13 year old had worst meltdown on Saturday

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My daughter has been doing extremely well at school and home for the past month. I was beginning to forget just how hard her aspergers can be and really feeling that I knew how to deal with her and calm her down. We had the perfect day on Saturday hanging out with her twin sister all day, went to the movies and went shopping. I cannot believe how good a day it was - could not have asked for a better one and then it all fell apart so quickly that night when around 10:00 pm she realized she had school on Monday. (She had just had a week off for March break)

There followed over two hours of a meltdown - I have never ever seen her so upset and out of control. For about an hour, she could not even be verbal at all and if you tried to touch her at all, it was like you were hurting her. She kept on banging her head into the doors repeatedly and if her sister asked her to stop, she banged even harder. She was running back and forth up and down the hall and screaming and throwing herself down into the floor. It was like we had a whole month of meltdowns at once because I have never seen her so upset and out of control. What finally calmed her down was she finally decided to have the bubble bath I kept on suggesting and she ended up having a bath fully clothed. I had to help her undress and get dressed afterwards because she just couldn't do much of anything. It was liking having a giant toddler (she is now taller than me).

I am not sure what brought this on - usually if she has a meltdown, it is extreme but over within 10 minutes. I am kind of worried that she is going to have a first period this week or something because it just seems that something has to have been happening for her to act like this.

I am wondering if it will be like this from now on - less meltdowns, but way worse when she has them. I do not think there is anything I could have done differently to help her. Her sister and I were trying to give her everything possible to calm her down, but she was just not coherent. I knew she wasn't really present and my daughter told me the next morning that she only remembers having a bath in her dress and that her head hurt.

I can't prognosticate menstrual cycles, so I can't speak to that obviously, (small joke, there--sometimes humor helps.) but transitions can be very, very difficult in and of itself. I also wonder if something is going on at school, that is especially bad, because kids in that age group can be very cruel and school executive functioning requirements for kids that age can be really hard, too. When you add that to hormones and autism, it can make things pretty bad.

The last month may have been her looking forward to and enjoying break and now she has to go back to school, and the last stretch of the year can feel very long. This was, I am assuming, the last of her nice, long breaks and now she maybe has only a couple of days of holiday still on the calendar, and has to do 3 more months or so, depending on how the school year runs where you live.

This is just guessing on my part, of course, but I can see why she had a rough time with realizing she had to go back to school. We always give/gave periodic warnings about when the date of return was, which probably is/was a bummer (I hated when my mom would do this to me as a kid) Maybe it prevents meltdowns, I don't know. It is one of those things where you have to balance being a bit of a killjoy with the fact that even though your child -knows- when break ends, it may have felt, to her, like it hit her all of a sudden.

I am left wondering if things are worse at school than you've realized. As much as I know unexpected transitions are huge melt-down triggers, this seems like it could be something more, and specific to school.

If you get a chance, once she is calm and ready to talk, it would be good to get an autopsy of her thoughts that day, everything leading up to the meltdown. It could be that having such a lovely time she was starting to make plans in her head for the next few days, which of course were totally upset by the mention of school. Or a million other things; only she can tell you.

Remember to take what she says seriously. NOTHING is silly or to be batted away, although it will also be possible that she phrases things in such a way to disguise the real issue (not intentionally, but because her brain works different).

Also remember that it is possible she has had a lot of repressed stress build up that she was masking trying to behave in the ways she knew were expected of her. Most likely in relation to school. The more someone suppresses what is really going on, the worse the eventual outburst will be.

So sorry to hear about this. It must have been so difficult. Hopefully you can make some lemonade by using it to gather useful data.

Isn't that a b***h? I get this way with DS all the time, too - it's really hard, and then it suddenly gets easier and I feel like I am SUCH a great parent, and then, BOOM. Meltdown.

We had the same thing over snow days this year - 4 days off and then the day before school, after having zero depression/anxiety symptoms for months, he suddenly blows up, slams every door in the house and starts threatening suicide. Took us locking him in his room for him to calm down (DS needs isolation) which we haven't had to do since 5th grade (DS is also 13)

School, even at its best, takes a real toll on DS. It is a HUGE emotional, psychological, and physical investment. It is typical for him to melt down when there's a schedule change, particularly when he gets off of a break...and we'd been doing better with holidays, but this was an unplanned break that we actually enjoyed (I think the fact that we were enjoying the break actually made it harder.)

