Can anxiety make an aspie really angry?

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pekkla
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06 Aug 2011, 7:43 pm

Our teenage son has AS and has big angry scenes when he feels I am hassling him, about anything from brushing his teeth to spending too much time on the computer. Sometimes he gets so angry he puts a hole in the wall. His dad and I disagree about what makes him do this--I think it is his anxiety but his dad thinks AS people are prone to anger attcks like this. Or he thinks its bipolar. Do other AS people get angry like this without a sensory overload?



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06 Aug 2011, 7:52 pm

I don't think it's anxiety. I think he's getting annoyed when you interrupt him when he is busy doing other things. Maybe wait until he is finished doing something that he really enjoys. If it's more than that than maybe he doesn't like change to be thrown upon him. You need to set up a plan so that he won't be surprised by it. It could also be an executive dysfunction thing and maybe he has little motivation to do what you're asking of him.

I do get angry from anxiety though especially when people try and ask what's wrong. Or they are being too loud and happy and experiencing little anxiety of their own.


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pekkla
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06 Aug 2011, 9:00 pm

Thanks for the response, Pensieve. You're right about him not wanting change and I guess I'm not learning from my mistakes. I keep asking him to do certain things and no matter when I do, its always the wrong time and the wrong thing. He sees me as really annoying, but he is very dependent on me at the same time. Like, right after he tells me to leave him alone when I ask him to take a shower (or some other personal care act), he asks me--actually he tells me--to get him some tissue or a drink. He won't do it himself because he's "busy." 8O



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06 Aug 2011, 10:39 pm

This sounds exactly like something my mom would say. For me, being interrupted feels just like having my hair being pulled out; especially when I already know what my mom is going to say. I've never punched a hole in the wall over it though, but to say it's very annoying is an understatement.

You need to be a little bit more systematic with it. State clearly early on in the morning everything you expect him to do that day. Write it down as a list if necessary. Then, wait until the end of the day and see if he's done everything you asked. If he has, good, then stop nagging him and leave him alone. If he hasn't, then at least you tried.

At the beginning of the day, I ask what needs to be done. I then plan my day around that, and it's been working for me.


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07 Aug 2011, 1:58 am

me and my AS father have many arguments and a lot of it starts with him telling me what to do.

he does it for his own sake, he is sort of thinking out loud and needing to see that I've heard the instruction so that I don't forget to do it. (on a side note, he is also difficult to live with, like me has the emotional maturity of a 2 year old, and very bossy.)

The part that agitates me is when he is telling me:

    1.) something that I either already know or
    2.) something I would know if I were confronted with, or,
    3.) something I was already doing or going to do.


It throws me off to have something obvious thrown at me, my brain immediately starts looking for what I was not doing right. It also gets on my nerves to also have his paranoia be one of the many drivers of his behavior, and to not be able to do anything about it. I have a short term memory (like him) so my often forgetting some of the things he would tell me is also reinforcing of his behavior, as he thinks that I don't listen or don't care.

Your son may go through a similar ordeal. Or, he may also expect you to "understand" him by reading his mind. The chemical imbalance in an aspie and the inability often to not be able to put it into words or express these feelings can also result in this. Focus his mind on the thing you need done, and try not to drown his thoughts with distractions like nagging, but state clearly from the very onset. Don't hassle, don't nag. he doesn't have access to both the left and the right part of his brain at the same time.


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07 Aug 2011, 3:28 am

I wouldn't say anxiety, either. I'd be more like... being forced to do something, being forced to switch tasks really quickly; I think that'd just cause overload. It's like trying to open too many programs on your computer; so it just kind of grinds to a halt and your more precariously held abilities tend to drop off. It's a very, very unpleasant feeling, and you tend to kind of just get desperate, frustrated.

I think, instead of getting him to do something by directly forcing him, it would be better to teach him how to make himself do things. When he's on his own, he's going to have to learn to do things without being told, and learn to switch tasks without being forced. So he's got to learn how to remind himself to brush his teeth, etc. When I was a teen, my mom used to remind me to do things. She used to stand outside the bathroom and make sure I took a shower, put the toothbrush into my hand to make me brush my teeth, nag at me to get out of bed and go to bed. It was always just frustrating to be torn away from something I was doing and forced to do something else. I used to have horrible meltdowns on a daily basis. And yeah, I did put some holes in the walls. And a hole in one closet door, if I remember correctly.

