ASD/AS QUESTIONS PLEASE?

[siblingrivalry]

DD (9) has AS. i Have started to notice the beginnings of a sort of 'pattern'. Of course, all of her traits are always there, but I feel as though she can go through a very turbulent period with loads of meltdowns, issues etc and then she will sort of settle down for a couple of weeks and will be slightly less volatile and unpredictable.

I was wondering if anyone else experiences this or if this is just how dd presents.

At the moment, she is having an extremely difficult time and her hand-washing fixation is resulting in sore hands and bleeding cuticles .

It seems that her ASD is always on the move (if that makes sense) as one month she will be incredibly anxious and stressed, the next angry with new OCDs. I'm just really interested to know how other people's children present on a weekly or monthly basis.
I am pretty exhausted at the moment -dd is like a shape shifter and I can't keep pace with her!

TIA

DS1 has very clear phases, too. At the moment it's one long difficult one, but sometimes, he'll have a calm week or so.

Some of the more harmful fixations, we try to break out of by shaking things up a bit to avoid the trigger. He occasionally goes through phases, for example, of bashing his teeth off the side of the bathroom sink, in the morning. I'll make us both stand somewhere different relative to each other and the sink and he doesn't remember to bang his teeth, since the trigger isn't there.

It's frustrating, though, because just as one phase has thankfully vanished, something new is even round the corner.

Practically, for the hand washing, I'd try to introduce rubbing in an emollient cream like oilatum to the hand washing routine.

dear siblingrivalry. ds used to wash his hands about a hundred times a day. luckily we broke the habit now wont wash them at all - cant bloody win !!

I am peachy.Nobody listen if I dont warn of that PMSL.

Yep we have the phases too- wecan tell a bad one is oming when I annouce 'another weeklike this and I might contact DLA and say we don't ned HR any more'. Ameltdown and badphase is guaranteed to start within hours. Every bloody time.

It's literally an overload- thecoping ability has been worn down so you just get a complete breakdown of that. Somethings prompt instantaneous meltdowns, IME the overloadeffect is different-longitudianl- but brings in a surfeit on meltdowns also.

Ifthat makessense?

WRT to handwashing have you thought about introducing a hand gel? DS1 likes those more than water. And YY to emolient- but let her choose because the smell can linger and be a lot if you are hypersensitive.

Yes my ds2 goes through phases at the moment he wants to jag himself with drawing pins. I found one in his He brings them home from school and together we put them in a little jar but he must have sneaked one . He has lots of phases about 2 years ago it was constantly digging his finger nails into my hands and the tops of my arms thankfully that ones stopped for now

bed and i feel terrible for not noticing

Thanks for the replies
Peachy, I half-recognised your username - I would still have taken notice if I hadn't!
What you said makes perfect sense -dd seems to kind of wear herself out by using up all of her coping strategies, then comes crashing down.
I have also had (rare) moments of wondering if we should actually get middle rate care -then she will start a 'bad' period and I will be reminded why we get it!

I am going to get some emollient for hand washing -thanks for that idea. We did try gel, but she says it feels too sticky.

Like Ouryve says -one phase ends and another begins. She used to sleep on the top bunk and literally gnawed away at the wooden bed rail. We dealt with that and she moved onto scratching the skin on her leg til it bled.

We have also had hand-wringing (needed cream in the end as the skin was broken and bleeding) but that thankfully passed.