My son is non-verbal and doesn’t use his alt comm device to answer questions besides what foods he wants or which of his preferred activities he wants to participate in. It’s difficult to assess what he is feeling and why he is feeling that way, particularly when multiple family members have trouble identifying feelings, physical and emotional.
@@melissadouglas570 (I am My World Autistic. I have a couple different email addresses so sometimes it gets a little confusing with TH-cam 😊) It's very possible that he can't identify what he is feeling. Alexithymia, (I might have misspelled that) is very common in Autism. That is a condition where we cannot identify what we feel. I also know for myself that there are many times when I feel multiple feelings and emotions at the same time and they can be very conflicting with each other. That can make it difficult to decipher them and sort them out in order to try to express them. We also tend to feel our feelings and emotions extremely intensely so we can very easily get extremely overwhelmed by them. This overwhelm can also make it very difficult to understand what we are feeling and express it especially if we are feeling multiple conflicting emotions at once. The other thing I have often experienced is synaesthesia with my emotions or thoughts or feelings. I don't have this all the time but it happens to me pretty often. Sometimes, rather than experiencing certains thoughts or feelings and understanding them with words, I experience them in color grid patterns. So, for example, when that happens, if someone were to ask me what I was feeling, my answer would be, "maroon and black square grid." That would make no sense to anyone but me. But that is how my brain was processing the experience at the time. My brother once asked me why I don't like mussels. I told him, because the texture tastes yellow. That also makes sense to no one but me. Even as a little kid, I understood that nobody would have any idea understanding what I was saying if I responded with a synaesthetic answer. I know that if I said something like that, I would have had to deal with the repercussions of that answer. And I did not have the energy or the communicative sophistication to be able to have conversations about synaesthesia. So it was safest to just respond with the most generic answer like "fine" and leave it at that because trying to explain what I was actually feeling or thinking was just too difficult. Even now, as an adult, I often find it safer to just avoid the conversation completely because what I can be feeling can be so complex that I have found that it overwhelms many neurotypicals when I try to explain. So now, my go to answer is, "I don't know." When I just keep repeating that, most neurotypcals back off and stop asking. The other reason I hate telling neurotypicals how I feel is that so many times, they respond with platitudes to try to make me feel better. I DETEST that. I cannot tolerate it. Now what I am about to say is the way I personally feel. I need to feel and process and experience whatever I feel to the fullest whether it is a pleasant experience or a traumatic one. It is very important for me to allow my feelings and emotions to run their full course and I need to experience them completely. If someone tries to make me feel better especially with platitudes or positive talk, it completely disrupts and hijacks the process. I can't let that happen. Having someone disrupt that process can make me have headbanging meltdowns and can also cause me to become completely dysfunctional for days. So I only tend to express how I feel to the very few people whom I can trust to be able to hear me and not respond in a way that disrupts my processing. Responding with the proper support can be very tricky and your child does not have the maturity and understanding to teach you how to respond in a helpful way. It took me over ten years as an adult to teach my brother how to respond in helpful ways and he is still learning. And you see how eloquent I am. But even for me, it's usually better, easier, and much safer to avoid answering the question completely. Don't get me wrong, I want people to know how I feel very much. But I have learned that most neurotypicals can't relate or handle how I feel because they can't deal with the intensity. So they end up invalidating or gaslighting me and I can't handle that especially if I am trying to process very intense and complex feelings and emotions. So it's best to not say anything. So of course I don't know if your child is experiencing any of these specific things but at least this gives you an idea of what could possibly be happening. What I suggest is that you not press or stress the issue. When people relax and chill out, it gives me the time to process and figure out what's happening inside of me. And it can take a lot of time, even up to years. This can be especially true if I am experiencing delayed emotional processing. I could be processing an emotional event that happened decades ago. This is also very difficult because if I tell a neurotypical that I am processing the emotions or feelings of an event that happened fifty years ago, they are going to insist that get therapy. What they don't understand is