I’m going to have a meltdown! | Autism PDD

I have just had an appointment with the paediatrician for my 13 yo with Autism,ADHD and Hyperlexia and she wants to put him in hospital to review his meds. He is becoming more aggressive and keeps talking about being a Martian or making a time machine etc. His dad left us in April and my other two children have issues as well. My 10yo son has ADHD (just diagnosed) and my 6yo daughter has Autism. It has been difficult since my husband left mainly cause of all the lawyer type stuff and of course my husband is being a total (I'm a lady and I won't say it.LOL). He has moved to another state and refuses to ring the children every week because it costs too much.

I'm a little worried because my son also says he is going to burn the house down, though I tell him then his computer and games would get burned up, or he says he is going to get a knife and kill me. I ask him who would do the cooking and cleaning then! I feel he is just trying to shock me but the doctor doesn't agree.

Do any of you have kids with weird obsessions like that and what do you do about it? I don't want to put him in hospital but I also am worried that he is on so many meds(Risperdal, Ritalin and Clonidine).

Hi Cheryl, Welcome to the board. Can I have a meltdown WITH you? LOL

My son is going on 10 (2 more months) He has always been aggressive and self injurious etc. He has been on clonidine since he was 3 and risperdal since he was 4. We did try adderall, abilify, and buspar with no luck. Hes a rollercoaster. As long as hes able to be home and vegitate away with cartoons and video games hes pretty much ok (tolerable) but he still explodes over the slightest things sometimes too! (like his sister touching his therapy ball)

You mentioned the father leaving in April.. is this about the same time the behaviors began?

My sons father left when he was almost 4.... Anyways my ex is several states away. He wont follow the recommendations of the therapist in being consistent with how frequently he calls or in setting up a predictable call. (Ex: first Saturday of every month) Sometimes he goes 12 weeks without calling and VERY RARELY he will call 2 days in a row. He has only seen the kids (VERY GENEROUSLY SPEAKING) 40 days out of 6 YEARS! So when the father gets a wild hair and decides to be a father for a very brief moment in time, my son is excited but it also causes huge stress and anxiety for him.

AFter the sudden unexpected call or visit when the ex suddenly pops into my kids' lives and then Suddenly leaves again; My son then refuses to sleep in his bed, refuses to go to school, suffers seperation anxiety, wet his pants, has serious meltdowns, can't focus at school or follow the rules, becomes more self injurious, etc. Its VERY possible your son's behaviors could be a regression due to his father leaving.

My son just went through regression due to school transitions and improper supports,.... He exibited the same behaviors I just mentioned and more. He would have anger outbursts for no apparent reason and say he wanted to die he was going to kill himself and so forth. There were times I couldnt leave him alone because I knew he wasnt safe. And it would come and go just as if you flipped a light switch. Its scarey no doubt! I had the woman in charge of his respite hours tell me she felt he needed to be hospitalized. I was fortunate his therapist and Dr disagreed.

QUESTION: WHEN does your son say these threats? What I realized with my son was these things were being said during anger episodes. (Although anger episodes were happening all day long) The dr determined it was NOT psychotic episodes like the respite hour lady had thought. This was just weeks ago..... He is still a rollercoaster..... it isnt easy... it takes ALOT of patients and supervision etc. We are trying another new med next week (Luvox) and this week increasing the risperdal.

In my opinion and thankfully I have back up from the therapist and dr hospitalization would be a last resort. As long as I can keep him (and the rest of us safe) we can do medication adjustments changes or washes here. Hospitalization would cause him more anxiety and stress and further regression. Now if it came to the posint I couldnt keep him or us safe then that is another story. Thankfully Im still big enough and striong enough to be able to restrain him.

Im sorry you are going through such a difficult time. I can understand. I hope it gets better very soon. Hang in there!

Thanks for your reply Michelle. A lot of this behaviour was present before his dad left but it has got worse since then. My nt son who is 10 told me his dad was poisoning the children against me every chance he got for the last two years or so. The psych told me my 13yo totally blames me because his dad says it was all my fault. My husband has (according to the psych) issues of his own in the spectrum (surprise, surprise) and is very black and white in his thinking. Btw it is only about to call so the excuse of cost is just an excuse.

When my son threatens me he is usually quite calm which is why I think it is just obsessive talk. I have no intentions just yet of putting him in hospital but I think if the increase the doctor ordered of the risperdal doesn't help I may have to rethink things. I am not happy about letting him go to somewhere like that as I agree it would probably make things worse. I have issues however in that I can't restrain him as he is too strong and almost as tall as me. I have been using withdrawing when he does get violent and in fact the violent behaviour has reduced since his dad left. It is just the aggressive talk that has increased. My son however did punch a teacher at school two weeks ago. They didn't give him his lunchtime meds which set off a sorry train of events that I'd rather not have happen again.

The paed wants to have him assessed by the Psychiatrist and also refer me to the social worker to ensure we are getting all the support we need. I found however that we spend a lot of time with these things to find out they can't do anything and we should just keep doing what we are doing, lol.
Michelle sorry meant to say, sure join me in my meltdown. I'm sorry that you are having a tough time too. Thank you that you found time to answer, it helps to vent and have someone listen non judgementally. Not a problem Cheryl thats what were here for to listen and support each other. Hope your days get better

She's incredibly violent and strong. It's scary to read this cause I'm afraid of what's to come.