Grown son with autism abuses mom

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My sixteen year old son has severe/profound autism. He self abuses and seriously abuses me, his mom, when he does not get his way. He does not speak and has almost no receptive language abilities. I cannot get him to understand that you can't get pizza hut pizza at 9:30 in the morning. So, while in the car this morning, he kicked, scratched, bit me. We're not talking little kicks and bites. He's much bigger than me and I can't hold him off. He's on Risperdol to help with this behavior, but nothing is 100%. I can't keep this up....I'm just one little person. What do I do now? I'm only getting older and he's getting bigger. I am alone...my husband has pretty much left me and there is no one else to help.

[MJIthewriter]

Here's an interesting sidenote. Even if your son may not talk, he could have normal intelligence. Intelligence is quite a hard thing to test for, when the tests created for gaging intelligence are flawed. It gets quite frustrating to live in a world that does not understand.  Follow the link below and make sure to watch it through to the end. It starts off with what an outsider would expect to see from a non verbal autistic. Halfway into it she reveals her observations as well as some interesting points. She keeps a blog too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc

I didn't make this video of course not. Even so I hope every person watches this at least once.

[MJIthewriter]

I'm going to take a random pot shot and ask you why can't someone get a pizza hut pizza at 9 in the morning?  Think about this. Forget the preconceived knowledge that it isn't socially acceptable. That means nothing to your son.

He's thinking from a logical point of view.There is no force field that surrounds the pizza hut all morning. It's not like the car will stop running if you try to go.  It's not like the store will magically vaporize and reappear in the the afternoon.

If your son is thinking this, he is right. You can go and get a pizza at 9 am. For you to say he can't is a lie. He is likely upset because you don't believe him and continue lying. And because he's unable to talk he has no way of expressing this. Plus if you tend to treat him like a child he is likely aware of this and frustrated because he knows when he is being talked down to and when he is being treated like an adult.

If the store happens to be closed at 9 am, show him this. Go to the Pizza hut and try to get a pizza... He may be frustrated and want to try the same thing again. Eventually he will learn that the store is closed around that time and will have to accept that.

If the store is open, you're going to need to explain to him thart yes we can get a pizza at the time, but unfortunately society does not accept us to eat pizza in the morning. Likely he will ask why. (even if he can't verbally express it) because this is a foreign concept to an autistic.

One of our gifts and curses about autism is the ability to be cut free from the social boundries.

If we feel like jumping out into a midst of a rainstorm just to feel the sensation, we get out there and do it.

If I see a pretty rock on the ground or a perched dragonfly, i don't hesitate. I get out there and pick it up. So what if people look at me odd.

It's their problem.  It's a pity they restrict themselves. At the same time I understand I can't have free reign in this society. There are social boundries and they exist. I have to learn which social boundries I have to follow and which I am free to break. This I have to learn from trial and error. it doesn't come natural.

[MJIthewriter]

I don't know much about meds, but I can say Risperdol is probably not the med for your son.

I used to get pretty violent too which I am ashamed of. One of the occasions was because my mom thought it would be pretty cute to tickle me with the vacuum nozzel. It's bad enough I have to plug my ears when she uses that blasted thing, but to approach me right in my face. Sometimes in the past she's hide behind a corner and surprize me with a tickle attack. Let me tell you I hated it!  I'd laugh and squirm, but internally I felt like torture.

At age 11 or 12, she got her last tickle and it was THE last!  I was finally strong enough to make my point known I don't like tickle. I don't like being touched on the shoulder either. But most people, thankfully listen when I say I don't like it.


There were other cases too which may not have been autism related. If I had something set in my mind and I had a specific goal such as keeping my cat fit and not giving him table scraps, I wanted everyone in the house to do the same. I tried to explain my goals and everything but one family member kept breaking the rule I set and it seemed rather deliberate. I thought she was doing it to spite me so I got overreactive.  I regret hitting her, but I wish I could have found a civil way I could make her see what I was seeing and adhere to the rules I was trying to set even if she didn't like it.  I didn't think it was much to ask, but maybe for some people it is.  

Now for your 16 year old son:

I can't get into his head, but I can say he is feeling lots of frustration. For one thing if he can't speak verbally, he probably feels very isolated because he has feelings like everyone else in the world has feelings. He has thoughts. He may even be aware of words and language but for whatever reasons he can't express his thoughts in a way you can understand.

This causes tension. He needs to learn other ways to express himself, but this takes a cooperative effort between you and him to figure out a communication system that works.

To make it easier to read I'm going to continue my post into anther post.