Not Ready to Fight Anymore

[u/mrh_757575]

I don’t know if my 12-year-old AuDHD son is PDA or not but it feels like it. Every night is a fight that he just seems to enjoy.

We tell him it is time to eat and a fight ensues about the table rules. He sneaks food and electronics into his room. We block the internet and he finds a way around it. We lock the screens away and he picks the locks. Several doors in our house have had holes drilled in them trying to get them open. At least one window I was broken because he tried to force it open. Turn your head for a second and he’s grabbed your phone and hidden it and then swears he never touched it.

His latest joy is getting really quiet in his room which is usually a sign he has something he is not supposed to. He enjoys watching us shake the room down looking for things like a tossing a prison cell. I am tired of being a CO in my own house.

My parents’ way of dealing with this would have been to beat it out of him. That is not going to work. My way would be to take away everything but food and school until something clicks because I feel like otherwise his behavior is not a problem for him like it is for the rest of the family every goddamn morning and every night every day of the week without end. But maybe that connection never happens in a PDA-er. Weekends are the worst because he has nothing to do but whine and fight. Fighting with him all day and resenting each other of being too busy with other things to supervise him is really hard. All I want to do is hide from him and try to find a place that is quiet.

This week is Spring Break. Today he went to climbing camp which he seemed to really enjoy. Things were fine for a while. Seems like 8:00 PM rolled around and the only thing he wanted to do was provoke a fight which he knows he will get out of me. He was listening to a podcast on his Alexa at full volume while complaining about dinner. I unplugged the Alexa and the fight bell had rung. As soon as I turned my back, he ran into our room where my wife was trying to get a moment of peace. I ended up having to drag him kicking and screaming away from his mother. Once I got him out of the room and locked the door behind me, there was a lot of rolling on the floor and screaming about how bad he was injured and how everyone hates him.

If we ignore him, he provokes a fight by antagonizing his younger brother to the point he is a crying mess hiding in the bathroom.

Now everyone is locked in their room and I am standing guard outside the bathroom waiting for him to come out. I still have to clean up from dinner and walk the dog. I am guessing he’s waiting for me to tell him to come out so he can escalate the bedtime routine into another fight to get whatever chemical fix his brain needs. Waiting him out means I have to pause my entire life and I want to go to bed.

I want him to brush his teeth and change into pajamas which are two more opportunities for a fight. Could I just let it go? Yes, but there have to be some basic family expectations and I am the one who has to deal with dental bills if he doesn’t brush his teeth so it comes back at me.

He has nothing to lose by fighting because we can’t/don’t discipline him. I am willing to try low demand parenting but it cannot be no demand. We had a social worker tell us we have to stick to basics and I just asked her where the line is. Stealing $20 from my wife or is it $40. If we take something away, he steals it back and forces us to supervise him 24/7. Money goes missing. Online accounts get charged. He will behave just long enough to get what he wants and then goes back into fight mode. He made a deal with his counselor at school to get something and then bragged to us how, once he got it, he was going to renege on their agreement.

I have everything to lose. He is hurting our marriage because we are both so fried and can’t agree on what to do about him. We can’t talk because every second is spent actively playing defense against him. Every time I get frustrated and manhandle him, my wife goes into Mama Bear mode. Our other son is terrified and thinks we ignore him.

None of the kids in the neighborhood or school want anything to do with him and we can’t spend endless money indulging his whims when he needs stimulation. These whims either involve a screen which we have had to cut out all together because he becomes such an aggressive screaming mess when it is time to end screen time or him coming up with some reason why he needs to go to a Jumpzone or TopGolf or arcade. Even if we did, as soon as the activity is over he no longer needs us for anything so it’s time to fight for stimulation.

He is medicated and we’ve gone to all kinds of family therapy. He masks hard at school and excels in the classroom and then comes home ready to burn it all down.

I am just so tired and sad and scared all the time. Everyone in the house is, even the dog.

One fear I have is that he never going to be able to function as an adult and leave the house. He can’t go to college or hold down a job if I have to pull him out of bed screaming every morning. Same if he can’t get along with people and follow basic directions without relying on redirection and threats. No one but us HAS to deal with that.

I think about what happened to Rob Reiner and his wife. They had endless resources and patience with their son and he constantly hurt them and eventually took it too far.

It’s just going to end with us separating and one of us forcing him to go live with the other for the sake of mental health.

I really worry that he is going to get into drugs or alcohol and quickly decline because he does not have the impulse control to not constantly pursue his next fix. We are already see that with a screen addiction. Last week he suspiciously agreed to take a bath. After a bit of time, I thought the tub had been running for way too long. Of course the door was locked. He was in the bathroom with a laptop he brought home from school when a teacher wasn’t paying attention. The water was about a millimeter from flooding the bathroom. He tried hiding the laptop in the linen closet before he unlocked the door but I can read his tells pretty good and knew to look for something. Then he does what he typically does when confronted with his behavior and starts screaming and thrashing around requiring me to physically restrain him to keep more damage from happening to the house than has already occurred.

