Tag Archives: anger

Dealing with Anger

Autism and anger – two A-words that don’t go together well. The combination ain’t pretty.

Last night, Nigel was angry. I had given him an ultimatum: You must clean your room or you can’t have your friend spend the night this weekend as planned. This last resort came after a series of interventions on my part to make the room cleaning as easy as possible. I wrote instructions, broken down into steps, for him to refer to while cleaning. I offered the positive reinforcement of having his friend spend the night this weekend. He called the friend on Monday to invite him to spend Friday night, and as of Wednesday night, he had not lifted a finger to pick up his room. Urging him to get started was met with indifference. I mentioned that he would not receive his allowance until the room was clean. Not motivating enough. I removed the DVD player from his room. No worries. So, faced with letting it slide or hitting him where it hurts, I gave him the ultimatum. And I think the real reason he became angry is because he knows that I’ll follow through with it.

Nigel has two ways of expressing anger – he destroys things in his room or becomes a mad dog. The fact that he chose not to destroy anything in his room last night told me that he didn’t want to make the situation worse because, deep down, he knew that at some point he would have to actually clean his room. So, on some level, he still had control of himself. He just wanted to act like he didn’t.

The first time Mad Dog entered our home, I was quite scared. Nigel, heading into adolescence, was having a lot of trouble filtering the sensations caused by his new hormones. I didn’t know what to expect from him. He was hissing, growling, biting, and making death threats. I don’t even remember how I got him to calm down – I think I just waited it out, holding my breath. Mad Dog has reared his head a few other times in the last couple of years. The death threats have subsided, but the rest of it is no picnic.

After I told Nigel that he would have to cancel his sleepover unless he cleaned his room, Mad Dog came bounding out. He leaped around the living room, growling and hissing, jumping on the back of the couch where my boyfriend Rick and I were trying to watch a movie. I was not pleased. I tried herding him back to his room, at which point he threw himself on the floor and began biting my legs. My patience wearing thin, I left him there in the hallway and went to the bathroom to regroup.

I came out a moment later to the sound of laughter. Apparently, Mad Dog had gone back out to the living room to jump on the back of the couch, and Rick deftly infused some humor into the situation. He grabbed Nigel and gave him a wedgie. That startled Mad Dog right out of him! Nigel went back to his room for a few minutes, and then he came out with a plan. He knew that shoving everything into the closet wouldn’t fly, so he offered to bundle it in an old sheet and drag it into the storage room. I came up with a plan of my own. I told him that first he should put away all the clothing that was on the floor, and then we’d consider using his sheet method. He said okay. After he’d put away all the clothing, I went in and surveyed his room and said, “Why don’t you just put all the stuffed animals back on your bed?” By the time he had done that, the piles on the floor looked much more manageable. I suggested he pick up all the DVDs. “Just the DVDs,” I said. Then, since it was bedtime, I suggested that he could do his sheet plan tomorrow, after he had picked up the books. He said okay.

And so we managed to learn a few important things here at Teen Autism:

1. Humor is a significant tool for diffusing anger.

2. Allowing Nigel to come up with his own plan is an effective motivator.

3. Compromise might actually be possible.

4. Bargaining is very productive.

5. Mad Dog is vulnerable to surprise wedgie attacks.

Bitterness

Over the weekend, I did some looking around online at autism sites written by “auties.” (I’m still getting used to that word, which is why I put it in quotations. It took me eight years to come to terms with using the word “autistic,” so “autie” will sound different to me for a while.) I was sad to see that many of them are quite bitter. I can’t say that I blame them, because with the harassment and ignorance that Nigel has dealt with, I’m sure there are plenty of other auties who have experienced the same treatment. And as they head into adulthood, that’s a lot of accumulated years of negative exchanges.   

I found a bumper sticker that says: “Cure Neurotypicals now!” And in smaller print below: “Offended? Good. Now you know how we feel.” Meant to be funny, I presume, with an ounce (at least) of seriousness. But some of the web sites I viewed over the weekend seemed just plain angry. I want to tell the authors something, with all my heart.

 I’m sorry for how you’ve been treated. You have every right to be angry. But holding on to that anger will only make you feel worse. Remaining angry will not alleviate the anger. Remaining angry will not punish the people who hurt you. Remaining angry will only hurt you. Please, for your emotional well-being, channel your anger into something positive, like creating an online support group for others who have experienced the same thing. You will know you are not alone, and you’ll feel at least a little better.

Nigel gets angry about bullies. Most likely, as he gets older he will experience more bullying and more ignorance. I don’t like thinking about what he has gone through, what he will continue to face, how things will be for him in high school, possibly college, a future workplace, and the general community. I hope that I’ve given him a strong enough base of love and self-worth that he can successfully let go of his anger and not allow it to consume him.

I don’t want Nigel to feel bitter when he’s an adult. I want him to feel cherished, appreciated for who he is, and important. I want him to feel loved.

