We have had a horrendous week. Things have happened that have caused anxiety levels to go through the roof, and not just for one square peg, for both of them. This blog relates to ASD. The only that will follow relates to ADHD.

This is my bed from last night, sleeping on the floor of my teen’s room on a pile of old quilts as the air bed as a puncture to ensure he was calm enough to sleep and get through school today, and I’ll probably be back there tonight!

This blog isn’t about the cause of the latest sh*tstorm that we’re going through (tried to find an alternative word, but there just isn’t one!), that’s all being sorted. This is about the anxiety itself, and why this is going to rumble on for a while yet.

Just after Christmas, I reviewed the book ‘The boy who felt too much’ (link here), and in the book, ‘The Intense World Syndrome’ is mentioned. Me being me, I have searched for and found the paper, and read it. It is fascinating reading and it fits with our situation on a day to day basis, not just right now. A brief overview is that the cerebral cortex and the amygdala in the ASD brain is hypersensitive to, well, anything. Lights, sounds, tastes, smells are all included, but so are memories, and this is where it gets really interesting. The ASD brain is programmed to be incredibly self-protecting. Bad memories and bad events are logged and remembered much more than in the neurotypical brain.

Many studies have suggested that some autistic children have heightened anxiety levels and phobias. Markram et al (2007) found similar traits in their ASD rats, especially when compared to the neurotypical rats.; they reacted to the fear stimulus much quicker than the ‘normal’ rats. The researchers also found that once the fear memory was there, it took much longer (if at all) to extinguish. They did point out that this is not necessarily a generalised thing; many people with ASD will have this response and holding onto the fear memories, but many may not. As with everything else with ASD (or ADHD or Dyslexia etc), just because Fred acts like this doesn’t mean that Bob will too.

So, what does this mean in an every day dealing with life’s ups and downs kind of way? I can really relate to this theory. Our youngest can be very rigid with things that have gone wrong. If something bad happens at a cafe or restaurant, we can’t go back. If a family friend or relative has repeated bad behaviour (or at least what he perceived as bad behaviour) and did not apologise, nothing will get him to revisit the memory or forgive that person. There are also fears about going to places, doing activities or eating food that he associates with negative or fearful feelings. We can logically discuss ways to get over this particular event/person/activity/place and he understands the logic, but cannot work his way through it.

The situation we find ourselves in right now relates to this entirely. The event last week has been dealt with, but it was so bad (in his eyes) that he just can’t move past it. His head is full of what if situations as well as reliving what happened last week. Right now, I am struggling to see how we are going to get through this.

I need to stress that the event itself has no relevance here. It could have been anything but if it crossed ‘the line’ it would have been bad enough to illicit this response.

I hope that by sharing this, if you teach a child or young adult with ASD, or if you are a parent or carer and you find yourself in a similar situation, then you will realise that logic, punishment, reward or whatever parenting magic you have up your sleeve will probably have very little effect. If you do find something that works, please let me know!