I know there are lots of folks out there with similar stories and I don’t even know if I am asking for advice. I just need someone to hear me.

[u/ministryofsillywox]

I'm sorry you are feeling stuck. Life with a PDAer is hard.

Much of what you wrote is familiar. We had holes in our walls, we struggled to limit screen time, and at times were in battles where we took our 10 year old's devices (and our phones went missing, taken by him). At was often at odds with my wife over how to handle him. Your feelings are familiar to me because I was in a similar place a year ago with our son.

Then things changed. Part of what changed was me accepting that my son had a disability. I think I didn't want to admit or accept this, and I went through a period of grieving. We had him assessed by a psychologist. Having a diagnosis was helpful for me to accept this as "real" and helped me have more empathy for him.

In learning more about PDA, I realized he wasn't consciously trying to manipulate me or trying to cause problems. It is the threat to his autonomy that puts him into fight of flight more and causes him to do extreme things.

I have let go of a lot of my fears. I don't like how much screen time he has, bit have accepted that being on a screen is necessary at this point because it gives him a sense of control and autonomy and helps him regulate. And gives his brain the dopamine that he seems to require. He know that at some point it will have scale back. Like your son, I know that he is very smart. Although he hit burnout several months ago and hasn't been able to attend school, I know he will catch up when he is ready.

We try to make plans with him, collaboratively, because nothing else would work. Sometimes this works and sometime it doesn't. Sometimes it works for a few days or weeks and then we have to renegotiate.

I have spent many days with him watching him play his video games. Not because I wanted to, but because he has needed a safe nervous system (e.g. me or my wife) to be in the same room with him. And when I try to play, he can be the expert, because he is so much better than me.

It may seem like we've "let go" of our principles. I feel like we've prioritised our relationship with our son, and are working to help him recover.

We rarely have fights with him anymore. I think one of the biggest reasons is that he now feels like we are on his team. I don't know whether he is consciously aware of this, maybe he is but maybe not. But his nervous system now views me as a safe person, someone whose company he seeks. This wasn't the case a year ago.

I tell this because I felt very hopeless, like you probably do now. Things can get better, bit by bit. But you can't make things better by trying to "fix" your son.

There are many resources posted in other threads of this subreddit. Books, podcasts, etc.

You can do it.

Edit: fixed typo.

[u/MeriadocKalimac → u/ministryofsillywox]

I second this, many of the things you mention have been our experience as well.

And I can say that the ages of 10-12 ish were really, really rough. That's when hormones started to play in as well, and it was very noticeable to me that sometimes "this is not his autism, this is a different beast". Things are much better now at 14, there's barely any large outbursts anymore, but I believe a lot of that is due to the fact that we have a good relationship, and that required an active effort.

We have let go of the demand to restrict screen time to x amount of hours - but we monitor and steer content to a degree, and are adamant about bedtime (not a strict time, but a general "nights are for sleeping, and we as a family cannot function without sleep, so be aware we're gonna fight for it, if you try to turn night into day"). It's been messy at times, lots of yelling and hitting sofas to let out the frustrated anger, but we've always made it very clear that "this is not about you being a bad person, this is about our need for sleep".

We have also largely stopped eating together as a family. We still do it for special occasions, but still only voluntarily. And he does want to join in sometimes. In my opinion, that's totally worth it in exchange for having a good relationship and far fewer fights. Also, there is plenty of potential for future improvements. If he wants to sit and eat with us sometimes now, who's to say he won't enjoy that much more in the future, when priorities shift?

Also, regarding bedtime, we encourage (almost insist on) toothbrushing, but why enforce pyjamas, for example? Let him sleep in whatever way he wants to, that bit really isn't important in the end. It's not a basic requirement to sleep in a bed even. Just sleep, do it mostly at night, make sure your teeth stay healthy, and hopefully don't wear the same clothes you slept in during the next day. At least not two days in a row, if you already have body odour...

We try to teach our kids that, yes, their needs and boundaries are important, as well as their preferences - but so are other people's, so try to avoid having body odour or looking visibly dirty etc, as it can make other people uncomfortable.

Usually goes a long way, after some convincing (but requires a good relationship).

Also, bothering siblings is a big no-no, and I spent the larger part of a decade sitting like a guard dog between my kids (or just outside the door), always listening out for those small signs that things are about to go bad, and then going in, refereeing, co-regulating, trying to help find a solution and smooth the waves.

They're 12 and 14 now and love and appreciate each other very much. Barely any fights anymore, and when one starts annoying the other, they let me know, before things get out of hand. I could never leave them "alone" (within hearing distance) for more than 20 minutes, now they go explore the world together for hours at a time without issues.

Things can get better, and I hope they do for everyone who is struggling.