paranoia, anxiety and rage, oh my!

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Our son (14) is very HF/AS. He's had two GREAT years in school, but this year things have changed. Within the last month-6 weeks, he's experienced several incidents of pure rage. Usually, its been something that has been festering inside and at a slow boil but is set off by what any NT would say was a small thing. He is now going back to therapy (had a break for about 8 months bc he didn't feel the need and neither di his therapist).

Our best guesses as to why this has come back: 1. hormones of a 14yo, 2. higher stress of high school

Anyone else have cycling of these? What have you done? Suggestions?

I'm 54 and still experience that. It's very difficult to talk to people about the things that are important to you and that bother or hurt you, when nobody ever takes you seriously when you do, or berates you and treats you like you're either stupid or just a jerk for feeling that way, because "it's just a small thing" to them.

It's just part of living with autism - because our brains operate differently than neuroptypical brains do, our feelings do not carry the same weight. Since our differences are invisible, our handicaps aren't real, therefore our thoughts and feelings are not real, either - or are at best, grossly exaggerated - according to everyone around us.

Try living in a world where you have difficulties keeping up because most of what's going on around you doesn't even make rational sense to your mind, and where everything is too loud and too intense to take in, but instead of understanding your difficulties, the people around you constantly belittle you for being the oddball, and when you attempt to communicate your problems and your frustrations, they insist that you just aren't trying hard enough and that you're a big, whining crybaby.

You learn to keep your mouth shut, because you're sure to be attacked if you say anything, but that doesn't make the problems or the feelings go away. And the only way you can ever get anyone to listen and take you seriously for a minute is to blow up and make a scene, because that's the only way to MAKE them understand that for you it's a very big deal.

I understand that these things ARE a big deal to him. However, when there haven't been any issues for years and to suddenly have 5 in six weeks-ish, I have to help him find a way to work through this without raging at his target. We're very careful not to pass judgement on things he tells us, and if pressed, he will talk.

We're in the opposite situation, so maybe it does cycle. My 14-yr.-old (assessed at 11 with HFA) had a miserable time in middle school and has been great in high school. She had fewer (all right, next to no) services in middle school and a lot of rather dramatic social issues, had therapy the first year but we couldn't afford it afterwards. Took her back to therapy the summer before high school, got services in place, and it's been great. She feels (i.e. says she is) better equipped to handle things, and seems to be more cooperative about working things out.
One thing I have noticed is that all my kids, NT, ASD and ADD, all seem to do better in the middle teen years, 15 and up, then pre-teen. So maybe I'm a better parents at that point.
Is your son willing to talk to you about things? If so, one approach that has always worked with us is to step back and let them vent. I just nod and empathize through the most intense part of the emotional expression, sometimes pat them on the shoulder. When the anger is more verbal (talking rather than shouting) or the crying is slowing down, name the feelings without judgment and not try to solve them for a while: "That's really rough." "Oh no, that must have been horrible for you." etc. Then later you can ask, "What can I do to help?"
J.

Imagine someone cuts in line at the store when you're in a good mood, things are going well, you're healthy. You might calmly remind them to go back in line, or you may just let it go and not let it bother you. That same event when you're sick, in a bad mood, just got yelled at by a friend, and you may find yourself shouting at the person who cut in line.

So your temper can spike in response to an event, but depending on where your baseline is at the moment, you'll either be able to cope effectively or not.

The point is that while your son may have the skills to deal with normal life stressors in his old setting, where things were probably predictable, he felt comfortable, maybe his teachers all knew exactly how to work with him. In that setting, he could cope with a few upsetting things once in a while.

Something about his new setting has probably shifted his baseline of stress up. The trick will be to find out what things have changed (it seems like you're already doing that). And then working with the school to develop accomodations that can help mitigate those things, or work with your son to teach him new skills to handle the new stressors. This may take some time, in the meantime, just understand that things that used to be easy for him (when his baseline was lower) are going to be more difficult for him now, and you have to respond accordingly, rewarding him more for his successes, even in things that you had taken for granted, and trying to go easy on him with demands when appropriate/necessary/possible.