Bad decisions and self punishment

I don't care who you are or what kind of childhood you had, we have all done something we aren't proud of. We have all made bad decisions. That's half of learning when you are growing up after all, mistakes. Some are bigger than other and cost more too, but if you learned something that eventually made you more of an adult, it might have been worth it.

That doesn't mean we should tell our kids to go out and do bad things. We should guide and advise them to the best of our parental abilities. The problem I want to address is when our spectrum kids start to punish themselves for those mistakes. I know I was angry with myself as a child. I didn't know why I kept "screwing up" and began to take a self punishing attitude. Today I have a better understanding and I try to use that with my son. Even so, I still see the possibility of self anger in him. So what can I do to help him understand that we all make bad decisions?

I'll put myself at his level. I remember bad decisions I made and what happened. I can tell him about my experiences so he knows that Dad was a kid once too. I'll be sure to let him know that, today, I'm not proud of those decisions but I sure won't mess them up again. Allow me to give you two examples.

Revenge: I was picked on mercilessly in school and it started in elementary. I was in 6th grade and one of my tormentors was coming at me with a snowball. He intended to shove it in my face, or so he said. He didn't see my friend, Big Jim, coming up from behind him. Jim gave him a bearhug that made him drop that snowball and I did something that surprised them both. I balled up my fist tight in my glove and threw my first right hook ever. Jim was so shocked he let go and that boy hit the ground. I got into a lot of trouble and the Principal asked if I was a bully too. My explanation fell on deaf ears, but I wasn't suspended. All the same, what I did was wrong. I'm not happy about the fact that I did it and I prefer not to get into fights. I'll still defend myself, but I'm not up for revenge. I'll tell my son that hitting didn't solve anything and was a very poor choice on my part.

Competition flaw: Spring of that same year found me walking to school with friends. For some reason we were getting into who could jump the farthest or run the fastest. I picked up a rock and stated I could throw it further than any of them. Naturally they didn't believe me. I said I could throw it clear over a nearby house into the street on the other side. And I went for it before anyone could say anything. I had just as much trouble with my impulses as my son sometimes has with his. The rock cleared the privacy fence and vanished from sight. Even though we couldn't see where it went, the crash of shattering glass was unmistakeable. I was in big trouble. Naturally I ran, and even tried to lie my way out of it. No dice on that and it made the situation much worse. I got a beating, extra chores, and a long grounding. Dad had to pay for the window and I had to write a letter of apology. One bad choice can lead to enough damage without trying to compound it with more bad choices.  Now, if I make a mess I own up to it. I'm the one who should clean up and pay the damage.

Bad choices, we all make them and certainly made them in childhood. We all went through something or other that we aren't proud of today. We survived and hopefully learned a lesson, tough or not. And we all want to be our kids heroes. We want to be that larger than life power for them. But, sometimes, I think it's okay to share our pitfalls with them so they can see it's not so different and not the end of the world. It's a good example for the truth that we must learn from our bad decisions and need not punish ourselves forever on them.

Autistic self injury and seizures

People have a tendency to see self injury as the "victims own fault". I have heard this many times and it is in error in many cases. Self injury occurs for several reasons.

Some do it for a release of endorphins that can cancel out pain. Often these people are seriously depressed or suffering other mental conditions. The fact that they seek solace in self harm should not make it a matter of fault. They still need treatment and without it, will continue to self harm. It may not be as much of a "choice" as it looks.

In the autistic the lack of choice is especially true. Consider this paste from an article on Autism.com:

"Self-injurious behavior has also been associated with seizure activity in the frontal and temporal lobes (Gedye, 1989; Gedye, 1992). Behaviors often associated with seizure activity include: headbanging, slapping ears and/or head, hand-biting, chin hitting, scratching face or arms, and, in some cases, knee-to-face contact. Since this behavior is involuntary, some of these individuals seek some form of self-restraint (e.g., having their arms tied down). Seizures may begin, or are more noticeable, when the child reaches puberty, possibly due to hormonal changes in the body."

Mine started when I was six or seven years old. More to quote:

"Since seizure-induced, self-injurious behaviors are involuntary, one may not observe a relationship between the person's behavior and his/her environment. However, since stress can trigger a seizure, there may be a relationship between stressors in the environment and self-injury. This may include too much physical stimulation (e.g., lighting, noise) and/or social stimulation (e.g., reprimands, demands). Foods may also induce seizures (Rapp, 1991). If the behavior began or got worse during puberty, one may also consider the possibility of seizure activity. If seizures are suspected, it is recommended that the person have an EEG."

See the whole article HERE.

I am on medication that helps to keep my incidents in check. I am very careful to remove myself from stressful situations that may cause an incident and have a "cool down" area in my home for just such issues. I use a fan for cooling and a white noise effect. I rest until my system calms.

My son has suffered this as well. If upset enough, he will bite himself or head bang. It's important to intervene on this as much as you can and as soon as you can. Medications may be necessary.

The dangers of long term head banging and self injury are permanent damage to the brain, cranial nerves, or skin. Biting can cause blood exposure, bleeding, damage to hands and arms, and permanent scarring.

I have to say that head banging is probably the most dangerous because of brain injury possibilities. Not only that, but damage to cranial nerves alone can cause significant disability. If the person uses their fists for all those years they can permanently damage nerves in the hands and wrists from all the hitting as well.

I have permanent cranial nerve damage and I can't tell you how embarrassing it is to have to explain it to anyone. I do though, for the sake of education. I just wish, if they could have done anything for me in my child hood, that they could have helped me with that. They weren't diagnosing autism in my age range or geographic area for age range in my teen days. No one caught on.

So it's important that you catch on now, especially if your child is engaging in self damaging behavior. Find out why and get it treated. Don't let it disable them permanently.

Learning from mistakes versus shame

My son made a couple of choice recently that he deeply regretted. I won't go into the details of them here and now. I would rather present the lesson they have brought us to.

In both of these situations his decision did get him scolded and corrected. They were serious decisions and did affect others around him. Recently he's taken to being hard on himself at various times of self frustration. He refers to himself in a harmful manner and degrades himself angrily. This has brought about an intervention of lesson that is very important for him. It told me he needs my support and if your child on the spectrum does this, they need your support too.

The lesson here and correction for this, is that it's more important to learn from our decisions and mistakes than to feel shame for them or beat ourselves up over them. No one wants us to hurt ourselves in any fashion. They prefer we learn something, make changes and move on. This is not such an easy thing for an autistic person to do in the first place. But if we apply early support to our children in this lesson, could it become easier for them? I sure hope so.

So I've told my son that I don't want him to call himself names or be ashamed (yes he used the word 'ashamed'). I want him to learn from his mistakes. His teachers want him to learn from them too. I've told him that I would never want him to feel shame or dislike himself over anything. We all make mistakes, sometimes they are embarrassing or silly, but mistakes all the same. We have to learn something from them so we don't make those mistakes again.

Next I asked him what he learned from this decision and talked with him about ways to avoid making that mistake in the future. In both cases it was about making a different decision, one that would keep him out of trouble. So long as he does that, there is no reason for him to worry any more.

But the rest of the lesson and intervention continues. It seems that this is a phase that must be dealt with. It requires correction and teaching so that he doesn't develop a habit of hurting himself as a mode of self punishment. No one deserves that and it's easy to fall into.