that this is normal for me. It's how my brain is designed to work. But I find that the "neurotypical tendency" is always to try to force me to feel "better" right away. This is INCREDIBLY damaging to me because it is invalidating and it prevents me from processing the emotions and feelings in a way that is necessary for my brain to function. So the safest option is to not allow neurotypicals any access to what is really going on unless it is someone whom I have taught how to be supportive. Again, I don't know your child but from my experience talking to many Autistic people and sharing our experiences, the things that I mentioned are common in our community so it would not surprise me if your child was experiencing some of them. My advice is to be very calm and patient. If you don't stress over this, it will help your child relax and that will do wonders to increase the chance that he will eventually begin to find ways to express these things. He needs to know that whatever he expresses is safe to express and that your response will always be a calm and understanding one. If he is not in touch with his own emotions, that might come as he gets older. There are some Autistics who actually truly cannot feel emotions. I was really good friends with one a few years ago. If that is the case with your child, it's ok. People like that can live very healthy and productive lives. My Autistic friend who cannot feel emotions works, is happily married, and is a phenomenonal step father to his wife's children. He figured out how to get around not feeling emotions himself and still be able to meet the emotional needs of his wife and children. So with patience, understanding, and love, you and your child can figure it out. It's hard work and it takes time but allowing yourself to be flexible and creative in your thinking and not being stuck in neurotypical expectation boxes is what will get you through. Please keep in touch. I am so happy to help if I can. I hope this gives you food for thought and helpful ideas. ❤
you might like this video and book about five autistic kids lost in the wilderness....there is a book you might like called Butterfly in the Water at @
You know what we would really appreciate? If you would just ask us why we have these anxieties. We would gladly tell you if you just asked.
Since the final taking of your herbs, my son has been speaking well and responding to his name Thank you for saving my son #droyalo with your herbs
My son is non-verbal and doesn’t use his alt comm device to answer questions besides what foods he wants or which of his preferred activities he wants to participate in. It’s difficult to assess what he is feeling and why he is feeling that way, particularly when multiple family members have trouble identifying feelings, physical and emotional.
@@melissadouglas570 (I am My World Autistic. I have a couple different email addresses so sometimes it gets a little confusing with TH-cam 😊)
It's very possible that he can't identify what he is feeling. Alexithymia, (I might have misspelled that) is very common in Autism. That is a condition where we cannot identify what we feel.
I also know for myself that there are many times when I feel multiple feelings and emotions at the same time and they can be very conflicting with each other. That can make it difficult to decipher them and sort them out in order to try to express them. We also tend to feel our feelings and emotions extremely intensely so we can very easily get extremely overwhelmed by them. This overwhelm can also make it very difficult to understand what we are feeling and express it especially if we are feeling multiple conflicting emotions at once.
The other thing I have often experienced is synaesthesia with my emotions or thoughts or feelings. I don't have this all the time but it happens to me pretty often. Sometimes, rather than experiencing certains thoughts or feelings and understanding them with words, I experience them in color grid patterns. So, for example, when that happens, if someone were to ask me what I was feeling, my answer would be, "maroon and black square grid." That would make no sense to anyone but me. But that is how my brain was processing the experience at the time.
My brother once asked me why I don't like mussels. I told him, because the texture tastes yellow. That also makes sense to no one but me. Even as a little kid, I understood that nobody would have any idea understanding what I was saying if I responded with a synaesthetic answer. I know that if I said something like that, I would have had to deal with the repercussions of that answer. And I did not have the energy or the communicative sophistication to be able to have conversations about synaesthesia. So it was safest to just respond with the most generic answer like "fine" and leave it at that because trying to explain what I was actually feeling or thinking was just too difficult.
Even now, as an adult, I often find it safer to just avoid the conversation completely because what I can be feeling can be so complex that I have found that it overwhelms many neurotypicals when I try to explain. So now, my go to answer is, "I don't know." When I just keep repeating that, most neurotypcals back off and stop asking.
