Published on 12, July, 2020
21yr old son has autism and severe learning difficulties. Since about 16yrs there has been a progressive change leading into very challenging behaviour. Initially I put this down to puberty, teenage angst, emotional buildup with no outlet for relief(he does not masturbate).
Moving into adult services he was prescribed Risperidone and Depakote to combat antisocial behaviour in the community eg hitting, grabbing and spitting randomly at all types of people.In spite of meds behaviour continues to escalate, however a definite cyclical pattern has emerged.
About every 6 weeks he hits the cycle irrespective of environment, stimulus, who he is with or what he is doing.Only time lapsing, letting it run its course brings him out of it,this can take 2 weeks. In the meantime his whole demeanour changes; body posture, furtive eyes, increased repetitive traits, frequent toileting, making himself sick combined with the hitting out ,grabbing, spitting etc He appears to have no control, just an overriding compulsion to behave in this way.He will apologise and immediately repeat the action.You can see an internal struggle going on.
This situation is having a devastating effect on his access to the community and I worry that soon someone will report him for abusive behaviour with catastrophic knock on effects.
My gut feeling is it is raging hormones and that in time these extreme behaviour will balance out.
Please if anyone can relate to this I'd love to hear from you.
Is it definitely a 6 week cycle?
we are getting close to full moon (9th Sept) and the moon is up at night rather than during the daytime at the moment, which means bright, moonlit nights. The thin cloud conditions also do nothing to keep light levels down. A lot of us are sensitive to light and we can benefit from blackout curtains to help us sleep.
How did he sleep last night? Are the curtains in his room thick or thin?
i have just posted a reply on this subject to the sleep thread where we have discussed various methods for helping us sleep.
Thanks for your input.
I think if it was related to diet things would be consistent rather than cyclical.
Will end on a positive had lovely day with him, he's come out of recent cycle.
Sorry, but can't offer any assistance on the hormonal cycles. This isn't something I've heard of on this site and it doesn't ring any bells for me otherwise. I'm not medically qualified so this doesn't mean that you haven't picked up on something real.
My last suggestion relates to diet. I have ASD but also have a thing called Oral Allergy Syndrome. This means that I react against some very common and very healthy foods such as apples, tomatoes, carrots etc. These healthy vegetables have a major impact on me as they give me stomach cramps, swollen tongue and they paralyse my guts for up to a week. i think that, in hindsight, that this cycle of eating something that disagrees, followed by the aftermath, results in me being bad tempered, irritable and generally out of sorts. Is it possible that his healthy diet actually doesn't suit him?
Was hoping for a bit more feedback,any suggestions of another similar link to try?
Not yet,that's my next option after looking at responses from this forum.
Has he been seen by an endocrinologist? - if it is hormonal then they may be able to measure varying levels of something over the 6 week cycle.
Yes diary kept and I guess rhythm is 6 week cycle.
He wouldn't understand concept of punch bag,probably whack it few times then wander off.I understand where you coming from though, thanks.
He walks on a daily basis and has access to a rebounder.When he can manage the community he swims and cycles(ideally on an empty cycle path due to safety issues).
Due to severity of learning difficulties he has constant supervision.
Re-reading your original post, presumably you have kept a diary of dates to keep track of his behavour. I.e. His behaviour is very regular according to a rhythm rather than random .
does he have an outlet for his physical energy? Would he benefit from having a punch bag to work out with?
I wasn't suggesting that he was normally eating bad food, i was wondering whether he was very occasionally eating something unusual?
Thanks for suggestion but he follows very healthy diet.
This is a long shot. Is there something that he eats on an irregular basis? For example, take away food, celebration things like Krispy Kreme doughnuts, anything else unusual?
some foods are laden with additives and some people react to ordinary foods like apples.