Autism and Death

Nigel had a pet mouse for six months. It was the cutest little beige-colored furry thing. It was his own responsibility to feed him and change his bedding and water, which he faithfully did. Nigel named him Jonathan after Jonathan Brisby in The Secret of NIMH, one of his favorite movies and books. He told me that he held Jonathan every night for five minutes before going to sleep. One morning last week I noticed that Jonathan was curled up in a ball on the floor of his cage and not visibly breathing.

It has been interesting to me over the years to see the progression of Nigel’s acceptance of death. His first experience was at the age of nine, when our first cat, whom we all loved, was hit by a car a mere 50 feet from our house and instantly killed. Our neighbors called to let me know, and I brought the cat into our backyard. I went inside to tell Nigel and Aidan, who had very different reactions. Aidan began sobbing, and as I consoled him, Nigel became very angry and stormed out to the backyard. I hated to leave Aidan as he was, but I had an even worse feeling about Nigel’s state. I found him pulling his bike out of the shed, buckling his helmet (odd that he had remembered), and about ready to ride off, saying, “I’m going to find whoever killed Max and kill them for revenge!” After my initial shock over the length and complexity of his sentence, rare at that age, I somehow was able to diffuse his anger and help him let go of his need for revenge.

Several months later, Nigel and Aidan’s great-grandfather died. He lived a few hundred miles away, and they had only seen him twice, but they sure loved that man. I think Nigel internalized his sadness because he didn’t know how to deal with it. Sometimes now, three years later, he’ll come up to me an hour after his bedtime to say, “I keep thinking about my great-grandfather.” That’s good, I tell him. That way you’ll always remember him. But I’m sure that right now he would want you to get some sleep.

About two months ago, we had another cat die. He was a day-time roamer, but he always came home every evening. I think someone in the neighborhood got tired of him coming in their yard, trapped him, and dumped him on the other side of the highway that runs through town. I found him three weeks later, but he appeared to have been dead for just a week or so. He had been hit on the highway on his way back home to us, loyal cat that he was. So I brought him home to bury him, and Nigel calmly helped me. 

He tells me all the time that he misses that cat, but he has never indicated a desire for revenge, which I am glad to see. And even though I haven’t seen him cry about the death, I know he is dealing with the emotions surrounding it. Last month my father had surgery to remove a tumor, and when I told Nigel about it, he said, “Well, if he dies, just don’t tell me.” At first it sounded like he was being calloused, but I knew what he meant. He didn’t want to know about it because he didn’t want to feel the sadness again. And he knew it would be worse this time.

I am happy to report that my father came through surgery and is recovering very well. Jonathan the mouse, however, didn’t make it. And so, I tried to think of the best way to tell Nigel. I thought of saying, “Have you checked on Jonathan today?” or “I think something’s wrong with Jonathan,” but I settled on the more direct, “Nigel, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Jonathan died in his cage.” When I said it, Nigel stiffened; I could tell that it shocked him. But then he said, “Well, rodents have a short life span.” He went to go look at the mouse, and I asked him if he wanted to help bury him. “No. That would cause too much sadness.” So I did it myself, reflecting on his ability to identify his emotions and knowing what his limits are with how much he can handle. I think that’s pretty amazing. I wish I could have that outlook on my whole life.

Anger Management

Man, what a day. Just when I think things are going pretty well, thinking I can breathe a little easier, the phone rings. As an introvert, I don’t get too excited when the phone rings anyway. But when Nigel’s not home and the phone rings, I get nervous.

This afternoon, Nigel wanted to ride his bike to a neighborhood kid’s house a couple of blocks away, so I said sure, just be careful and be home by five. Less than 45 minutes later, the phone rang and it was the elementary school about half a mile away. Apparently the kid he went to visit wanted to hang out at the school, so Nigel went with him, and then he proceeded to get into an argument with the kids in the after-school club there. One of the girls said something that upset Nigel, and things escalated to the point where Nigel was so agitated that he threatened her by saying he would tear her arms and legs off, after she had called him a second-grader. I told the school I’d be there in five minutes.

If I had a dollar for every time all the schools over the years called me about Nigel’s disruptive behavior, I could certainly pay for a much-needed massage for myself. You would think after all these years that I would be used to it, that it wouldn’t rattle me the way that it does. But every time it happens I feel like I have a brick in my gut and a sense of hopelessness floods my veins. I’m so tired of it. I’m so tired of having to apologize and explain my son’s behavior to someone and wondering if it will ever change.

But this time was different. This time Nigel apologized, and without prompting. To the adult moderator of the club he said, “I’m sorry, I have autism and sometimes I can’t control my anger.” And then, on his own, he went and apologized to the girl, told her that what she said had upset him, and she apologized to him. It was like something out of a movie. Something I wouldn’t have dared to dream of.

And the brick was gone and I thought, Wow, he’s actually starting to get it. Then we went home and I talked with him about what had happened, and how proud I was of him that he had apologized. He still needs to do a lot of work in the area of letting go of an argument and the feeling that he has to “get back at someone” when they upset him, and remembering that it’s never okay to threaten people. And I know I have to prepare myself for many more confrontations and ensuing phone calls. But we made progress today. Development is always slow, but it’s there. And so is my faith in him.