Had a terrible week of meltdowns and tantrums(me and my daughter). Last Tuesday(not yesterday) she came home from school and was in a bit of a mood, I could tell something was brewing and that she was upset, I asked how her day was but got a usual "it was alright". She didn't want to play she just wanted to slob out in front of the TV wrapped up in her duvet so I let her get on with it, I know what it's like when she feels down like that so didn't want to push her to do anything else. Then it was bathtime, I told her as soon as she got home from school that tonight was bath night (we struggle to get her to have a bath, she hates washing). Then when I ran the bath I told her what I was doing and that in 15 mins she was going in the bath, it was met with a grunt. Then when I said it was time to get in the bath she just grunted, got up and made her sulky/angry/frustrated noise and stormed off, 2 minutes later she was crying. After trying to get her to talk she eventually said she was upset because she dind't want to have a bath, then we had 10 minutes of shouting and screaming about it and lots of "it's not fair, I hate baths, why are you being mean to me, etc etc". Then she got in and continued the grunts with the ocassional mantra of it's not fair, I hate baths etc. then she got out snatched her towel off me and ran in her room shouting that it was too cold and her skin hurt etc, once she calmed down and was dry/dressed I asked her if the reason she didn't like baths was because she got cold. She said it was, she didn't mind being in the bath but didn't like getting undressed and getting cold and being cold/wet and having to dry/get dressed..understandable because I'm the same, I hate being cold and wet.
So once she was in her Pj's and getting in bed she was calmer but I could tell she was still on the verge of a massive outburst, she was still really touchy and the slightest thing would have her grunting and moaning (Example I chucked a load of teddies to the bottom of the bed so she could actually lay down, normally she wouldn't worry about it but that night she kicked off saying I'd hurt their feelings and why would I do that, why would I throw her teddies around etc. Once we went through our little night time ritual (lavendar cream to make her sleepy, cup of milk, goodnight kisses/hugs etc) my husband and I went in the front room to watch a movie. As usual every 10 minutes she was up for one reason or another...out of milk, thought she saw a spider, something she absolutely HAD to tell us that she'd rememberd.
Then came the huge outburst, she got up for the 5th or 6th time so my husband said enough is enough go to bed and stay in bed(not shouting just telling her she can't keep getting up). Off she ran 2 minutes later she was crying so we went in to see her she was sat up rocking back and forth tears streaming down her face. So the my husband assumed he'd upset her and asked her if that was what was wrong but she just shook her head and kept crying. He went through everything he could think of that might have upset her, but I kind of knew what was happening. So I asked her if she was upset but she didn't really know why, she nodded, so I asked if she felt lots of (I made an angry noise with a clawing motion..so hard to describe) and she nodded and cried even louder. My husband tried to hug her but she just wriggled and cried more, so I told him to just stop let her cry, so we stood there for 10 minutes whilst she let it all out and then she just stopped. Once she was calm enough to talk I asked her if anything happened in school, she said no, so I asked her if she'd gotten 'dizzy'(her word for overwhelmed) at school and she nodded, started crying again and said the teacher didn't let her sit out like she normally does. Then we had tears for a further 10 minutes whilst she kept saying how the teacher normally lets her sit out and she didn't today and it was so noisy and made her feel so sick. So we finally got to the bototm of it, she'd become really overwhelmed at school, couldn't go calm down so it had built up and built up and she'd just exploded at home.
I hate seeing her like that but it was actually educatuional(think that would be the right way to describe it) for my husband who is finally starting to accept she may be on the spectrum, after she went to sleep I explained to him about how when I'm having a meltdown nothing you say or do will console me/stop it and I just need to let it all out, it's the same for her so when she's like that, just let her get it out of her system and when she's calm hug her and talk about what happened.
Then on Friday we had almost an exact repeat of Tuesday expect this time the thing that started it was her yoga teacher telling her off for being late, she tried to explain that she had gone to the toilet but apparently the teacher was having none of it, so that really upset her and again it all started to build up. It wasn't quite as severe as Tuesday thank goodness but it's still hard seeing her so upset.
Then yesterday I had a bit of a meltdown/rage, we've bought our daughter some secondhand sylvanian stuff for her birthday and have it all stored in boxes in the bedroom. My husband asked me to move it all because him and our little girl wanted to go through all the other storage boxes to see what we've got and to find his old teddy bears. That annoyed me and I didn't want to do it because I knew I'd be the one who'd end up cleaning up after them but I got up early and shifted all the boxes so she didn't uncover birthday presents. So then the two of them start getting boxes out, within an hour they had 20 boxes, bags, bits and pieces out and our bedroom was a tip and the hall /kitchen/living room where they'd moved stuff out(We live in a bungalow so everything is on one floor).