When I left home, my meltdowns practically stopped--but my self-care skills dropped so badly that I wouldn't shower for weeks and wouldn't go to dinner, etc. That's no solution. I had to teach myself how to remind myself to do things, without help, without somebody to force me. Being forced is horribly unpleasant, and creates such a huge stress load. If you don't learn to manage on your own, then usually somebody has to carefully remind you little by little, so you can switch tasks without the shock of it. That's why lots of autism classrooms use warning systems for task-switching; so that the kids are warned ten minutes before they'll be switching to a different subject, then five minutes, then three, then two, then one; so they get used to it. You can learn to do that kind of thing for yourself. I'm learning now. After all, remembering to brush your teeth is just as essential a skill as learning how to do it in the first place. Many people don't seem to realize that.


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07 Aug 2011, 4:36 am

I often get annoyed when my mother reminds me of something I already knew I needed to do, despite the fact that without her reminders I might have forgotten. Often accompanied by a raised voice. I try not to get aggressive, though.

I think you could try making a list of things he has to do each day and say that he can't have "x" before he's done all of them.


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07 Aug 2011, 8:51 am

I have an anxiety disorder, and I get extremely angry with myself. Especially when it comes to things that I can't do but have to do because of conforming-related pressure.


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07 Aug 2011, 9:08 am

pekkla wrote:
... Sometimes he gets so angry he puts a hole in the wall.

At a quiet time in a quiet place, let him know that is going to have to stop somehow and that he is being held responsible for the repair/s. Otherwise, he will possibly end up in jail some day and believe he is being mistreated by being held accountable.

pekkla wrote:
His dad and I disagree about what makes him do this--I think it is his anxiety but his dad thinks AS people are prone to anger attacks like this. Or he thinks its bipolar. Do other AS people get angry like this without a sensory overload?

Whether or not anxiety is involved, some of us Aspies do have a tendency to act out ... and yes, I have in the past often done the very same kinds of things. As a juvenile, my very first-ever "fit" or meltdown took place while my mother was planning to allow my younger brother to re-arrange our shared bedroom to his own liking, and as an adult I once threw a potted plant and ended up breaking the entire bottom out of the only toilet in our home. Other times, I have punched walls and even people ... and I eventually had to learn other ways to deal with whatever it was that was driving me in those ways.


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07 Aug 2011, 4:06 pm

pekkla wrote:
Thanks for the response, Pensieve. You're right about him not wanting change and I guess I'm not learning from my mistakes. I keep asking him to do certain things and no matter when I do, its always the wrong time and the wrong thing. He sees me as really annoying, but he is very dependent on me at the same time. Like, right after he tells me to leave him alone when I ask him to take a shower (or some other personal care act), he asks me--actually he tells me--to get him some tissue or a drink. He won't do it himself because he's "busy." 8O


Your son orders you to get him a drink?

I'm sorry, but this sounds more like a teenager that thinks you are his slave than anything else...while most of us Aspergians (for lack of a better sounding word) do get fixated on things for a long while we usually know when the time to get a drink comes and we don't generally expect others to run around after us...does he also expect you to take a chamberpot too when he wants to go pee-pee?

I assume he gets pocket money, I would suggest not giving him any until he completes whatever chores he has since you are "busy" or you will forever be taken for a mug.

I always used to hate being disturbed myself, it usually only happened when I was right in the middle of a thought and that is invariably when the phone will ring to this day...but if there is something that needs to be done then I will get it done, I will not order my mum to do it for me.



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07 Aug 2011, 9:21 pm

pensieve wrote:
I don't think it's anxiety. I think he's getting annoyed when you interrupt him when he is busy doing other things. Maybe wait until he is finished doing something that he really enjoys. If it's more than that than maybe he doesn't like change to be thrown upon him. You need to set up a plan so that he won't be surprised by it. It could also be an executive dysfunction thing and maybe he has little motivation to do what you're asking of him.


This. A common thing among people on the spectrum is difficulty switching from preferred tasks to less than preferred ones, and I still have trouble with this myself. A suggestion would be, yes, to implement a plan for him that would involve a schedule for various duties, as well as time for his own activities.


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