Autistics and Figuring-out Violence

An autistic is violent.  It is seen as bad behaviour to correct. It likely is not at all.  It is valuable communication.  Those who go silent are lost.  Those who communicate hold out hope.  If we can only listen, figure it out, not rush to subdue, drug, restrain, punish, force.

First efforts need to go into safety for the autistic person and others.

Then into the challenging task of sleuthing, figuring out, discovering what may be causing this alarming communication, and why the communication is a violent one.

Significantly later on might come:

- Some professional interventions (unless you need more help figuring-out the 'why' urgently now)

- Some comorbidity screening 

- Some environmental change & management 

- Demand reduction 

- Some anticipatory strategies

- Some kinesthetic diversion approaches

- Increased chosen interest access

- Co-regulation and collaboration steps

- Some sensory amelioration aides and accesses. 

The process of trial-and-error, the progressive elimination of possibilities, can in the end prove much longer, harder, more expensive, and unsafer than intervening before you discover what his unmet needs are.

In seeking to figure out the 'why', we put the cart after the horse, considering the unmet need, past trauma, fears, where learnt, patterns, triggers, motivations ... the communication inherent in what he is doing.

I would start by

a) validating his "I don't know" verbally with him, and then

b) validating that further by looking into (random sample of considerations - not aimed, not about blame/shame judgements, just seeking)...

- Fear and fight states, 

- Impulsivity and disinhibition,

- Discomfort or pain,

- Bullying and boundary trampling,

- Family dynamics and resentments,

- Sleep deprivation / sleep quality,

- Survival mode and hypervigilance, 

- Anger at being watched/pressured, 

- Extreme PDA threat response,

- Re-enactment and mimicry,

- Past therapy impacts (ANA, PBS, PCIT, etc.),

- Brain damage/seizures,

- Frustration and thwarting (might be brilliant but brittle - for example),

- Boredom and disengagement,

- Anxiety and self-doubt, 

- Perfectionism and self-sabotage,

- Innate hostility to authority,

- Loneliness and isolation,

- Lack of safe communication avenue,

- Needing control and authentication (as an autistic)

- Shared sensory space conflict,

- Overcrowding or lack of separation possibility,

- Lack of effective support,

- Holding things in with no outlet, 

- Interoceptive unawareness / incomprehension,

- Interaction of Au+ADHD+PDA+++ ... and need for an integrated approach to all.

You are at a crisis point.

If he/she is "on the brew", "spoiling for it", has heightened anxiety, seems set-up to explode, before the violence... that is one thing.  But if those states are just not there, not observable, and attacks truly come out of the blue... professional help would be mandatory.