Then my husband decided to have a sort out and throw away lots of stuff...which translates to me throwing out/giving away half my stuff and he'll chuck out some old letters or something, so again I was annoyed. So I went through box after box sorting stuff out and then I could feel it building I was getting so upset because the place was a mess, it was dusty, I was hungry and felt awful. I tried tidying up and it just seemed like such a huge task and I wanted to just run away until it was all finished but I couldn't because I'm the only one who can tidy properly, my husband is hopeless at organising/tidying. So I started on the kitchen because it was nearly lunch time, then I moved on to the living room, by which time my back was killing from lifting loads of heavy things, I was itchy from the dust and felt really really grubby. I walked into the bedroom and it looked like a bomb had hit it and I just lost it, I just grabbed loads of my things and threw them in the bin (including a collectible box I could have sold for a bit of cash, I just saw it as a stupid box taking up space, so stamped on it until it was flat and chucked it in the recycling). My husband tried to stop me but I just kept ranting that it was all rubbish and I needed space not crap and things like that. He finally grabbed me sat me down on the edge of the bed and told me to relax and he'd tidy up, I burst into tears, everything felt like it was closing in on me, that I had this huge crushing sensation on my head. So I sat crying and flicking my hands/doing my hand patterns whilst he slowly tidied a few things up. I calmed down after 5 minutes felt like an idiot/childish for basically having a temper tantrum and crying over a bit of mess, then I tidied everything else up, had lunch and felt much better.
Then came Sunday, my daughter's been having bowel problems for most of her life when she was 3 it was at it's worst. Anyway it's getting quite bad again and she's on movicol again, she hadn't been for a poo since Thursday, we had lots of straining and crying on the loo Saturday night but she couldn't manage it. Same Sunday morning she tried and tried until she was crying her eyes out and stressing out about getting it out, she said her bum hurt so much she couldn't walk properly so she grabbed her crutches(they were the my husband's but she claimed them long ago) and was walking around all morning with them. She really wanted to go to her aikido class but my husband and I thought it would be best if she stayed home because she felt so ill and her bum hurt so much. She said she'd try again so went off to the loo, 2 minutes later she was crying and got increasingly more hysterical because she couldn't get her poo out, her bum hurt, she really wanted to go to aikido and she wouldn't see her friends, she couldn't give her favourite aikido friend an invite to her party, that would ruin everything and she ranted on and on about every awful thing she could think of from her various hospital appointments to the fact she hates doing yoga and she didn't choose to do that.
She was fine when she got home, pretty happy actually and everything seemed okay, then in the evening the crying and straining on the toilet started again. I gave her an extra movicol even though she was only prescribed one a day. We had a massive meltdown just before bed and she was soiling herself every couple of hours(this happens when she becomes impacted, it's called overflow incontinence)......to be continued....
So once she was in her Pj's and getting in bed she was calmer but I could tell she was still on the verge of a massive outburst, she was still really touchy and the slightest thing would have her grunting and moaning (Example I chucked a load of teddies to the bottom of the bed so she could actually lay down, normally she wouldn't worry about it but that night she kicked off saying I'd hurt their feelings and why would I do that, why would I throw her teddies around etc. Once we went through our little night time ritual (lavendar cream to make her sleepy, cup of milk, goodnight kisses/hugs etc) my husband and I went in the front room to watch a movie. As usual every 10 minutes she was up for one reason or another...out of milk, thought she saw a spider, something she absolutely HAD to tell us that she'd rememberd.
Then came the huge outburst, she got up for the 5th or 6th time so my husband said enough is enough go to bed and stay in bed(not shouting just telling her she can't keep getting up). Off she ran 2 minutes later she was crying so we went in to see her she was sat up rocking back and forth tears streaming down her face. So the my husband assumed he'd upset her and asked her if that was what was wrong but she just shook her head and kept crying. He went through everything he could think of that might have upset her, but I kind of knew what was happening. So I asked her if she was upset but she didn't really know why, she nodded, so I asked if she felt lots of (I made an angry noise with a clawing motion..so hard to describe) and she nodded and cried even louder. My husband tried to hug her but she just wriggled and cried more, so I told him to just stop let her cry, so we stood there for 10 minutes whilst she let it all out and then she just stopped. Once she was calm enough to talk I asked her if anything happened in school, she said no, so I asked her if she'd gotten 'dizzy'(her word for overwhelmed) at school and she nodded, started crying again and said the teacher didn't let her sit out like she normally does. Then we had tears for a further 10 minutes whilst she kept saying how the teacher normally lets her sit out and she didn't today and it was so noisy and made her feel so sick. So we finally got to the bototm of it, she'd become really overwhelmed at school, couldn't go calm down so it had built up and built up and she'd just exploded at home.