The other reason I hate telling neurotypicals how I feel is that so many times, they respond with platitudes to try to make me feel better. I DETEST that. I cannot tolerate it. Now what I am about to say is the way I personally feel. I need to feel and process and experience whatever I feel to the fullest whether it is a pleasant experience or a traumatic one. It is very important for me to allow my feelings and emotions to run their full course and I need to experience them completely. If someone tries to make me feel better especially with platitudes or positive talk, it completely disrupts and hijacks the process. I can't let that happen. Having someone disrupt that process can make me have headbanging meltdowns and can also cause me to become completely dysfunctional for days. So I only tend to express how I feel to the very few people whom I can trust to be able to hear me and not respond in a way that disrupts my processing. Responding with the proper support can be very tricky and your child does not have the maturity and understanding to teach you how to respond in a helpful way. It took me over ten years as an adult to teach my brother how to respond in helpful ways and he is still learning. And you see how eloquent I am. But even for me, it's usually better, easier, and much safer to avoid answering the question completely.
Don't get me wrong, I want people to know how I feel very much. But I have learned that most neurotypicals can't relate or handle how I feel because they can't deal with the intensity. So they end up invalidating or gaslighting me and I can't handle that especially if I am trying to process very intense and complex feelings and emotions. So it's best to not say anything.
So of course I don't know if your child is experiencing any of these specific things but at least this gives you an idea of what could possibly be happening.
What I suggest is that you not press or stress the issue. When people relax and chill out, it gives me the time to process and figure out what's happening inside of me. And it can take a lot of time, even up to years. This can be especially true if I am experiencing delayed emotional processing. I could be processing an emotional event that happened decades ago.
This is also very difficult because if I tell a neurotypical that I am processing the emotions or feelings of an event that happened fifty years ago, they are going to insist that get therapy. What they don't understand is that this is normal for me. It's how my brain is designed to work. But I find that the "neurotypical tendency" is always to try to force me to feel "better" right away. This is INCREDIBLY damaging to me because it is invalidating and it prevents me from processing the emotions and feelings in a way that is necessary for my brain to function. So the safest option is to not allow neurotypicals any access to what is really going on unless it is someone whom I have taught how to be supportive.
Again, I don't know your child but from my experience talking to many Autistic people and sharing our experiences, the things that I mentioned are common in our community so it would not surprise me if your child was experiencing some of them.
My advice is to be very calm and patient. If you don't stress over this, it will help your child relax and that will do wonders to increase the chance that he will eventually begin to find ways to express these things. He needs to know that whatever he expresses is safe to express and that your response will always be a calm and understanding one.
If he is not in touch with his own emotions, that might come as he gets older.
There are some Autistics who actually truly cannot feel emotions. I was really good friends with one a few years ago. If that is the case with your child, it's ok. People like that can live very healthy and productive lives. My Autistic friend who cannot feel emotions works, is happily married, and is a phenomenonal step father to his wife's children. He figured out how to get around not feeling emotions himself and still be able to meet the emotional needs of his wife and children.
So with patience, understanding, and love, you and your child can figure it out. It's hard work and it takes time but allowing yourself to be flexible and creative in your thinking and not being stuck in neurotypical expectation boxes is what will get you through. Please keep in touch. I am so happy to help if I can. I hope this gives you food for thought and helpful ideas. ❤
What strategies would you recommend for children that have been victims of gun violence ?
Thank you for sharing the information about the evidence-based practice of CBT for treating anxiety in children with ASD!
Since the final taking of your herbs, my son has been speaking well and responding to his name Thank you for saving my son #droyalo with your herbs
you might like this video and book about five autistic kids lost in the wilderness....there is a book you might like called Butterfly in the Water at @
Since the final taking of your herbs, my son has been speaking well and responding to his name Thank you for saving my son #droyalo with your herbs
SURAMIN