High functioning asd son refusing help

Blue said:

When i first commented it was uncategorised ! This community page is for people on the autism spectrum not just parents of autistic children ! 2/3rds of the people who comments on your post do not have their own children. There is a general enquiries line that is more suitable for this type of subject where you can explain yourself better and get not only the advice you want but be signed posted to some organisation or professional that can help. 

Sorry if you do not like my replies, but it wouldn't do it deliberately inflict harm for the sake of it and i am extremely Sorry that i refuse to just tell you what you want to hear. Sorry that i refuse encourage you own mental processes in alleviating your own guilt i would highly recommended that you see someone to sort and process it in a more healthy manor.

I have shared my own experience openly so you can try and understand the place your son might be emotionally and mentally and hopefully my advice should allow you to fix the situation and relationship with your son. it's down to you how you chose to interpret my replies. You can keep quoting me all you like out of context all you like it just proves my hypothesis on your behaviour towards your adult child, it's similar tactic that a covert narcissist does to achieve their goals and get the outcome they want from people.

We see this quite often on the community page where the parent has commented and explained their sons behaviour but not explained or taken responsibility for their own actions and behaviour that may have caused an incident from their own behaviour. You have purposely left out information and didn't even think to explain what you were doing prior to adult son outburst.       

please feel free to report anyone bullying you / making u feel unconfortable  using 

More > report as abusive

then the Moderator s will pick it u eventually 

When i first commented it was uncategorised ! This community page is for people on the autism spectrum not just parents of autistic children ! 2/3rds of the people who comments on your post do not have their own children. There is a general enquiries line that is more suitable for this type of subject where you can explain yourself better and get not only the advice you want but be signed posted to some organisation or professional that can help. 

Sorry if you do not like my replies, but it wouldn't do it deliberately inflict harm for the sake of it and i am extremely Sorry that i refuse to just tell you what you want to hear. Sorry that i refuse encourage you own mental processes in alleviating your own guilt i would highly recommended that you see someone to sort and process it in a more healthy manor.

I have shared my own experience openly so you can try and understand the place your son might be emotionally and mentally and hopefully my advice should allow you to fix the situation and relationship with your son. it's down to you how you chose to interpret my replies. You can keep quoting me all you like out of context all you like it just proves my hypothesis on your behaviour towards your adult child, it's similar tactic that a covert narcissist does to achieve their goals and get the outcome they want from people.

We see this quite often on the community page where the parent has commented and explained their sons behaviour but not explained or taken responsibility for their own actions and behaviour that may have caused an incident from their own behaviour. You have purposely left out information and didn't even think to explain what you were doing prior to adult son outburst.       

Blue said:

You've missed the point completely and that advise can be terrible. You have basically denied the experiences of autistic individuals who can actually try to explain their point of view and similar experiences. 

Regarding your reply. THIS IS A PARENT/CARER FORUM!

Also I will reply to your previous reply when I have the time . I feel you have jumped to so many conclusions. You don't know anything about myself or family. 

You've missed the point completely and that advise can be terrible. You have basically denied the experiences of autistic individuals who can actually try to explain their point of view and similar experiences. 

I understand that you may be older and wiser but the generational barrier can make it difficult for anyone to understand the point of view from someone younger who experienced such different experiences such as the changes in the educational system and social pressures of being under the age of twenty five. it changed dramatic since your day and not for the better. 

You do know that i may not be a professional but i do have experience of many families with autism growing up and attending school with many of them and I have recently completed multiple advanced level three qualification in child psychology as well as Multiple level 3 NCFE CACHE in understanding Mental Health, Autism, Behaviour that challenges and Health and Social Care.  

Yes, i admit i was relatively angry when wrote my last post and some of the things i said was wrong and some of the things i might say in this post may be wrong but aren't you as sick and tired of these posts from neurotypical parents of autistic adults as i am.

Mumof3boys indirectly asked multiple questions in her post but none of them where to do with trying to understand her son's way of thinking or point of view. She directly said she doesn't "want to put up with this anymore" how do you think her son interprets being told this frequently and regularly it going to lead mental and emotional stress. The Community Page might as well have a new category called " how to get rid of your autistic adult child" and " how do i make autistic adult not my problem anymore.   

