Do your parents understand your outbursts/meltdowns?

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iheartmegahitt
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19 May 2012, 6:26 pm

I know mine don't understand my autistic disorder. I have bad anxiety and they tend to trigger a lot of outbursts for me. So instead of realizing that they end up making them worse by yelling and scolding me about the saying that I need to grow up. >_> It gets me so mad because I'm not doing it on purpose but because they are overloading me with anger and negative emotions that i can't deal with.

I really hate this about them because I feel like they just treat me like a child and then are all, "you need to suck it up and grow up". It doesn't help getting mixed messages, you know?

When i explain that it's like talking to a wall.

What about your parents? Do they ever understand the meltdowns/outbursts you have?


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JanuaryMan
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19 May 2012, 7:30 pm

My mum sort of. My dad not at all.



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19 May 2012, 7:34 pm

Yes they did but sometimes dad would tell me I needed to get used to it because it's part of life. I know there is truth to that because if I do get used to it, I won't get stressed about it anymore and have a meltdown. Mom would get mad at me sometimes too.



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19 May 2012, 7:45 pm

No.

When I was young I had almost entirely shutdowns. Meltdowns have mostly started after going off to college. They really don't understand it and will trigger them in ways that would be really easy to avoid because of the lack of understanding.



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19 May 2012, 7:58 pm

My mom does not seem to.....but interestingly enough she's not so in control of her emotional reactions either. I mean she can get aggressive when she's mad/frusterated.....not really dangerous aggressive,(though when I was a kid I thought so) but still its not pleasant to see. So I try to avoid emotional conversations with her since its usually about me trying to explain things and her over-reacting to my wording of them.

Its kind of funny but she used to forget about when she grounded me or my siblings...so we took full advantage :twisted: little devils me and my siblings were. Unfortunatly for my youngest brother she's got her boyfriend to remind her :( oh well my brother has me, my other brother and my sister and our mom has us...which I don't know if she knows how appreciative she should be about the fact me, my sister and my brother did not cut off contact with her and we'll encourage our brother to do the same. Though if she cuts contact any of us else well...kinda her loss. I kinda feel bad about it but meh.


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19 May 2012, 8:08 pm

My mother is doing the 'you need to act your age' bit (even though I've managed to get a driver's license and ride cross country, apprenticed in one of my SIs and made an extra income from it, voted for 3 presidents and pull my weight in the household. Hey, I even left the country a couple times

My dad and stepmom are raising a full blown autie son, he's progressed to where he's not always like he was when I was 10 though he can slip back into it, but as I spend more time around him the communication and understanding gets addressed and things get better. Just today he said he was glad we did a father-and-son project (even though I didn't entirely need his 'help') and I think that it's something my half brother isn't capable of, that my dad got more out of our time today



iheartmegahitt
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19 May 2012, 8:40 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
My mom does not seem to.....but interestingly enough she's not so in control of her emotional reactions either. I mean she can get aggressive when she's mad/frusterated.....not really dangerous aggressive,(though when I was a kid I thought so) but still its not pleasant to see. So I try to avoid emotional conversations with her since its usually about me trying to explain things and her over-reacting to my wording of them.

Its kind of funny but she used to forget about when she grounded me or my siblings...so we took full advantage :twisted: little devils me and my siblings were. Unfortunatly for my youngest brother she's got her boyfriend to remind her :( oh well my brother has me, my other brother and my sister and our mom has us...which I don't know if she knows how appreciative she should be about the fact me, my sister and my brother did not cut off contact with her and we'll encourage our brother to do the same. Though if she cuts contact any of us else well...kinda her loss. I kinda feel bad about it but meh.


Sounds like my mom. O_O She is the same way. She can be a real child too like, if i get something at best buy then she has to get something to. It's like, "But Kimberly (my real name) gets something..." and I'm all, REALLY? YOU'RE OLDER THAN ME AND YOU TALK ABOUT ME ACTING LIKE TWO? -______-;

My mom understands when i have the meltdowns but the random outbursts, my parents find are just tantrums and stuff. >_> They really don't seem to understand how much it bothers me when I'm in outburst mode. They just provoke it.


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19 May 2012, 9:56 pm

No they have never understood anything about my condition, but then, neither did anyone else. I am in my early 50s. Autism spectrum disorders were not recognized as such back when I was growing up. We were diagnosed as having emotional/ behavior problems, and/or discipline problems. If we didn't get "fixed" by the therapies that were tried, then we were considered to be fighting the treatment, and to be rebellious.

It is only in the past few years that I myself have had any real understanding of my condition, after learning about Asperger's. I now understand that overloads cause my meltdowns and shut downs. I also understand that my mental processing problems cause me to be slower to grasp things, and to be more prone to meltdowns and shut downs. In other words, when we meltdown or shut down, we are not having a tantrum or snit, although it can look like that. We are just over reacting to having our mental processes overloaded, and to the fact that we are unable at the moment to get any relief from the overload. So we have either an explosion, or an implosion. I have gotten somewhat better at handling the meltdowns, primarily by trying to avoid known triggers. Mostly my problems have been caused by interactions with others, especially family. So I don't even try to have friends, or go to non family social functions for the most part.--I can usually handle running errands and doctor appointments. I also, minimize contact with relatives, seldom going to visit, and not encouraging them to come here. I prefer solitude over the stress of interacting with others on more than the casual basis of running errands.

