his way there, or may have had multiple burnouts.
Please believe me when I say that although his behaviour is no doubt challenging and distressing, it is the only way that he can release his feelings at the end of the day. The problem with school is that it can be so distressing for ASD children on so many levels - from academic through sensory (that's a big one) and social, and as soon as he returns to his safe space (i.e. you) it all come rushing out. Try to remember that this is actually the ultimate compliment to you as parents as you are the only people he feels safe enough to do this with.
Understanding burnout, as well as masking which I know you already understand, may bring you to a completely new perception of what's going on. There is (I am learning) a huge misconception that autistic people somehow don't "feel" complex emotions. The absolutely opposite is true. This is not so much about how he sees the world but about how he feels it. And he probably feels it incredibly deeply and honestly on a very complex number of levels. Understanding that from a directly autistic perspective will help you know what questions to explore with him. The answers may surprise you because he may well simply not think to volunteer that information unless asked.
I'm afraid I can't advise on professionals in your area but if he is burning out, he may well struggle to engage anyway and the most crucial thing he will need before anything else is rest, space, and a serious reduction in his sensory load - including the ability to retreat into isolation for a period of time if that's what he finds soothing. Again, (I have recently learned) as neurotypicals we tend to turn to others for support and assume that being alone is an "unhappy" state of being. For an autistic person in burnout, this is exactly what they often need, simply to reduce the sensory and social load they are constantly feeling so deeply. That's not to say autistic people don't want social connections - of course they do. But in a state of burnout they quite literally need as much peace, quiet and solitude as possible.
It's not something you can simply get through with willpower. That's a battle because education expects children to simply "keep going" no matter how traumatised or profoundly exhausted they might be. There is lots and lots of information out there, but this article in particular I found very good, giving a clear explanation of the vicious cycle of burnout and and eloquent account of how it feels, why it's so debilitating and some things you can do to help.
https://transformingautism.org/burnout-2/
I should finish by saying again I am not the expert here, just a parent who has been through it and made this discovery too late. I am coming to realise that the biggest experts on autism are autists themselves. That may sound so obvious, but sometimes you don't think of the obvious. So it may well be that members on here have first hand experiences that doesn't match what I have said, and I defer to their far superior knowledge. But it may give you a starting point to arm yourself wit further knowledge and in particular modify your strategies so that you can support his meltdowns in a way that will help him to manage them and understand them better.
When my daughter has a meltdown, in the past I used to either make an enormous fuss or tell her off and get angry. Now, I try very hard to simply "be" with her, to let her work through the meltdown, and just reassure her that she is safe, that she is allowed to feel emotion, that we understand her and that we love her. I try (I don't always succeed!) to avoid adding pressure by asking her to articulate what is happening or insisting that there must be a cause. That can always be discussed later when things are calm again.
Just doing that alone has had a marked improvement not necessarily on the frequency, but certainly on the severity and her ability to bring herself out of it quicker. If the meltdown brings a behavioural response that does need addressing, let him calm down and recover before then engaging in a calm conversation about that, so that he understands what about his behaviour was challenging, but does not feel that he is being punished during something he genuinely has no control of. That's something I have found helpful anyway - it is of course different for everyone as we are all unique.
Hope that helps and good luck.
wow - seems like solid advice, afaict. i've never had kids, but your post is helpful to me as an adult.... except my 'parent' is my therapist and i'm free to have melts in therapy....
one question: the OP was two years ago, and their only activity that i see was that post. how do these old posts get dredged back up? from my experience on this site, really old, long forgotten posts seem to be prominently featured on various pages - --- that seems pretty or really weird.
anyone else notice this?
np. i feel like this site regularly posts super old threads as tempts to start discussions. i think that seems.......................................... the word is inane. why dredge up old threads? jeezus. yes, found your post helpful. i would say ---- that when i have melts, i don't HAVE to have them. i view it as simply better if i am freely able to choose to have one, or not. i think they relieve anxiety and can be helpful.
best of luck stilllearning!
Ha! I totally didn't notice that, feel a bit silly now as OP has probably long moved on. I am loving this forum but not used to how the platform works yet. But glad that you found this helpful raspberrypie