Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone, my sister is 11 and has been diagnosed with autism. Her behaviour on the whole is quite good, but over the last couple of months she keeps having random outbursts of anger and aggression. This usually consists of her throwing things, hitting, biting and slapping myself and my mom and nothing we have tried seems to make the situation better. We have tried the distraction method, ignoring the behaviour, walking away, removing phones and iPads and talking to her but absolutely nothing works and she is getting out of control. Her meltdowns are beginning to become more and more frequent (a few times a week) and they last for a few hours. There is never anything specific that triggers them, other than sometimes a certain video on YouTube seems to start her off. We aren’t quite sure what else we can do to try and help the situation so any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. We thought it could possibly hormone related as she is nearly 12, but her school haven’t been very supportive at all. Thanks x
I'm not sure who gave you these ideas:
NAS81093 said:the distraction method, ignoring the behaviour, walking away, removing phones and iPads and talking to her but absolutely nothing works
But they won't work. You cannot manipulate an autistic out of a meltdown. There IS something triggering it, causing trauma, stress, pain.
If it's actually 'random' - while nothing is happening at home (no cooking, no sudden sounds - even the refrigerator turning on, no conversation, nothing) then there could be a good deal of unresolved complexities she is in desperate need of resolving.
If she's in the middle of thought, work, a chore, a focus and interrupted, then interrupting her is like waking a sleepwalker.
Given there's not much here to go off, I'm giving you some common things which are traumatising if not just torture for Autistics in society.
Unresolved Matters can be triggered by a word, a gesture. Our minds can be in chaos over matters and stuck in a loop often from an inability to identify something.
Monotropism: https://monotropism.org a natural Flow-state which makes us easily hyper-focused and suitable for highly skilled jobs requiring this ability.
Sensory Impact: We cannot dull our senses like non-Autistics. We're wired different. This is amazing for picking up incredible detail, but without proper shielding, we are incredibly vulnerable and pick up things others don't. This includes internal and external and sometimes subliminal systems of exchange. While autistics don't always pick up sub-text, they might see right through whatever is being stated as false and not know they're not supposed to say anything. This is also a sensory ability.
https://autcollab.org/2020/04/30/autism-the-cultural-immune-system-of-human-societies/?fbclid=IwAR37xumHkRga0hADICA80wxaWycn7_Kr9Oc6uZhcs2zJ0QzamXOI4qwU2bQ