DW is right - make sure you aren't missing anything (we also discovered DS had been stealing electronics and keeping himself up all night with them, so in large part his low frustration tolerance was due to sleep deprivation) follow the clues, check with the school, make sure she's OK socially and is on-track with the support she needs. DS went back to normal as soon as he was off to school on Monday and back in his routine, and we finally got him to sleep a bit. If your daughter is having the fatigue that comes with periods, that might contribute.

We did talk a lot about how school is just hard for him, and it's OK to be tired and at loose ends even when things are going well; I think that helped a bit - he doesn't process "tired" well, so he tends to catastrophize when he isn't feeling well. Talking through his school day helped.

From my experience, it's tough being 13. You're trying to fit in. If you don't care about fitting in, your peers tease and bully you as their way of pushing you to fit in. They find everything that's different about you and they do everything to exploit those differences. If you're mainstreamed, you could end up with 5 or 6 blocks out of 8 in regular classes with 20 to 50 kids who are all doing that to you and presuming to each other that you're the R-word' Your peers make fun of your speech if you sound different. If you're not up to date with your hairstyle, music and fashions, that's one more reason for your peers to hate you. You're faced with a hard decision to fit in and pretend to like the things that your peers do, just so you can at least gain some popularity - or cut yourself off from those bullying peers and stay true to yourself. If you're a very obscure individual, you find one little way of changing your appearance and lying about your musical taste to trick your bullies and teachers into thinking that you've changed, just to prove that you've not trying to hang onto a sameness like autism experts are adamant that everybody on the spectrum does. That was my experience in high school.

Has your daughter mentioned anything about the way her peers act towards her? Has she mentioned anything about being about being bullied? Does she seem to get anxious when her sisters starting talking about all their friends? Does she say bad things about her differences? Is she convinced that she truly is the R-word? If she's changed her appearance to fit in, did she seem happier before doing so or afterwards? Is she forcing herself to speak in a way that's not natural for her? Has she made any mention to you about her same sex peers taunting her about guys and sex? I've had these things happen to me at her age.

I care about you and your family.

That 12-13 age is super screwed up for ASD kids. I was screwed up too at 12, then 13 was bester to recover from the horrors of 12, then by 14, I was perfect angel.

Some basic questions to try to ask yourself and her:
What things brought this on (probably a combination of things, like being exhausted, being surprised, being disappointed, headache, pms, etc.)?
Was there any way we could have predicted it was going to happen?
What could we have done differently if we knew it was going to happen to prevent it?
What could we have done after it started to help deal with it (maybe relaxation techniques for her, and maybe she has some suggestions for accommodations from you that would be helpful).

I like that you emphasized so many positive things before pointing out the one (albeit bad) negative. Try to keep that in mind going forward, backsliding once doesn't mean she's lost anything. It just means that in a perfect storm type of scenario, all her great coping skills may go out the window for a second. She'll have chances to practice those coping skills, and assuming you keep doing what you're doing, and she keeps trying, she'll continue to develop, and it will take more and more to set her off like this.

I (neurotypical male here) remember having rare moments of rage (maybe once every few months) when I was that age. It wasn't as scary as what you describe, but I was better able to cope. As I continued to improve, that stopped, and now I've got the longest fuse of anyone I know.

One other thing we did with DS that may or may not be pertinent: he has an accommodation to get "support" during the 2nd-last class of the day instead of a foreign language. For the other kids with IEPs, it's an opportunity to get help from a SPED teacher in understanding and reviewing concepts that may have been too fast for them in class. For DS, it's essentially a study hall, where he can be in a bubble as long as he's working or otherwise engaging himself quietly.

DS had a history of taking "breaks" during that time - we suddenly realized that we could work with him instead of against him: he just needed a period to be asocial. He really uses that period to his advantage, does all of his homework and then listens to music on his phone or draws. I really think this one accommodation has made all the difference this year (we had glowing reports both academically and socially from all his teachers.) The fact that this accommodation made such a big difference also points up how extremely difficult the day is for him: he otherwise had enough energy to almost make it through the day.

All that being said, DS is actually enjoying middle school. Just because it's hard doesn't always mean it is bad. We are very lucky to be in such a supportive school; the school culture of providing all kids what they need to succeed really makes a difference.

ASD mommy - I think you are right about her realizing that March break was the last big break. I also think that my daughter is worrying a lot about school because I kept on telling her that by April she will know what school she is going to next year. She has applied to an ASD program and to a technical high school and we feel either program will meet her needs. Her sister applied to an Arts program and she did not get in and has to go to our local school that my son hated. I wonder if my daughter is worried about which school she will end up in and how high school will work for her next year. She knows she had a hard time two years ago when she transferred to middle school, so maybe she is uncertain about her future.

