There was an outburst at my aspergers group.

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When we got there they had taken away half the tables. THere was a subtitute therapist who wasnt as good or nice as the regular one. ONe of the clients who is much lower functionaing than i am asked the therapist repeatly if he sit by him self. HE had pretty strongly need for space as part of his as. SHe said no repeatly and that brought on like a anxiety attactk/rage attack/ meltdown in him. He was going for outside with one of the helpers for like 25 mins. HE was saying stuff that he didnt really mean like he was gonna get dangerous. I think it was a bad decsion on the part of the therapists to go against his sensory/space issues like that.

I agree with your assessment.

Poor guy!! Was he ok in the end?! AS groups are supposed to be a safe place! Did you guys have warning that it was going to be changed? I don't do well in changed situations and people who know me well let me know what's going on. I never seem to know on my own, and they seem to always be in on the story. I feel like just them being able to communicate is a move against me. but that's not really the point. He should have been warned - and he should have been given what he needed instead of letting escalate.

no warning about the change.

yeah he calmed down, but they were ready to call the cops and have him locked up.

how disappointing that there is no place where we can let it out and get over our problems. NO one seems to understand when everything is firing off and your brain just can't calm, that it will be over and we can move on... sorry if I'm projecting... I just feel bad for him, and completely understand what happened. it makes me want to move to the woods and never be around anyone again when people push you to the point of no return.

It's not much of a therapist who chooses to act like that then have the police fix their mistakes.

Nightbender,

*I* have the same kind of space issues. Those that are observant, and know me, KNOW that! It makes me VERY angry at work because, when people demand that I solve a production problem FAST, they INSIST on standing over me. I swear, I have at times shown INCREDIBLE restraint because I feel like pushing them down and saying "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY CUBE, BECAUSE YOU ****CLAIM**** THIS IS SO IMPORTANT, YET DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO MERELY DELAY IT! GET LOST!"! If not for my restraint, it would be painfully obvious to all that I have such problems. I even back up as some IDIOT steps closer to me and now, when really backed into a corner, I may go to lunch, or the restroom EVEN if it may cost someone a million dollars(A few times it may LITERALLY have cost that much). I have also mentioned here before about how I feel that way.

That "therapist" should have been reprimanded, and replaced for such a thing. HECK, if I ran the place, I would have FIRED her for being heartless and denying a simple concession that is EXPECTED of some autistic/AS people as well as many others. In short, she showed that she was even WORSE than incompetent! An incompetent surgeon might operate with septic instruments, and without washing. SHE was like a surgeon that just got out of sewage, and used instruments crusted with manuer.

If I were the policeman, I would have listened to both sides, and given her a ticket for filing a false police report. The police are supposed to uphold the law and maintain the peace, NOT cover up for someone's GARBAGE. The therapist obviously just wanted to be the LEADER.

So have the group file a report with the therapist's managers or the regional health board/council.

that really upsets me. too often these therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists have no understanding and their ignorance and lack of tolerance belies a kind of bigotry.

That's so horrible. It's a place where all people with AS should feel safe, yet even there it is wrong. Where's the hope... *sigh*. If that so called 'therapist' had even a small amount of knowledge on AS then she should darned well know that a huge problem for us is CHANGE. It sounds like they were being quite mean to him in their reactions too. WTF is a cop going to do? Arrest him? Good luck, trying to touch an autistic person in a meltdown is REALLY going to help (sarcasm). Then they will file assult charges when he lashes out. Society sucks...

i think they would have put him in a mental ward.
THis aspie groups run by a mental health center, and i believe they thought its ok to put aspies in mental wards.

If he became aggressive, I'm sure they would have carted him off to a psyche ward for at least a night. If the police are involved, it's usually ugly, really ugly.

Everyone should have been noted of the change, even at the last minute, and the individual in question should have been granted his request.

The therapist failed in this case.

From the information you're giving, it seems like this is one of those cases where "I'm the therapist; you're the patient; you do as I say."

That was MEAN. The woman should've let him sit by himself--any experience with autism at all should make it obvious that some aspies need personal space like they need oxygen. And if he'd been neurotypical and at a business meeting, he probably would've gotten that request from an NT boss, provided there were enough chairs, with no more than a weird look. (But then if he were neurotypical, he probably could've done something like pushing his chair back or putting stuff in the chairs on either side of him. Actually, you might suggest stuff like that to him for the next time a therapist gets bitchy.)

I hope he's OK now. Thank goodness she was only a substitute.

Lucky that he calmed down on time... probably took a lot of effort. I wonder if they're doing anything to teach him how to deal with this stuff? I think it would be a really good idea if the group could do something like the above strategies--teach him to tell other people in a way that they'll understand, that space is important to him. If I were the leader, though, I really wouldn't force him to try learning how to sit close to people until he suggested it... (Sometimes you have to--public transportation and such, church services, meetings...) and wouldn't keep trying to make him learn if it was clear he wasn't making progress...

I am very glad that I know how to zone out when I'm forced into close contact with somebody, and that it doesn't bother me very much in situations like school, church, etc. when I know it is expected and I'm relaxed to begin with. That extreme aversion sounds like a very annoying trait to have. IMO the guy should be thinking about work-arounds, so that he can survive in a world that expects this stuff of him.

There's nothing that can be done, really, other than granting the ever so simple request to him. I saw a lovely lecture on YouTube by a neurologist about how children with an ASD would be better off with emotional training ("Cognitive Basis of Behavior in Autism"), rather than social training as they do now, in the hopes of helping people control the aggression and anger they feel when their routine is disrupted, or something else--perhaps it would have helped this individual, before he grew up. He's set in his ways now, and nothing will change him.

In this case, it was an uneducated therapist that made the mistake; hopefully, she won't let pride stand in her way, and she'll learn from this.

(O, and to add, apart from the aggression ("meltdown"), I'm like this, but I withdraw and stop interacting ("shutdown") or I just leave. It only turns to aggression in my case when people try to force me back, i.e., if I walked out of the room and they tried to bring me back.)

Last edited by Danielismyname on 12 Dec 2008, 11:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

I need to find an asperger group.

Well, by "work-arounds" I mean not just trying to learn to tolerate physical closeness, which may be impossible but is worth a try just in case it isn't, but learning how he can politely communicate this need to other people, in a way they can understand; or how to distance himself without seeming rude. The NTs around him won't know about the problem unless he tells them. The really stupid thing about the situation is that it seems he asked rather politely to sit by himself, which is a good solution, even if it's not subtle--your substitute therapist was the one who was impolite.