Autism & Anxiety

     I joke with Caleb that if he doesn't stop doing something he'll get put on meds for it.  In the moment I am only joking, but it is a reality for Caleb, and for many other children with Autism.

Caleb as a 5 year old

     The stats are staggering for children with an ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) between the ages f 10-14 being diagnosed with a second (and sometimes third) diagnosis, most commonly to do with an anxiety disorder.  

This picture literally makes me cry because you can see how sad and frustrated he is. This was his 3rd birthday.

​     For a child with Autism, living in a world that is so confusing and overwhelming (due to sensory overload) can become terribly stressful. Anxiety can make it even more difficult for children with ASD to do things that seem simple (or fun) to "normal" people. Going to town to run errands, using public transportation (that scares me for goodness sake!), birthday parties, going out for Halloween, even something like a group photo can become overwhelming.

      We literally had that problem with Caleb last Christmas. Every place we went, everyone wanted everyone to cram into a small space (get close together), look at a camera suspended on strange looking legs (tripod), look in the same direction at nothing (the camera), and say "cheese" at the same time...? That sounds weird, but that's what we believe our Caleb was thinking! He thought we were nuts! He refused (REFUSED!!!) to be involved in any group photos, and by the end of our holiday, he wouldn't even tolerate someone taking candid/relaxed photos of him, or even of other people in the same room as him.        

I remember taking this picture (he was 3) while he was having a fit because I imagined (prayed) his behaviour would get better, and I would want one photo for posterity.

    Caleb's anxiety in many ways has improved since he was a child. When he was the age a child would start to learn to talk (12 months on), and he wasn't, he had huge meltdowns everyday (usually several times a day). A meltdown for Caleb involves jumping (with hand flapping {pictured above|), throwing himself to the floor, hitting himself, hitting us, screaming, crying, blood-shot eyes, to give an idea. Every event was stressful for him: going to church (we would hand him off to the Sunday School workers screaming....), pre-school (hand him off to the ECE screaming....), grocery store (we would get dirty looks because of his screaming....), play group (I usually left early because he was screaming, and I was crying), stopping a movie before the credits ran was even cause for a meltdown. Because he had no words to let us know what it was exactly making him upset, we usually just had to haul him kicking and screaming out of wherever we were. 

       As he has grown, we have (with a lot of help from therapists, social workers, teachers, & books) developed different strategies to help him cope. He learned sign language at age 2, used picture symbols, rapid prompting method (for a short time), music therapy, emotion identification (right now it's an emotion on a scale of musical instruments-Red Drums being angry, and a blue flute being happy, and other colours/instruments in between), among other things. He still has serious anxiety attacks, and will have a fit, but he is having them less often, and is able to bounce back from them better, and get on with the day.       

Happy guy

     Now that he can talk, and is learning to express himself, I can see his anxiety in other things. For instance, he has to touch everything near him as he is walking. That includes people in the grocery store who then give him the death-stare! If he is walking down a flight of stairs, and happens to slip and fall, he will get very angry, and will need to re-do going down the saris 3-4 times to "get it right", and will also stop to hit himself wherever he may have gotten hurt in the fall. So, before he would have had a full-blown temper tantrum, but now he has obsessive rituals that need to be done.

      He has successfully swapped one coping mechanism (screaming) with another (mild obsessive compulsive disorder). I'll take it for now though because it is better than watching helplessly while he has a meltdown. 

Caleb ready (and excited!) to go out for Halloween. He did so great, even with a few obstacles to overcome (it was raining, his candy bag feel apart, he fell down some slippy stairs).

       My hope for Caleb as he gets older is that he can continue learning how to express himself, and how to cope with the stress that comes his way everyday, and eventually, this world won't be so stressful for him.