Resentment

Post Reply New Topic

My son started out diagnosed Bipolar, I recently had him tested and his diagnosis has been changed to Autism.

For necessity I will not do too much introduction now.

I have found, as he is getting older and fairly stable, that I have a huge resentment toward him and now some if not just about all of his temper tantrums are my fault. I am always defensive with him and I zero in on the most insignificant things he says in order to pick a fight.

Tonight, he wanted water for his humidifier, he just started Accutane and it is drying him out, so I said "bring it down here and I will fill it up." He gets downstairs and I immediately mention that he didn't need to bring the entire humidifier down, he just needed to bring the reservoir, to which he responds, "I thought you meant the entire thing."
I overreact to what he said and start on a verbal tangent about him putting words in my mouth. He of course yells at me and walks off upstairs. As usual I follow him and tell him if he flips out I will take all of his electronics.

Our in-home therapist has warned me that the way Autistics perceive and interoperate the world is different. I am way over the line with my responses with him. So I can only assume I am ate up with resentment for the years of a perfect family we never had.

P.S. Sorry my hello world post was out of the gate with both barrels but I needed to get this off my chest and get some healing done so I can be a better dad.

The good news is you are self aware enough to know what you are doing is counterproductive and you want to do better. Those are not small things.

I don't know if this helps or not, but there is no such thing as a perfect family. Anyone who tells you there is, is full of ish, and is more interested in curating an image than being honest. People with entirely neurotypical families do not have perfect families and families with autistic children or bipolar children are not perfect, either. No family is perfect. You have not missed years of a perfect family because perfect families are not a thing.

No matter what kind of family you have, no matter what the neurological make up of its members, the best thing you can try to do is individualize your approach to the various members. Sometimes you are going to zig when you should have zagged, and you are going to make incorrect decisions of how to react, or react via impulse without thinking everything through. It happens. As you get accustomed to how your son interprets language (more literally than you intend, for example) if you try, you can start to adjust and begin to be more mindful of explaining things in a way he will be more apt to understand. Eventually, it will become habit, and it will come more automatic to you, but for awhile, maybe a good while, you are going to have to think before you speak, and make sure you say what you literally mean. You will also have to be careful not to assume he is being rude/disrespectful when he is just being direct and honest with you. Sugar coating things may not be his aptitude.

There may be a lot of things you will have to concentrate on like this for awhile -- but after awhile you can see what you need to change to make things in your household run smoother.

How old is your son?

He is 14.5.
He is also doing really well with the major areas of his life and that leaves me feeling all the more guilty when I react inappropriately.

You are so right about me responding based on me thinking he is being rude. Our in home therapist explained to me that he is simply telling me how things looked through his eyes. I have to build a “no response” time when I am not sure about something he has said.

Thanks for responding so quickly, having someone to talk to about this stuff helps immensely!!

It takes adjustment, but you can do it. If you have to, you can even give yourself calming type time-outs. (Not the punishment kind. Ha ha.) The proper real type of time out is just taking a break to calm down. I assume your son probably has to do the same sometimes, so he will understand if you need to do it also. I read in your other post that you are a single dad, which cannot be easy, no matter what the neurology of the children. Feel free to give yourself breaks when you need to. This will help you maintain perspective and it is not selfish to do it because by you being calm you will help your children, too.

I would have taken the whole thing down stairs too

Honestly, I probably would have too, especially if the reservoir component is not too much smaller than the unit itself, or if it is a pain to remove. I don't think that it was such a big deal that he took the whole thing down so much as the father is having to learn how to better communicate, and be calm when the inevitable moments of crossed communication happen.

You’re so right, that’s what bothers me the most about most of these non issue confrontations. I always assume I am interpreting his comments or actions as some form of disrespect and they aren’t. He even mentioned how rude I was being which made it worse because, “how dare you talk to me like that,” when in fact I was the one who overreacted from the beginning.

It is absolutely no big deal that he brought the whole unit down stairs, no big deal at all.

Well, read this: http://www.eikonabridge.com/fun_and_facts.pdf

Come to think about it, in my whole life, I have never told anybody not to shout, not to scream, not to get mad. I've never told anyone not to be rude. It's really true. I have never told anyone to be polite in their frustrations. I have never told anyone to control their temper. I just take it that expressing frustrations is part of basic human rights. I've never stop anybody from that. It's interesting that what neurotypical people pay attention to, I never even pause to think about. I mean, an example that I often cite is the founding of the U.S.A. Without a bunch of people throwing tantrums, this country would have never come into existence. I always give Canada as the opposite of U.S.A. That is also why today they only have a "Prime Minister of Canada" and are theoretically still under Her Majesty the Queen, from across the pond. Kind of embarrassing, but true. Why don't we compare that to "... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." Did you guys even know the Queen doesn't have a passport? Where is the equality? Why the need for worshiping an authority figure?

