Bearhug is still struggling and we have no idea why. It feels like we are in new territory here... at first I thought it was a result of sensory overload / stress but now I'm thinking it may be more than that.
Whatever it is, it has really escalated in the last few weeks. We're seeing a lot of anger, rage would be a better description really. Aside from that he seems kind of sullen, even sad. I spoke with his resource teacher and the parapros that work with her, they're seeing similar things at school. He had a pretty intense outburst at school this past week.
Sundays are the worst. Two weeks in a row he took off running at church and went missing. We found him hiding in the bathroom both times, but talk about stress! The first time I was fighting panic, not sure if he was even still in the building or not. Several people helped me look (dh was teaching a class and didn't know about all this until after Bearhug was found), and he finally turned up in the bathroom. He had his feet up so no one would see him and wasn't answering when we called out to him, but the second time someone checked, they spotted his shirt through the crack in the stall (Bearhug later said he hadn't had time to cover up the cracks with toilet paper... ugh).
The second time at least we knew to check the bathrooms and sure enough that's where he was again. Once he was found, he refused to come out and instead stayed in there screaming at the top of his lungs. We've tried to accommodate him by taking turns taking him outside for walks, but it doesn't seem to be enough.
His teacher said he has made comments about feeling worthless, and since then he has made a couple of similar comments at home. She suspected it might be the influence of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books, which he really seems to be taking way too seriously. He admitted that sometimes those books make him feel bad - and although I don't really think the books are the cause of the problem it's possible they were making it worse, so we took them away for now. They're supposed to be funny (I read the first one and actually thought it was cute... but what do I know?).
Some of his behavior seems to have an attention-seeking element to it (he'll do something he KNOWS he's not supposed to do and look around to see if anyone notices), but giving him extra attention (not rewarding the bad behavior, but going the extra mile to give him praise, etc. when he's doing good) doesn't really seem to be helping. In fact, today when I told him I was proud of him for his grades at school this week (after looking through his weekly folder), he got upset with me.
Yesterday, he really scared us when he took off running and hid in the neighborhood. It's the first time he's done anything like that before. I mean, we had to watch him like a hawk when he was younger because he would run off but it was different... he was usually intrigued by something or he just wanted to run, he wasn't necessarily trying to get away from us. Yesterday, that's precisely what he was doing, and it was dark outside and I'm not sure even now he really understands how dangerous it was to do that.
He was coming home from playing with his friends (two doors down across the street) and I asked him if he was hungry. Dh told him I had ordered pizza and asked if he wanted some. He lunged at dh and then took off running past our house. I heard him banging on the back door and went to open it, and by the time I got the door open he was nowhere to be seen. I thought he was just messing with me and went back to the front door, but dh (who was across the street) said he hadn't come back around and thought he'd gone into the house. At that point we had no idea where he was, but it was getting dark. There's a bunch of trees behind our house and I was worried he'd gone in there. Dh grabbed a flashlight and went to look for him while I stayed with Cuddlebug and Bitty. I watched for him out the door. The boys he'd been playing with helped look for him, and dh was about to round up the neighbors to help too, when they spotted him. He'd been hiding behind one of the houses nearby :(. He was clearly upset, resisting coming into the house and trying to run away again. When he came in, he ran up the stairs, hid under his blanket, and was crying, refusing to talk to us. We finally convinced him to eat dinner, and then he seemed to feel a little better, but a while later he was upset again and tried to run outside again. Luckily he wasn't trying too hard, and I was able to keep him inside without a huge blowout.
A while after that, he was complaining of nausea and dizziness and wanted all the lights out. He said he'd been "exercising" trying to get "those things in your stomach, I can't remember what they're called," (turns out he was talking about "abs") pretty much the entire time he'd been playing that day. I think he overdid it and actually made himself sick. It almost seemed like a migraine but he didn't say his head hurt other than feeling dizzy ("it feels like I'm moving but I'm not").
The only answer we could get from him - then and even today - was that he didn't like the questions we asked him. What horrifying questions did we dare to ask? The ones about "are you hungry" and "do you want some of the pizza your mom ordered?" Maybe he wasn't feeling well from overdoing it and something that simple was all it took to set him off. I don't know.
I am really at a loss here. It is heartbreaking to see him going through this and not knowing what "this" is, or how to help him. The bad days are exhausting - emotionally and physically - and the good days it feels like we are walking on eggshells trying to keep the peace. Every time he has a couple of good days in a row I start thinking maybe things are looking up only to get socked in the gut with a day like yesterday.
Someone mentioned hormones, and it sounds strange but I've done some reading and apparently pre-puberty hormone changes can have a significant impact on children with autism, as early as 7-9 yrs old. Maybe that's at least part of it, I honestly don't know. He is having mood swings like we haven't seen before.
He was cranky today... but this evening he seemed to be feeling a little better. He let me sit with him and we read some books together. It was nice :).
We have a checkup scheduled for him and Cuddlebug a week from tomorrow, maybe his doctor will have some ideas. His resource teacher has been really helpful, she is awesome. She's been working with him since Kindergarten so she knows this is not like him.
I'm open for suggestions... and if you're inclined to pray, a little extra prayer for Bearhug would be greatly appreciated.
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Comments (4)
I am just like him. I can't turn off my anger. It's so bad it burns my body from my neck to my arm.
does he share a room with a sibling?
A lot of kids get what are called abdominal migraines. They feel it in their gut rather than head (except they will feel dizzy). With the proprioceptive issues that arise with kids on the spectrum, it does seem as though positional vertigo/abdominal migraines affect them with greater frequency. We have a son with autism and a host of other things. He has severe behavior (and intensive ABA therapy has helped GREATLY with that--especially for the noncompliance that comes on days with greater pain--he has other medical problems that cause a good deal of pain). He did see a pediatric neurotologist and was diagnosed with the positional vertigo of childhood. He put him on Periactin (antihistimine that helps this kind of migraine by raising seratonin levels), and it has helped. Good luck....I will be thinking about you and your family and definitely keeping all of you in our prayers.
When my son was 10 years old he went through a very similar time in his life. He had shut down, was angry, violent and refused to let anyone in his world.
It took us 2 years before we we got back on track. You see, my daughter, who is 8 years younger then him, had been drawing flowers on the sidewalk with chalk. Right beside her flowers, he had written in large letters, "I hate my life I hate AUTISM".
He was angry that we didnt understand him and he didnt understand the world. It can be a very scary place for a child when they come to the relization that they are, somehow, not like every body else.
I went & got him, showed him the note he had left on the sidewalk, and asked him why he hated Autism. He said it made him do bad things (he was a head banger). He wanted to be liked and he didnt want to be a bad boy. I then explained to him that Autism is a gift. I got a book that had famous people who had Autism & shared it with him. I told him that everyone is different and learns in their own way. I told him there was nothing wrong with being different and pointed out things that he is really good at that others are not so good at. I asked him what the thought the world would be like if we were all the same. He just laughed. I said "Right, see, being different is good."
I think as parents we get so caught up in the "treatment of Autism", that we forget to focus on the positives of it. And our kids are super smart so they pick up on that. If we dont show them the positives then they feel they have no positives to offer. I know I got so busy trying to "fix" things that I forgot to just embrace my son, Autism or not.
He was waging a war on Autism but he didnt realize that meant he was fighting with himself. Once we were able to show him Autism wasnt a bad word, sort of speak, his anger subsided and his smile & voice came back. :)
Best of luck to you. I hope this helps.