DW a mom - I think that my daughter had the repressed stress you were talking about. That makes perfect sense because the last time she got in trouble at school about a month ago, she said she was determined to never get in trouble again and to always be good. Of course no one can be perfect all of the time and I think it had built up on her. I am hoping with spring coming eventually, we can work off some of that stress with outdoor activities such as tennis.

Momsparky - I like when you said about feeling like such a great parent and then Boom! That is exactly how I felt, so shocked that this was happening because I had calmed her down so often in the preceding weeks. You may be right about the lack of sleep. I let my daughter play games or watch tv in her room because it is just way easier to get her to go to bed. I don't think she ends up staying up too late because I give her melatonin to help her sleep and I know it usually kicks in within an hour. We did have her staying up all night when we had the internet though and boy she could be truely awful the next morning. As for supports at school, they seem to really have stepped up to the plate now that she has been diagnosed with aspergers. Before she spent a lot of time in the reflection room and getting suspended, but now they all seem to be really helping her and being nice and understanding. I am so glad that we got the diagnosis.

Cockneyrebel - I think my daughter is doing okay in the bullying department because her twin sister is in all of her classes now and she would definately tell me if something was goingo on. I think it actually helps her now to have her sister with her all day. I am almost worried if they end up in separate schools next year because she won't have the support of having her sister there with her. There have been problems with people calling my daughter the "R" word or they think she is crazy, so I am sure that doesn't help. Usually they tell her twin these things, not my ASD daughter though. My daughter seems to be okay with having good and supportive friends this year because she mostly hangs out with boys that play Yu Gi Oh and roughhouse at recess. The girls she hung with had far too much drama and were a bad influence.

btbnnyr - that would be lovely if my daughter was a perfect angel at 14. What happened to change everything for you?

EmileMulder - I am not sure anything could have prevented it - I really think it was like a build up inside her that just exploded like a volcano. Of course I have replayed things in my head to see if I could have changed things. I think the shock of it coming after such a good family day together made it harder to come up with good solutions.

I can only speak from personal experience with myself. I only have a certain amount of tolerance each day before a meltdown. Putting myself in the situation you describe, I would suspect that the heavy daytime activities had exhausted my reserves and I would be more prone to a meltdown that evening.

Triplemoon18,

Worry about impending change can definitely be a big issue. So you might have something similar right before next school year hits. Let her know you understand her anxiety. Even if my son does not say it, I can tell that he appreciates having someone understand his issues. It seems to minimize his meltdowns-- frequency and intensity-wise. He acts out most when he thinks people do not get it.

Assuming your daughter gets into the ASD school, you will need to arm her with as much information about the new school as you can. I am assuming that they will be able to give you a ton of advice on this, as this should be something they are accustomed to. Multiple visits should help, especially if she can meet the staff and have a chance to interact with them.

I don't know if this will help at all or not, but my son is 12. He has hardly ever had meltdowns, but he has had a couple of doozies lately. The best thing for us when this happens is not to talk to him, not to follow him around, just to let him be. He doesn't head bang though (my daughter used to and I know how awful that is) he just paces like a caged animal, wails, and flails.

Afterwards, on more than one occasion, he has approached me and said "Mom, there is no reasonable explanation for that except puberty." He says in hindsight he can see his behavior as unreasonable and realizes that it was blown out of proportion to whatever was upsetting him, but at the time, he just couldn't see it. He felt overwhelmed.

I think this may be an important thing to consider, sometimes there is no external reason. Sometimes it is because you have hormones raging, expectations changing, and a whole host of concerns you never had a year ago.

I'm not saying not to try to figure out if something is going on. Of course you should. Sometimes, though, there isn't a reason. And trying to force a reason in to it might actually create problems that never needed to exist.

Education about puberty and what to expect, including understanding the mood swing aspects of it, has been helpful for my son.

Marky9 - I did wonder if our outing was too much for my daughter. She was the one who really wanted the long outing though, so telling her we couldn't would likely not have helped.

ASDMommy - Yes we will be able to visit whichever school she gets into and they will be prepared to help her with the transition, so that will be helpful, much better than the last school she transferred to in grade 7. I will try to let her know that I understand her anxiety - it is hard for her to hear me when she gets really upset because she reverts to being a toddler and then how much can she possibly understand? Afterwards, she hardly remembers anything and she refuses to discuss much about why she was upset. She really lives in the moment.