Being a parent doesn't end when your child turns sixteen, it a lifelong obligation and it's a parents responsibility to teach and instill skills for their child to become as responsible and independent as they can. The decisions this mother has made has not only put stress on her autistic adult sons and endangered her life and the rest of her families and I know from experience that getting help for the negative aspects of someone having autism can be difficult. But autism doesn't just happen like a cold/flu and their must of been red flags over the years while her son was growing up and the mother in this case buried her hand in sand. her son is nineteen and would attended school from the mid 2000s  where Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and other learning disorder where known about to a quite competent understanding from most educational professionals.

the mother has real no empathy for her adult son because she can't fundamentally understand why he so angry and frustrated and has failed to understand and create solutions that work not only work for her but also for her adult autistic son needs.Yes some people are plain and simple aggressive cruel but some people are forced into a flight and fight response in the same way someone like ourselves might become overstimulated into an autism meltdown.    

certain life aspects are not as easy as when this woman was her sons age, yes we may have more technology but for someone with autism that technology has made multiple barriers like more competition for employment. It's going to take a person with autism more time and in some cases a lot of time with some sort of support to get to the same emotional maturity as their neurotypical peers. You can't expect someone with a autism to function under extreme pressures mentally or physically of what considered normal expectation for his age because the pressure will manifest into meltdowns, shutdowns, aggressive behaviour and even antisocial behaviour.

Neurotypical parents of autistic adults who don't understand this knowingly and unknowingly and intentionally force unachievable expectations and goals on to their child, most of the time the verbally compare their autistic child with someone else's neurotypical child or their own neurotypical children usually putting unfair and unachievable time frames for them to complete tasks and goals. If these parents actual compared their autistic child with another successful autistic person with any knowledge of that person background and upbringing they will would notice they were given the time and support to achieve their success by going at the own pace              

Yet again from experience i understand fully well that this woman is similar to my own mother who also has experienced domestic abuse from her previous husband and the father of my three other children and is still experience domestic violence from her current husband who she has been married to my entire life. I know fully well the influence that a child who witness domestic violence.

I'm the youngest of my four siblings and some of the aggressive and abusive behaviour they witness their father doing to my mother they later went on to do to me throughout my childhood. I also know from what i have witness the psychological damage it did to my own mother ability to accept me for having autism and where she cant understand me. Even though this happened with me my mother has no excuse for ignoring getting assessed and sorted before i became an adult or some of the horrific things that she done physically, emotionally or mentally. Its mother job to sort themselves out so they can care for their children, if they can and will not deal with trauma then honestly that blame partly falls on them.  

Blue if you know you are being "aggressively blunt", perhaps think before you post your reply. Don't forget the person on the other end is a human with feelings who is asking for help, not judgement. 

That sounds really hard to deal with for you. 

Remember that you can't be everything to him, you need help and support too. 

Autism is really hard, it's so difficult to express yourself "in the moment". I've spent a lot of time thinking "oh I wish I'd said this or I wish I'd done that".

I hate the term "high functioning" (this is my diagnosis too) because there are times where I don't feel like I'm functioning at all never mind high functioning. High functioning puts expectations on you that you'll be able to control your emotions/deal with your lack of a neurotypical brain and sometimes you can but other times you just can't.

I want to let you know that you did the right thing calling the police. It was probably really hard for you but sometimes we need to be shocked before we realise that our actions and poor ways of dealing with things are affecting others. 

I hope this is a turning point for your family. Reach out to every resource you can get and be persistent. 

I've just had to call the police. He had another episode and ripped his 15 year olds brothers TV off the wall and broke his Xbox 

thats ok,,Mumof3boys,   I dont doubt you for a moment. I dont have enough experience  to say if its ASD or OTHER.   My guess is it ASD ,,,,, not dealing with criticism correctly and I am only saying that because I cant handle critism myself. 

only listen to parents of autistic children, and professionals who have experience of many families and autistic children.

Sometimes, it can get better...

I grew up with a violent dad (who lashed out whenever things weren't going his way). During my childhood, I guess I took on the same mantle as my dad. I was violent at home, breaking things, hitting both younger and older brothers (we were all born within a few years of each other so similar ages). In short, I was a nightmare.

At 16-ish, that changed. Some epiphany moment. I'd pushed my older brother through a glass cabinet we had, threw a small pot of paint on the floor and then I broke down. From that point on, my outward rage against others became an inward rage.

After 16, I would still occasionally break things but I wouldn't hurt others. I took the pain out on myself, (relatively lightly) self-harming instead when I needed some way to cope.

The difference may be a question of self-awareness.

My dad was unaware of how much damage he was doing. I've questioned him about it and at first he kept denying that he hit his infant children. This is low self-awareness and this might be a touch harder (albeit not necessarily impossible) to deal with. [I've been having progress with my dad more recently about developing self-awareness.]

In my case, I was more aware in the moment. And perhaps this is why I had a moment at which I recognised I couldn't keep turning my anger on others. I'd grown up and was now roughly as strong as my dad and it probably helped things that I didn't want to be like my dad. So, maybe at 16, I recognised I was basically becoming him. This is slightly better self-awareness, and may give hope that more/faster change may be possible.