I hate seeing her like that but it was actually educatuional(think that would be the right way to describe it) for my husband who is finally starting to accept she may be on the spectrum, after she went to sleep I explained to him about how when I'm having a meltdown nothing you say or do will console me/stop it and I just need to let it all out, it's the same for her so when she's like that, just let her get it out of her system and when she's calm hug her and talk about what happened.
Then on Friday we had almost an exact repeat of Tuesday expect this time the thing that started it was her yoga teacher telling her off for being late, she tried to explain that she had gone to the toilet but apparently the teacher was having none of it, so that really upset her and again it all started to build up. It wasn't quite as severe as Tuesday thank goodness but it's still hard seeing her so upset.
Then yesterday I had a bit of a meltdown/rage, we've bought our daughter some secondhand sylvanian stuff for her birthday and have it all stored in boxes in the bedroom. My husband asked me to move it all because him and our little girl wanted to go through all the other storage boxes to see what we've got and to find his old teddy bears. That annoyed me and I didn't want to do it because I knew I'd be the one who'd end up cleaning up after them but I got up early and shifted all the boxes so she didn't uncover birthday presents. So then the two of them start getting boxes out, within an hour they had 20 boxes, bags, bits and pieces out and our bedroom was a tip and the hall /kitchen/living room where they'd moved stuff out(We live in a bungalow so everything is on one floor).
Then my husband decided to have a sort out and throw away lots of stuff...which translates to me throwing out/giving away half my stuff and he'll chuck out some old letters or something, so again I was annoyed. So I went through box after box sorting stuff out and then I could feel it building I was getting so upset because the place was a mess, it was dusty, I was hungry and felt awful. I tried tidying up and it just seemed like such a huge task and I wanted to just run away until it was all finished but I couldn't because I'm the only one who can tidy properly, my husband is hopeless at organising/tidying. So I started on the kitchen because it was nearly lunch time, then I moved on to the living room, by which time my back was killing from lifting loads of heavy things, I was itchy from the dust and felt really really grubby. I walked into the bedroom and it looked like a bomb had hit it and I just lost it, I just grabbed loads of my things and threw them in the bin (including a collectible box I could have sold for a bit of cash, I just saw it as a stupid box taking up space, so stamped on it until it was flat and chucked it in the recycling). My husband tried to stop me but I just kept ranting that it was all rubbish and I needed space not crap and things like that. He finally grabbed me sat me down on the edge of the bed and told me to relax and he'd tidy up, I burst into tears, everything felt like it was closing in on me, that I had this huge crushing sensation on my head. So I sat crying and flicking my hands/doing my hand patterns whilst he slowly tidied a few things up. I calmed down after 5 minutes felt like an idiot/childish for basically having a temper tantrum and crying over a bit of mess, then I tidied everything else up, had lunch and felt much better.
Then came Sunday, my daughter's been having bowel problems for most of her life when she was 3 it was at it's worst. Anyway it's getting quite bad again and she's on movicol again, she hadn't been for a poo since Thursday, we had lots of straining and crying on the loo Saturday night but she couldn't manage it. Same Sunday morning she tried and tried until she was crying her eyes out and stressing out about getting it out, she said her bum hurt so much she couldn't walk properly so she grabbed her crutches(they were the my husband's but she claimed them long ago) and was walking around all morning with them. She really wanted to go to her aikido class but my husband and I thought it would be best if she stayed home because she felt so ill and her bum hurt so much. She said she'd try again so went off to the loo, 2 minutes later she was crying and got increasingly more hysterical because she couldn't get her poo out, her bum hurt, she really wanted to go to aikido and she wouldn't see her friends, she couldn't give her favourite aikido friend an invite to her party, that would ruin everything and she ranted on and on about every awful thing she could think of from her various hospital appointments to the fact she hates doing yoga and she didn't choose to do that.
She was fine when she got home, pretty happy actually and everything seemed okay, then in the evening the crying and straining on the toilet started again. I gave her an extra movicol even though she was only prescribed one a day. We had a massive meltdown just before bed and she was soiling herself every couple of hours(this happens when she becomes impacted, it's called overflow incontinence)......to be continued....