Inthistogether - I think you may be right that it is just hormones - that is why I was wondering if her first period was going to start soon. "Trying to force a reason in it might actually create problems that never needed to exist." That makes perfect sense to me. I wish I could just not talk to her and let her pace, but she usually follows me around the house whining and shrieking and then her sister makes it worse because she gets frustrated at the noise and yells at her. Because we just got the diagnosis a few months ago, her twin does not understand that a lot of what she does just makes the situation worse.

I am really not sure what is going on lately - the cold weather, the change in daylight savings time, hormones or what? She started on another meltdown just as we were going to bed last night and I tried to just go to bed and locked my door, hoping she would just go to her own room and play games or watch tv. She immediately started kicking my door 5 times which jammed the lock and I was stuck in my room until I called my boyfriend to come over to help me get out. When she was kicking my door in, she was screaming that she just wanted a hug and I was going to give her one, but then I was trapped in my room. What a ridiculous situation, I am glad I was able to wake up my boyfriend at his place to rescue us. I would not wanted to have to call in my landlord or emergency services.

The only good thing was the shock of locking me into my room got my daughter out of her meltdown and she was doing everything to try and get me out. I guess there is no point to trying to get away from her when she is like this, she has broken 3 locks and cracked doors really badly when we do. Sometimes you just want that quick breather to regroup and figure out how to calm her down, but she won't let you. If she is miserable, you have to be too.

That is tough when you can't even give yourself a calming timeout.

I agree that you can't talk to her while she is having the meltdown. Sometimes I can catch my son right before that irrational stage, but not as often as I would like.

If she won't agree to talk about it afterwards, just a simple statement of empathy appended with a statement that you will help her work through her feelings anytime, can go a long way, even if the results are not immediate. (If you choose not to make it a "discussion" you can still often get those kinds of things said. Even if she is terse and snippy in return, as long as you are not making her too upset, it may be worth trying.

One thing that works in my house (and it is the whole house...me, my son, and my daughter), is that we each have the right to say we need to be left completely alone. My son is generally pretty good at recognizing when he is getting to "the point." My daughter is getting better. I, of course, am good at it It just took awhile for the kids to realize the benefit of backing off when I tell them I need them to back off.

One thing that I know, not just from my kids, but also from working with people with severe mental illness is that meltdowns are scary. There is a moment at which you realize you are no longer in control of your thoughts and behaviors. Then, after that moment, there is not much "thought" at all. I believe your daughter when she says she can't remember it. I know my kids can usually talk about what precipitated it, but they really can't verbalize what happened or what they were thinking in the midst of it (unless it was a tantrum, which my daughter tantrums and she will clearly tell you that she got mad because you did this, then she got even madder because you did that. Then she threw the chair because you said that, etc).

Anyway, I share this because in the "in between time" meaning not overwhelmed, no where near meltdown, etc. I talk to them about how I know how scary it is and I know how drained they feel afterward and how bad if they said or did something really mean. And that's why we need to work really hard to figure out a way to prevent it from happening, because once it starts, it's sometimes impossible to stop. It helped set the stage for being able to work up to saying "I need space" and having others respect it.

This may be more difficult for her twin, because unlike my two, she does not have any first hand knowledge regarding how hard this is for her sister and how bad it feels to be out of control. Just an idea, having a set of twin sisters and knowing how they are with each other....maybe you could appeal to her "twins have a special sense with one another" and see if she can't use her special sense to help you anticipate when things are escalating and helping you come up with ideas that might help her sister.

I would recommend that she read "Rules" by Cynthia Lord. It is seriously one of my favorite books. It does an awesome job of addressing something very real for NT siblings: the fact that life revolves around your ASD brother/sister, and the fact that even though you love them, they EMBARRASS you. It treats being an NT sibling with grace and honesty and helps guide the reader to a much greater understanding about what all these things really mean.

ASD mommy - I will try to speak to her about helping her with her feelings anytime, so she knows I am available, but usually when she is feeling fine, she doesn't think she needs help at all. Since she doesn't remember her meltdowns, even brief ones and since she can be fine to freaking out in seconds, I am not sure where to start helping her. I am getting a book on meltdowns from the library, so maybe it will have some good strategies.

In this Together - Neither of my girls will let me be when they are upset - they will follow me into the bathroom when I am having a bath, lie on my bed when I am reading and if I insist on the time alone, it just makes them more freaked out and determined to be with me. I will definately look for the book "Rules", as I know my daughter does get embarassed and frustrated by her sister. I have not had much luck in finding books for her to help, so if anyone has recommendations, that would be great.