Quiet Aspie Parent, LOUD Aspie child.

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I am the step father and full time caregiver of a 5 year old boy who is on the spectrum. We are in the process of both medical diagnosis and IEP. For now, he is not in school. I'm not working because it made more financial sense for his Mom to work and for me to stay home.

I am struggling. I am (undiagnosed, but I know what I am, and so does anyone near me) a very quiet and introverted Aspie. I have trouble with loud noises, over stimulation, and disorder, and most of my pursuits are very technical, and very solitary.

Rowan is a different sort of spectrum personality. He is LOUD. Constant fan and bell sounds. He abhors a vacuum and fills it. Bashing, crashing, booming. DITDITDITDITDITDITDIT. BING!! !

It's a struggle. I have a lot of trouble coping with the constant noise. An NT parent would have trouble to some extent, but as this goes on its like being stabbed repeatedly in the head sometimes.

Are there any other parents in similar circumstances, where their spectrum traits and their children's collide in unfortunate ways? Any advice?

Yes.

I'm undiagnosed (but it's pretty clear where my daughter gets it from if you understand me) but have the exact same problem. I really can't stand all the noise, particularly when she gets to fighting with her sister, that is the worst.

I recommend ear plugs or an app for your smart phone that will play white noise, then you can use ear plugs. It doesn't TOTALLY solve it, but it takes the edge off. I do this sometimes just for watching TV as my husbnad likes the TV to be significantly louder than I would prefer.

My ASD son speaks extremely loudly and near constantly. My ADHD son is just LOUD and he moves all the time. We've worked on personal space boundaries with both of them for years, and the ADHD son still gets into everyone's space. Sometimes the noise and the constant movement just become completely overwhelming to me.

What I do when I get overwhelmed by all this is I put myself in time out. When they were the ages of your son, I would have to hold it together until another adult came along. I would take my timeout sometimes to be focused completely on the computer or another activity, sometimes just to go to my room with the lights off and not have the visual and auditory stimulation for a little while. Now that they are bigger, I can tell them that I am going to time out, and they have learned that it is much better to leave me to it for a while, as I can get very unpleasant to be around bossy, yelling, snapping at little things when I get too overwhelmed. We actually have self imposed time outs available to everyone, though the ADHD son still needs a lot of help and direction to make use of them.

At times when this hasn't helped, or the total stress is just too much, we use what amounts to respite care by sending the kids to their grandparents for a couple of days. I know that isn't an option for everyone. We are lucky in that regard. And there have been a few times when we couldn't send them away, and I was at the end of my rope, and my husband stepped in and watched the kids all day (he's normally not very engaged even when he's home from work) and let me spend the entire day in my room or on a video game with the kids not allowed to come to the game room.

I know this probably makes me seem very selfish or mean, but this keeps me on a more or less even keel that allows me to be a better parent more of the time.

Thanks for the replies. Sometimes it just helps to know you're not crazy, that others go through this as well. Sometimes I feel like a terrible parent because I start to have no tolerance for behaviors that he just either can't control or doesn't understand why he should. His language is not in a place where I can explain much to him. He has functional language (Please can I need a milk, where is my sleepy bear, etc.) but nothing abstract, or any sentence longer than 5 words or so. So there's that.

I've just found out that our autism society has a respite program every other Saturday night, where we can drop him off to do some constructive activities and be in the company of other kids and around adults who understand. As you can imagine attempts to find day care or sitters have never worked...if they aren't specialists, they aren't dealing.

I'm going to try the white noise suggestion. I can't use ear plugs because of tinnitus. Most of the time I don't hear the ringing, unless I put plugs in.

I think it will be better once he gets in school, once there's at least much of a break. Right now it's all day, every day, and I feel awful complaining about my child but sometimes I truly am at my wits end.

Unfortunately, we are not near any family that can offer respite. We had to move to another state that at least acknowledged the existence of autism, and in doing so we left what family support we did have behind.

oh I so understand I have a 7 yr old w/moderate autism and a 4 yr old we think has ADHD. They about drove me around the bend last summer and I ended up going to a psychiatrist (the alternative was a severe regression for me or a nervous breakdown) I'm now on medication for it.....and doing way better in terms of coping but the medication is making me gain weight(It's risperdal and wellbutrin)

Your best bet is give everyone down time/time outs and for me near complete silence and a dark room with a weighted blanket while rocking is where I end up every single night

I totally feel you! I am very introverted and quiet, and my hubs and son are LOUD!! ! The TV is always on when hubs is home, he sings, claps, whistles the same few notes over and over....its maddening. And my son, same thing. They both talk too loud. Its about 10 times worse when they are together.

When your wife comes home, can she hang out with your boy for a while, while you relax and read a book or something? My boy is older (11) so I can tell him, "I need a break. Do your homework and I will be upstairs if you need me." I don't know if you can get away with putting on a favorite video or something and letting him watch it while you relax for half an hour? I also tend to stay up late and do stuff with the tv off and the lights dimmed. My husband says I dont sleep enough, but honestly I'd rather lose sleep and get my quiet time.

I really feel for you, I have a loud aspie girl (5yo), Im NT but come from a quiet family and get a lot of migraines. Its like being in a night club and you cannot get away from the constant noise and movement. She follows me everywhere, when she sits next to me shes jabbing me with her elbow in the hip, leaning on me, fidgeting, getting closer and closer lol. She plays game soin my iphone which keeps her more still but she still wriggles around so much and ends up sitting behind me on the back of the sofa with the phone on full volume next to my ear, it drives me mad. The talking and noise making literally NEVER stops, she talks in her sleep even. I find it hard driving with her in the back, I cant make phone calls when shes in the house, I cant even go to the toilet in peace!

But for you to be so sensitive to noise it mucst be awful :/ The only thing that gives me a bit of peace is when shes got her weighted blanket.

My son also vocally stims, makes noises, and talks about special interests--anything---to fill up the quiet void. Me, I love quiet, so you imagine the fun. I try to be reciprocal about it in that I let him do what he needs to do, the best I can. Sometimes, though I will tell him that Mommies sometimes need quiet and I let him play with dad, while I recharge in another room.

LOL, the phone. Any time I or his mom get on the phone he attempts to drown out the conversation entirely...anything to focus the attention back on himself.

I really try to give him a large part of the day that he can be as loud as he wants, and carve out a few quiet times. He does seem to try to be quiet for a while when I ask. But it's hard for him.

It is good to know you are not alone, reading this thread makes me feel better! Isnt it great when people who dont now the situation say things like "I wish had her energy!", I cant imagine being that hyper for that long, must be exhausting!

Once when my son was 2, I was on the phone with some sort of customer service or support person of some sort. My son was LOUD.

So, the support guy says "Let me guess...you have 2 boys." I was like "Nope. Just one 2 year old boy." Silence on the other end of the phone, followed by a quiet "sorry."

I somehow learned to zone out a lot. Maybe that was a gift granted to me by my ADD. Like I stayed aware enough to notice if there was an alarming change in the cacophony, but I somehow learned to block most of it out. People would say "he makes me tired just watching him" and I would think "what?"

I may not be able to offer advice, but I may be able to offer hope. My son is no longer like this...like the energizer bunny on speed with a need to be as loud as humanly possible. He is now actually rather quiet.

You know what's funny? Sometimes I miss his...exuberance.

Although right now he and his sister are both howling like wolves. So maybe it never really ends.

At any rate, at least I can say I have survived this long? LOL! I guess the point of my post is to say I feel your pain. And I'm pretty sure we are not alone.