Intermittent Explosive Disorder

I think that the toughest part of dealing with my son's condition has always been that none of the professionals from which we have seeked advice have truly contributed to helping us. Really, other than his original childhood Sensory Integration Dysfunction diagnosis, none of the doors we have knocked on have provided us with a solid bit of information on how to help him. At least with the SID, once we knew, we were then able to do some physical therapy, which I believe came a bit too late in his nerve development phase to be of significant help. But just the knowledge of what was wrong made it so much easier for us to adapt, and contribute to his well being.

In the past, during moments of anger, he seemed to not be able to control his rage once it reached a certain level inside him. I am pretty sure we all have this limit, maybe it is what we call our "button," in which when we go over it, or someone touches it, we then just kind of lose some of our own frontal lobe guardianship and just explode in anger. What we do when we are angry might be dependent on learned behaviour. So I encourage you to beware how you explode yourself because you are probably teaching the younger ones present how they should do this later on in life. Think about it, how many times have you found yourself saying exactly the same things one of your parents used to say when they were angry with you? Oh God, I have turned into my mother...you have heard yourself mumble in the past...hahaha!

As I learned from some classes I attended while I had my son going through a 10 week program at a Medical Behavioral Center because of his anger outbursts, is that if you get really angry, explode, do some really stupid things in the middle of your anger, and then finally calm down and feel guilty about the scene you have just caused, then you might have a condition called "Intermittent Explosive Disorder." Holy cow! I think most of us are going to have to call in sick tomorrow because I cannot imagine a single parent that has not blown a fuse at some point or other and then felt like crap the next day for having done so. OK, I'll be fair and consent that I was taught more than just that. They also gave us tools to learn how to deal with our anger, which have come in very handy ever since then.

He was sitting on the apartment's living room anally covered by dad protected couch when I was trying to drag out of him why the hell he could not do his school work like everybody else. I had checked online the status of his school work and discovered that every test he took he had passed with a 100% score, but every homework that was due had a score of 0%, thus bringing his grade average to a spectacular 50%. The kid is brilliant, there is no doubt about that, but if he does not do the work, then what is the point? So like any typical parent I reached out to take away whatever it was that at the moment was important to him so that I could have some kind of bargaining tool to enforce the need of him doing his classwork. There it was, on his lap just pounding away into the thin wires that lead to his ears providing him with the necessary level of buffer to not have to hear anything I was saying...yes, his IPod. I reached for it and janked it out of his lap and in the process jerking the headphone buds out of his ears and allowing what now seemed like chipmunks screaming to reveal themselves as the music continued to play in the device with nowhere else to go but thin air. I had done this stunt before in anger. Typically he would roll his eyes and give me the "I wish you were dead look." But not this time, nope, this time he sprung out of the couch and reached for it back. You need to know that by then, this boy was no longer the cute kid with the Disney glasses weighing close to 80 pounds, no, by now he was taller than me, heavier than me, and a heck of a lot scarier than me too. Well, I stood my ground and wrestled to keep a grip on the now disputed device. Once he saw that I was not going to give it back he reached for one of the chairs from the dining room table and smashed it against the floor (if you come and visit me, this is why I only have five chairs at the table instead of six) and then proceeded to jump on it to ensure that enough damage was done to get me plenty excited. Lots of screaming was filling the air and I could hear myself saying so many of the things I was taught when I was a child by my angry parents and some of my own new repertoire. A mix of embarrassment and anger flowed through my mind, but more than anything, fear. What would happen next? What else would he break? What if he hurts me? And as I had that final thought he ran into the kitchen and grabbed a kitchen knife, pointed it at me and yelled, "GIVE IT BACK!!!"

Just remembering this event brings chills to my body. My own son was pointing a knife at me for the sole purpose of having his IPod back. I did something really stupid then, and in retrospect I would of not proceeded this way having the chance to do it again. He might be big, but I am still much stronger and smarter than him, so I tackled him, took away the knife and then brought him against the floor with all of my body weight on top of him blocking his arms and a with a strong grip pulling on his long now messy hair. While he was still on the ground screaming for me to let him go, I threaten to beat the living crap out of him if he would ever do that again, held him tight for at least a minute more and until he stopped screaming and promised to not continue the physical encounter. Yes, I won. Physically I can take him in a fair fight, but not all fights are going to be fair. In fact, the next and last time he pointed a knife at me again I was trying to take away his electric guitar and instead of facing his rage, I ran out to the street to avoid either one of us getting hurt. I called the cops and dealt with it much differently. The goal is not for me to win, it is for us to win. I needed both of us to be OK, so hence the 10 week program dealing with anger. In a lot of ways it helped, but in many others it was just a waste of time.

We both learned that we need to try to not be angry at each other at the same time, at least not at the same level of anger. If I see him going bonkers, I then have to be the adult and not feed into his anger. This is really hard. Mostly because it is not easy to not get angry when someone is insulting and offending you verbally. No more than five months ago we got into another argument, this time about his inability to go to bed at a reasonable time for him to make it to school the next day, and it was not five minutes into the argument when he started insulting me in such a profane way that I was just boiling inside. I tried, I really tried to keep my own anger under check. Half an hour later he was still at it and I reached for him and point blank to his face threatened him that if he did not stop there was very little chance of me being able to control myself. For a few seconds he could see the rage in my eyes and that I was truly losing it because of his insults so he stopped. Less than a minute later his mom arrived to pick him up and take him to school and as he was walking out the door he proceeded to leave one last insult on his way out. OMG! How could he dare take that last second to add another word to all of what he had already said? I was so angry that I cannot remember exactly what was going through my mind, but I reached for his favorite acoustic guitar that was laying in the family room and I brought it up to the air and then with all of my strength down against the dining room floor smashing it into a million pieces. Even as the beautiful piece of wood was descending down into the ground I could hear voices in my head screaming and telling me to stop (or maybe it was just him), but in all honesty there was absolutely nothing I could do to control that outburst of anger once it had exited my brain and had taken over my hands. I thank God that he was already almost out the door, because I can only imagine how much more guilty I would now feel if I would of smashed it against him instead.

Even though he came in screaming in anger, and promising to burn down my house in revenge, the damage that was done this day and during all the other days of crazy me and crazy him trying to survive together cannot be measured in broken chairs, guitars, or anything else that has faced our wrath. The damage is in what we are not able to forgive afterwards. I have found that even though I might not have much control over the problems that I face, I do have control over how I get over them. Forgiveness is such a powerful and necessary tool in our hardware box for facing life. Once you forgive something you can then go on. Resentment only holds us back and does not allow us to keep living. What is the use of having any kind of relationship if we are always remembering the bad things that have happened only? We truly need to forgive. I truly need to forgive!

Dad