Handling Stress and Asbergers Syndrome
78People With Asbergers Syndrome "Freak Out"
I love my nephew, and if you've read my other entries, you know that my nephew, Justin, has Asbergers Syndrome.
My brother and his wife have done a great job understanding Justin's needs, his challenges, and have come into his world by learning to communicate with him in ways that help him remain open and connected.
What happens once in a while with Justin is, he encounters something that doesn't line up with how he sees the world and then he just freaks out. It's the best way I can put that, although I know it is not the most politically correct way to talk about his outbursts, but the point is, he really freaks out and totally loses his grip on the world around him.
The last time it happened, he and I went for an ice cream cone and we were sitting outside when a bee came by and hovered around some spilled ice cream on the table. I didn't think anything of it until Justin started screaming and yelling and had to leave the table immediately. At first I thought a bee stung him, but it hadn't.
When I told my brother about this, I said I had no idea that Justin was afraid of bees--then my brother told me, "He isn't afraid of bees. He likes bees. He just didn't like something about the bees"
So, this was a new experience for me, and one you may have or have already had with someone you know who has Asbergers.
The only thing to which I can compare the "bee incident" is......when you are riding a horse and the horse is on the same trail it always rides, and everything is going great until...bam...the horse spooks and rears up on its hind legs and just bolts out of there, hell bent on getting somewhere, anywhere, other than where it just was..and why?!.
Because just maybe it saw a hose laying across trail by the barn and reacted to it as if it was a snake, or it saw something out of the corner of its eye it didn't like, or the wind blew the wrong way, or whatever. You'll never know, but in the horse's mind, it had a good reason for getting upset about something, and so did Justin when he had to escape the bee scene.
If you spend time around a person with Asbergers, you may indeed experience a sudden melt-down in the most mundane of places. Maybe the checkout line at the grocery store, or in a restaurant or at a family gathering? It doesn't matter where it is...but, it does matter how you handle the situation.
As I have mentioned before, I really like The Essential Guide To Asbergers
as a resource for how to understand and deal with the needs of a friend, relative, son or daughther with Asbergers Sydrome--and how to deal with that person's emotional needs.
I also think you will get a sense of how Asbergers and stress can be dealt with by reading the following brief article from About.com by clicking this link
May these references help you out and help you and your family deal with the challenges and treasures that Asberger Syndrome can bring into any home.
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Comments
My son is 8 and since he was around 2 I noticed that he was different. He was born with two bottom teeth and lost them both by 11 months. He was always very strong and started walking along edges of furniture at 5 months. His father and I were amazed but his babysitter was even more amazed since she has baby sat kids for years and has never seen such a thing. We noticed that he was very smart how he would figure things out on his own and how he would get into things so easily. We started putting latches on doors but by 2 he would get stools or other object and prop them up so he could stand on them and unlock these latches. He would find his way out of the home with in seconds and we would find him next door or in the street. He had no fear or any real sense of danger. He never grew out of that. To this day it seems like he doesn't conceptualize things that kids his age would fear or doesn't have the same social boundaries as others do. He has never liked to receive hugs or kisses and has always gotten embarrassed (sometimes angry) when attention is on him. He never wants to talk about his feelings and will get mad if pressed. He will spontaneously come forth with how he feels but will only be brief. I can't converse with him too much because he gets bored easily and will tell be he doesn't feel like talking. He is exceptionally bright and performs well in school but as at home he will have tantrums that prevent him from excelling to the best of his abilities. His is now in special education with the diagnosis of bipolar, ADHD and Emotional Disorder. I believe he has Asperger's. He is currently seeing a therapist and is in a daily intensive outpatient therapy program. They seem baffled as to the cause of his behavior problems. He displays violent tantrums for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes neither of us can figure out the trigger and other times they seem to make sense but no normal child gets this violent over not getting a second slice of pizza. It's frustrating because he will be fine one minute and then another he flips out and his tantrums can last over 3 hours. Sometimes I feel helpless because most of the time I'm by myself. I'm a single mom. I don't know what to do sometimes, he has been hospitalized twice. I'm afraid people will think I'm a bad mom and remove him from me. Is there anyone else out there understand?