My question is, then, how aware is your son of what he is doing? Have you had a chance to talk through afterwards of when things like this has happened to get a feeling or knowledge of how aware he is?

In my own experience, people who are willing to recognise that they have caused some harm tend to be easier to deal with in terms of overcoming a difficult problem.

Blue said:

Yet again i am going to be aggressively blunt and honest with if you allowed your child to procreate at young age your are partly responsible for your current situation, you are also partly responsible for the way your son has turned out because you did not dealing with your sons negative behaviour sooner no amount of past trauma or excuse will justify you allowing this current situation.

I can assure you we did not 'let' any of this happen. He was punished as a child for his actions never understandings when it never worked due to not getting a diagnosis till age 15.

I don't know what else to do. The only way I can see this changing is if he sees he has a problem,needs help and gets help. He knows I will support him on the way 

Is there any chance he is acting this way because he saw his dad act like this? Just because he has an autism diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean everything will be related to autism. If he thinks this is how men act then it's how he will act. 

He might benefit from having a male mentor or support worker who he can talk to about what goes on in his head when this kicks off. 

Is he still under CAMHS or at school? They can usually signpost to support services or put in a referral. Failing that try your GP.

This is definitely behaviour that needs nipped in the bud, he's turning on you but it could be his brother next or lifting his hands to a girlfriend and then he will be in a whole heap of trouble. I'd tell your younger child's school what's going on and that you're trying to get support, you don't want him saying something at school and people having no context to it. 

I have sent a message to the support line on here regarding advice,still waiting for a reply.

I have told him numerous times he can't act or speak like this, he always says sorry and he knows but it keeps happening.Don't get me wrong 80% of the time is he a lovely caring young man but if things don't go his way e.t.c. that's when he starts being horrible. 

The five year old is mine by the way.

He definitely isn't ready to move out.,so I couldn't go that to him. I'm his carer and take care of his money and I know what he and isn't capable of.

I have called the police once a few years ago but he had calmed down by then and I've come close to calling them again. My issue is I don't know if it's the asd thats causing the violence or something else. 

I am an autistic adult myself with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and i have done some horrific thing during an autism meltdown, I am know in my mid twenties and even though i have acted so poorly during a autism meltdown i still feel guilty and embarrassed by my behaviour afterwards. When i have an autism meltdown they can be really destructive so i understand the destruction quality of autism. But if he is doing this behaviour outside of meltdown then there isn't really isn't that much of an excuse. 

I need to raise a massive concern here and sorry i am going to be extremely blunt. This five year child is not safe around him for multiple reason you have described. Your son cannot control his behaviour and that is going to have a negative physiological effect on this child natural development. If your son is inclined to having autism meltdown and they manifest in a destruction and aggression manor and he can't recognize when things are building up to a meltdown then he is a real threat to the child safety and a risk of hurting and even killing this five year old child. In these situation anger management will be too little to late. if you have younger children in the house then the first priority is to ensure your safety and the childrens and calling the police might be option and i am saying this from experience.

They will take and process your son and keep him in a cell, he will only be given a caution for the first time and might result in the local authorities intervening and providing him with the support to be rehoused and social intervention for his behaviour. 

Sorry i have read your post multiple time know and still can't figure out if your son has a five year old himself or you are talking about your five year old child? 

Welcome to the National Autism Society Community Page.

I justed wanted to be kind and inform you that most individuals on the Community Page do not answer or comment on discussions from new users who do not change the user name from the default as we have experienced a lot nasty trolls commenting on this forum with the default username and nothing in their Bio.      

that sounds horrific and a bit scary. Your son has no idea what he is doing. I mean he doesn't understand the damage he is doing. You may need to start recording/journaling each of the violent episodes. what happened and what was events leading up to it.

I think u may have PTSD from your partner attack, just a guess, and your son unfortunately is making you revisit that event.

let him cool down a bit and make it clear he must not talk to you like that again.  I would suggest he moves out but you will probably be the first to poo poo that suggestion. 

If the attacks continue please feel free to involve the police. But in a careful cautious way.  If they arrived say at your house, there could be a meltdown/violence and an "assaulting a police officer" charge could result. Police dont really understand Autistic people. I mean they would not necessarily recognise a violent meltdown like u can and decide to restrain him and then he would maybe fight ...........

1. could u ring this parent to parent emotional support line / use the contact form,  to see what they think is the best way forward.

 www.autism.org.uk/.../parent-to-parent

2. Please talk to your GP about some counselling around the attack on you so that that doesn't get any worse with constant exposure to violence. 

more people will reply here over next few days, so please revisit here.