Published on 12, July, 2020
Before covid 19, my daughter would have a complete melt down after school. Almost like she would get to the car and completely explode in a rage that she could not control.
I also have other children, around her age so we do not have a quiet household, I've noticed since being at home she does seem much happier, however she goes absolutely mad when she thinks I'm not listening to her, that could be from me looking away for a brief second, one of her siblings playing in the background, someone else talking to me.
If it's noisy she will cover her ears as if she cannot cope with it. She tells me it's too loud and frustrating her.
She reacts to clothing being too hot, to big (slightly baggy)
She's gone off most food, it's a struggle to get her to eat. Smells trigger her into a melt down also, not even bad smells, just smells in general.
The thing is, when this all started with her after school I spoke to the teacher who couldn't believe it was the same little girl, and for a while neither could we, however I've recently read a thing called 'masking' and I'm wondering if this applies here? I do not know much about autism or anything as I've not had to look into it all before, I'm not sure if she even has it, but how would we possibly get a diagnosis if she has it but masks it.
I hope this makes sense and thank you for reading. As I said all very new to me. I'm just after some advice. Thank you
Hi - While I can't diagnose anything, a lot of the things you say are fairly typical of our behaviours. We find the whole social scene really stressful. You could also imagine our lives are like living inside a disco - everything is too bright and too loud - think about how long you could put up with that environment!. You also have to remember that children are programmed from day one to behave and 'be good' and not to embarrass their parents - so when we are put in a position where the enforced 'correct' behaviour is contrary to our programming's ability to cope, something has to give. Seeing other children misbehave and get away with it confuses our logic so it causes stress and messes up our programming to always do the right thing.
High-functioning children often force themselves to be good at school - but all the stress and chaos builds up until we can't hold it any more - so you see a blow-up or a melt-down directly we are out of it. We need time to defrag the chaos and decompress after building all this stress so if the home environment has no safe/quiet spaces for us to do this, we stay stuck in this near-meltdown state all the time.
The getting angry at you if you're not 100% there for her is likely that she's feeling her world get too complicated and she's desperately clutching at things that should be constant (you) or things she can control (food) to try to stabilise her chaos and assert her control.
The masking is an additional layer of our personalities to protect us from the chaos - a fake 'acceptable' personality so no-one can see what's really going on - we learn behaviours that reduce the bullying and allow us to fake the social scene - we appear normal as long as the social situations remain simple and predictable. Unfortunately, if something unpredictable happens, we have no script so we may do something very odd or freeze up while we try to process what the appropriate response should be. This makes us stand out like a sore thumb.
As we get older, we rely more and more on this mask to get us through the day so we can hide in plain sight - it's incredibly tiring so we burn out easily. The mask also gets more rigid with age so we become less able to react correctly as our lives get more and more complex.
Do you have the ability to accommodate her decompression after a long day? Is she able to retreat anywhere safe where she can be alone? We often retreat into something we can have total control over during this time - train-sets and video games are typical in boys - what's her thing? We crave stability and predictability as a strong basis for having the energy to face the chaos of the world.
Sorry, I've only just noticed I have received replies to my thread, thank you for taking the time to message me. I really appreciate it.
It's so hard as I do have other children, but since noticing this I myself have tried to be alot more 'there' for her and understanding. When I can see she's getting over whelmed ( not at anything in particular) I will just hold her and have a cwtch, it seems to help her and get her back on the right track.
She does go off and cuddle up in my bed sometimes by herself and with me if I can, I have children who are young still so I cannot dedicate one on one solely to her, which makes me feel awful.
She loves crafting, drawing and writing, she's very good at these things.
We can all go out on a day out to a farm, zoo, public places and she is as good as gold...everytime. We will get back to the car and BAM it'll change. We always thought it was because she didn't want a day out to end, as that's what she will say. However, I'm not wondering if it's from her being over stimulated and exhausted.
I will look through the links above, it's all so new to me.
We are sorting her room now and I've decided to make her a quiet/relaxing corner with fairy lights and books so she can go there if she needs too.
The more I read I really feel like I'm reading about my little girl.
Thank you again