I guess going through a PhD is kind of an educational experience. There you get to see some of the biggest egos in the world. People shout at each other, say nasty things, all the time. It is an autistic land, par excellence. You learn to be your own authority. You are equal to everyone. People learn to understand that throwing tantrums is a right. Furthermore, people learn that tantrums and frustrations are actually positive things, because they are what get things fixed and get things done. You think you can create a country like U.S.A. by being polite and talking nicely to the British rulers? How are you going to convince someone that "all men are created equal" when they demand your obedience?

So, to me, those ABA approaches like coping techniques, behavior replacement/substitution, are all BS. Sorry for the language. If a children need to express their frustration, let them. What's the big deal?

My children are always happy and smiling. It's a fact. It's even written into my son's IEP report: that he smiles from ear to ear. Isn't it interesting that I am the one doing none of the coping techniques, behavior replacement/substitution, and yet my children are the happiest children around?

- - - - -

Resentment is never the real issue. Disconnection between fun and frustration is the main issue. When my children are happy (e.g. after going to play in the Gym event, or after flying kites, or while having frozen yogurt, or after riding elevators, or after visiting Tesla car dealership for fun, etc.), that's the moment I talk to them about their frustrations. See, I do that, so that next time their frustrations strike, I can turn around and talk to them about their happy moments. That's all. Simple and easy. I have never failed once to remove frustrations, permanently, from my children. Why do you think my children are always happy?

Sometimes life is tough, sometimes life is fun. That's a fact. When you or your children are experiencing frustration, if you could remind each other about that fact, and remember the fun things you've done together, then all the pressure can be gone, in no time.

You have to make time for special one-on-one parent-child (father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter) outings. You need to have fun time together, outside home environment. While you are having fun, or soon afterwards, that's the moment to talk about frustrations.

I have edited my reaction to above because OP not happy about politics on thread so will just say. VERY UNHAPPY ABOUT ABOVE COMMENTS ON CANADA.

Last edited by fluffysaurus on 26 Dec 2017, 11:40 am, edited 2 times in total.

Ok, first and foremost. Don’t use my thread for politics!! !

Hello Jason,

Interesting angle you have there.

What else is interesting is my response, which I should have known but didn’t connect the dots, I grew up in a violent family so frustration and anger end in me getting beat by mom or dad!

I guess I need to learn how to separate my childhood responses from what is happening in the present.

sorry.

No worries, there is just tooooo much of the political hating coming from all sides here in the USA

Sometimes people get locked into certain toxic dynamics and this prevents relationships from healing. I've noticed that a lot of people, particularly those not on the spectrum, put a lot of energy into trying to control other people, and this is a big drain on their energy and prevents them from finding ways to have a healthier dynamic. Obviously if you are a parent you do need to have some control over your child to guide them, but it sounds like your son is growing up and making some progress and you are ready to change what you have identified as a toxic dynamic.

The key to changing toxic dynamics is realizing that while you may not be able to control how other people are or what they do, you can control how you respond to it. A person might recognize that the person they are in a relationship isn't the person they would like them to be, and then ask the question "Given this person isn't how I would like them to be, how do I make the best of my time with this person?"

He is in ABA which has regular group activities, I purposely don’t join them so they can observe him in his natural environment, if you will, he does great there so hopefully that helps him know he is not a bad kid, something parents and school can communicate either on purpose or unintentionally.

After the neuropsychological evaluation I will take the results to an advocate or lawyer or both and get recommendations or simply hire one or the other to help

Another thing, I neglected to mention with regard to IEPs, school Behavioral Plans and the like, is that if they have been using an incorrect and different diagnosis they are going to have to look at this from an entirely different way. (You said his original diagnosis was for bipolar, right?)

I don't know that much about bipolar, but I would assume that the strategies are very different. This does not mean that you have to table anything that currently works (assuming it actually does work - vs. the school telling you it does)

Anything that has been ineffective needs to be reexamined. The other thing is that all kids are different so just b/c something is standard operating procedure for them for all kids with autism, does not mean it actually works for all kids with autism. When they are dealing with outliers (ie. kids with different neurology) they will either generally pick strategies that align closest to what they already do and/or what they think covers one standard deviation in either direction for that neurology. If your kid's needs do not align with that, it becomes much harder to discuss with them, b/c they really do not want to deal with outliers of outliers.

It does not hurt to try the low-hanging fruit of legitimate suggestions for kids with autism, but you always have to be willing to tweak and change things that are not effective or are damaging. You likely will require a certain amount of trial and error, though.