I don't know of any way to enlighten my relatives on overloads and meltdowns. I don't think they are capable of understanding how overloads make one feel, and of how it causes the meltdowns if there is no immediate relief. It's best to back off when someone is having a meltdown, so they can "cool" down from their overloaded state, but NTs are not good at backing off. They seem to think that they have to do something, when doing nothing is better.


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19 May 2012, 11:05 pm

I don't think so. I get accused of being overly dramatic, of being immature or childish, and of having a bad temper. When I have shutdowns, I'm accused of being rude.



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20 May 2012, 9:20 am

I don't think my dad does. He can't be bothered with abnormality (can't say I blame him), and I think me being 22 years old and still having tantrums just kind of disturbs him, and he says my tantrums are ''out of order''. When I have one of my moments, he shouts at me so loud that he is scary, and he goes to hit me aswell but doesn't, and then when I jump out of the room to avoid his scary-ness, he mutters really loudly, then runs out of the room and tries to bash the door down to yell at me again. I've now learnt my lesson not to have tantrums when he's around any more.

My mum does get stressed when I have them, but when I'm having one over something she's upset about too, she kind of stays calm and sympathetic and empathetic. When I'm having one over something nobody else would (like when she told me my cousin had a girlfriend and I was all jealous and angry because he's way younger than me and I'm 22 and still haven't even snogged a man yet), she gets really upset with me and says she can't cope with my sudden behaviour, and also feels embarrassed of what the neighbours might think. Also she gets frightened of my safety because I often get the knife out and threaten to kill myself. She knows I would never do anything to her (because I don't even intend to think of doing that!), but she's frightened I might do something to myself. I do have some self-control there, because I don't have the guts to do it.
But I know that deep down my mum understands me with my outbursts. She has said before that I get into such a panic about something beyond my control that I just don't know what else to do other than scream and let the fear all out of my system. So she understands, but still can't cope with it. Neither can I - I hate having outbursts.


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iheartmegahitt
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20 May 2012, 10:45 am

Joe90 wrote:
I don't think my dad does. He can't be bothered with abnormality (can't say I blame him), and I think me being 22 years old and still having tantrums just kind of disturbs him, and he says my tantrums are ''out of order''. When I have one of my moments, he shouts at me so loud that he is scary, and he goes to hit me aswell but doesn't, and then when I jump out of the room to avoid his scary-ness, he mutters really loudly, then runs out of the room and tries to bash the door down to yell at me again. I've now learnt my lesson not to have tantrums when he's around any more.

My mum does get stressed when I have them, but when I'm having one over something she's upset about too, she kind of stays calm and sympathetic and empathetic. When I'm having one over something nobody else would (like when she told me my cousin had a girlfriend and I was all jealous and angry because he's way younger than me and I'm 22 and still haven't even snogged a man yet), she gets really upset with me and says she can't cope with my sudden behaviour, and also feels embarrassed of what the neighbours might think. Also she gets frightened of my safety because I often get the knife out and threaten to kill myself. She knows I would never do anything to her (because I don't even intend to think of doing that!), but she's frightened I might do something to myself. I do have some self-control there, because I don't have the guts to do it.
But I know that deep down my mum understands me with my outbursts. She has said before that I get into such a panic about something beyond my control that I just don't know what else to do other than scream and let the fear all out of my system. So she understands, but still can't cope with it. Neither can I - I hate having outbursts.


Well, my parents usually understand the MELTDOWNS but the random outbursts where things get thrown and stuff they think are just childish tantrums that only a two year old would through. It's funny too since they KNOW how autistic I am and yet they think yelling at me just makes it worse.

Your mom is kind of like mine. In public, she always understands the meltdowns and does her best to tell people of my condition as well as telling off ignorance with, "If you think you can control her be my guest" but she does it in a way that tells the person they've probably never dealt with an autistic person before.

My parents do have their moments and it's usually the outbursts that make them say I need to grow up. x_x


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20 May 2012, 11:25 am

NO

just.... yeah no.

My mum doesn't understand at all, she yells at me a lot, tells me to stop acting like a 4 year old

Yesterday she yelled at me to "Can you NOT make animal noises, and groan and all that crap"

Seems like she's always mad at me because of my outbursts and meltdowns, she makes them so much worse too.

She gets mad at the drop of a pin, and I know it's less my fault and more that she's never feeling well(heart condition) but sometimes I wish she was a calmer person, that we could have a 'normal' conversation without one and/or both of us getting upset


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Joe90
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20 May 2012, 12:06 pm

I don't have meltdowns, what are they like?


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iheartmegahitt
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20 May 2012, 12:23 pm

Joe90 wrote:
I don't have meltdowns, what are they like?


For me, my meltdowns, according to my mom, are when i curl up and rock myself while sobbing and shutting down everything going on around me. >< It's kind of hard to explain. x_x


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