Hello, My son was diagnosed through school asberger specialist through ESD when he was about 7 years old. He has all of the typical symptoms of asbergers. Even though the symptoms were seen in preschool, with his fits and outrage, It was overlooked as normal tantrums. He would get stuck on topics such as lego's and dinosaurs, if another peer changed the subject he would get upset or redirect the topic as if that was the only thing he knew and he knew every aspect of every dinosaur ever made what they ate, etc, etc. He is very intellegant and he could pronounce names of them that I couldnt even begin to say. He started a public school he would have outrages due to anxiety and stress of dealing w/ the other children and not understanding or misunderstanding their gestures or body language and even his own frusteration due to misunderstanding or others not understanding him, or just school in general, he has always been visual. He was taken to a local hospital that specializes in diagnosing Autism. Of course they didnt diagnose him even though he scored really low in the all the social aspects of the testing and high in all the motor skills. He wasnt diagnosed properly they didnt look at the proof. Of course he acts and looks as a normal 8 yr old boy compared to the fully austistic children they work w/ on a day to day basis, and of course out of all the days he was having a good day. At the time there wasnt much about Asbergers. So how do you explain the clumsyness and the attention to detail we could not be general when explaining anything we had to be specific even if it was in front of him. He is sensitive to certain clothing, he would chew holes in the sleeve of his shirts due to his anxiety, so we bought him skater sweatshirts so he could have the fabric between his fingers to play with. He has came off rude to peeps due to his body language (no expressions to certain things) head always down and slumped. I do have good news though. We have worked with him, When he was a toddler he had little affection towards anyone, if anyone went to hug/kiss him he would put his head down to avoid the affection. He would have ragging fits at school. He has problems understanding or accepting change. He is now 13 and for years now he hugs and kisses and everyday when I come home he greets us with a hug, sometimes he doesnt even leave to friends house until I get home just to give me a hug. He is very reseptive to affection, there are certain people or times he will still shrug, but he tries. His outrages have calmed, he still has fits and starts to cry due to frusteration during his social class. He has few friends but can socialize with them as normal. But they understand him, they have been friends since 3rd grade. I notice that our sons strives for the acceptance and gets really upset if he thinks he is doing something incorrect, he is a perfectionist started with his drawings and his ability to create legos, bionicles, he makes his own creations and they are amazing. I just wanted to let you all know that with love, support and patience things do get better. I read everything It can be easy to forget when you are busy and get wrapped in day to day life, and because they are normal, they just think differently but the end result is the same, I suggest to learn everything you can to understand them, sometimes you even have to stop yourself and have them explain everything to you we would completely listen to him and it wouldn't make sense but in his mind it did so then we would say are you trying to say this & then would suggest other ways of saying things to help us understand him or repeat what he said and ask if it made scense, he would say no. We taught him to recognize it, and understand socially. After alot of patience and love we are getting it down, when he starts to say something that doesnt make sense he will stop himself now and say nevermind, it doesnt make sense and say I will think about it and tell you later. I let him because he is good for him to think of alternate things then he will say oh! ya so anyways and continue on w/ his conversation. It has helpd alot. As they are younger we would hear why is he doing that he should be doing it this way, we had to explain to let others do it themselves they have they're own mind and the end result is the same and that was hard for him to grasp. If he sees something or hears something bad on the news, etc... he dwells and it builds anxiety and fear. We are working on that currently. He use to rock when he got anxiety but not so much anymore as he has gotten older, I havent noticed it. As they get older it does get better, I truely think that if taught they can grow out of some of it if not most or just learn how to function in life with the skills given. He can talk about his emotions, he can somewhat explain his feelings. He still gets stuck on subjects that revolve around him. But that is him and we love him. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask, I will ck the site periodically and get back to you. I think that anyway I can help, I am here of course there may be differences but never hurts to try.
working
naomi says:
7 months ago
i can relate to the 'freak out' comment. my son is currently being assessed, and though not directly said by his doctors, they have suggested i read some of the asbergers litrature. I call my 5 year old sons outbursts as 'freak outs', he can sometimes become hysterical and can get violent, at other times he removes himself from the situation and hides under the covers in his bed. i sometimes go up to try and reassure and see what the problem is, i offer cuddles, but he always says he 'needs' to be left alone for a while. the last such 'freak out' was his birthday party, he had a few friends over and wanted a disco and games, after 10 minutes of his friends arriving, my sons ran straight upstairs in an hysterical fit, (i knew where he was going and what was happening), his friends parents looked at me as if to suggest he was strange or spoilt. i followed my son and tried to get him to tell me what was wrong and he said he wanted his friends to go home, he didnt like it. i told him no, but that if he needs time out he can have it, but i am just going to start to give out the food if he wanted some. i left my son alone for a few minutes and tended to feeding his friends, a few minutes later he came down and got some food on a plate and went back upstairs until his food was eaten.
another time his dad had suggested that we take him to a different restaurant than the usual one, just for the change. i tried to tell him that we couldnt because of our son, but he was persistant, so we went. my son walked happily into the restaurant, but as soon as food was ordered (his usual burger and chips, but he never eats the burger), my son went into a massive hysterical fit. his dad, who was not convinced at the time that our son carried a problem, told me to shut him up because he was embarrassing him.
there have been a few episodes like these as he gets older, they are becoming more often and alot stronger as he grows and i dont always know how to deal with it.
i never really knew anything about asbergers until about a year ago when a neighbour told me that his daughter had it, and that is was a form of autism. but never thought that my son could have it.
i have sat and read for the last hour on the case of asbergers and even with all the medical jumbo that i try to understand, i have to say that the lady above with her written comment, helped me the most to understand.
thank you