Is this part of Asperger's?

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Just at the point when my difficult child is learning empathy (he was incensed at the reporters shoving microphones in the faces of US Air crash survivors), he is backsliding in regard to personal hygeine.

He's still got a thing for urinating into or onto anything besides a toilet. (Long-time members will recall our previous experiences.)

Several times in the past few mo's, we have awakened to a very smelly sink in the bathroom. This a.m, easy child said there was standing urine in it and she cleaned it. (She is sooooo looking forward to moving out and going to college!)

I asked difficult child why he would do that instead of using the toilet. (The key to some of this is how to phrase it; if I ask, "Who peed in the sink!!!?" he will deny it by some obscure technicality, just like a seasoned lawyer.)

He said he had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night but wasn't going to make it, so he used a juice packet, and then dumped the packet into the sink.

I asked him why he used the sink instead of the toilet. He said because it makes a lot of noise and he didn't want to wake me and upset me.
I told him, "I'm upset right now so it didn't work, did it? This is not acceptable."

I also asked him why he couldn't have just run quickly, because it surely took him 30 seconds to take the juice pkt to the bathroom and dump it, so he still had to get up. He told me I didn't understand.

I said, "Let's go find the juice packet and throw it away."
We went through his trash and the bathroom waste basket and of course, there was no juice packet because he probably made up the whole thing.
He's got such twisted logic.
Maybe he went straight into the sink because it is, in fact, quieter than the toilet.

It's just so hard living with-a weirdo. He is so lacking in social conventions. I just want to wake up one day with-o the smell of urine or feces or Major League B.O. pervading every corner of the house, and just go for one day with-o someone poking my arm, poke, poke, poke, poke, poke ... and repeating my name 52 million times. (Sorry, had to insert a short rant in there.)

This seems like an Aspie thing. He really doesn't seem to get it.

:sad-very:
 
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crazymama30

Active Member
I don't know if it is part of Asperger's, but my difficult child does the poke poke poke, and the name repetition--he does that way more. He tends to do those things more when he is anxious or really wound up and excited.

The urinating thing hoovers. My difficult child will go beside the toilet but I think that is because he literally cannot slow down to aim (sorry, can't figure how else to put it) before his patch kicks in. That would certainly get old quick. I know when my difficult child "misses" I give him a bucket and some rags and make him clean it.

My difficult child has been compulsive about his baths lately. He takes all his Bakugan toys with him and has battles. I hope he is washing, but at least he is soaking in warm water.
 

MyHrt31

New Member
I know that my son has very odd habits. He is scared to death of the bath tub. He will not get into the water if I put bubbles in and he will not go to the toilet if the shower curtain is closed. He is often so frightened of going to the bathroom by himself that he urinates on the seat and sometimes on the floor because he is in such a hurry. He'll put chairs up around the bathtub and near the closet to "block" whatever it is he is afraid of. I have asked the psychologist about this and she said that some kids with Aspergers just have different sensory issues and habits that make them unique. This doesn't mean that it should be acceptable but it makes it a little easier to understand that its just another part of what makes Aspies so unique. Strange as it sounds, they have their own habits and many times, those habits drive us nuts, lol. Have you tried adding this to a point system where there will be consequences when it happens? I'm sorry, I wish I could offer you more advice. I know how frustrating it can be. Hang in there, they need us (as quirky as we may already be, lol) to guide them in this already crazy life :)
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Hmmm... maybe there is a pattern to this. I'll talk to the therapist about it. I'd love to talk to difficult child about it but he'll balk if I bring it up too much. Plus, he isn't really aware of it, despite the fact he's been told. It's so minor to him.
 
M

ML

Guest
To me this is a little thing. In all other bathroom situations he does use the toilet. But I will say that he thinks it's fun to go behind a bush if he's out on a hike or some place where there is no choice.

Our biggest bathroom concerns were around constipation. As long as I keep up the fiber and water he's fine, but he does have anxiety about using public/school restrooms so if he has to go during the day I know he holds it.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Hi Terry--

The more I read about what others are experiencing...the more I am convinced that my daughter fits the 'Aspergers' description. I, too, would like some relief from the poke, poke, poke, poke, poke, poke, poke....and the name, name, name, name, name, name, name.... AARRGGHH!!!

And the odors....and the strange, convuluted stories to explain the un-explainable.

I never thought of any of these behaviors as 'symptoms'--but I am definitely beginning to wonder. How nice to finally have other parents to compare notes with!
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
My high functinoning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) son until two years ago would urinate in pop bottles that he'd finished with because he didn't want to take time away from what he was doing. Now he has suddenly become very clean about his room, but back then...well, let's just say he'd say, "It's lemonade! Really!"
And it wasn't.
We still have to force him to shower. He doesn't care if he smells and doesn't like the smell or feel of deoderant. Sometimes he will put on a dirty shirt that stinks and spray deoderant in the arm pit of his dirty shirt (not on his skin). These are the little reasons I feel he will need assisted living (an apartment where somebody checks in on him either once a day or a few times a week). He KNOWS what is socially approproate, but he doesn't CARE.
I don't mind living with him. He's the best kid on earth and I feel he has a great future, even if he's quirky or needs a little help. He is the light of my life and I embrace his "differences." We adopted him at age two and we knew he was going to be a bit, er, um...different ;)
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
ML, you mean, it's a little thing to you?
It's a big thing to us.

To clarify, do you mean, he uses the toilet, he, your difficult child or our difficult child? Sometimes our difficult child does, sometimes he hits the seat, sometimes he hits the floor, sometimes he uses the sink downstairs. I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes and I was blaming some of it on the dogs. I lost two huge corn plants this winter because "the dog" was lifting his leg on them. I scrubbed the brass pots and bleached the insides, but it still smelled.
Well, I think it was the dog. LOL.

I absolutely refuse to believe that the dog goes in the downstairs bathroom sink. He's a big collie but he's not that big!

The house stinks. It's unsanitary.

And, it turns out that not only did difficult child lie about the juice pkt, but he missed and got it all over his sister's toothbrush and other items on the bathroom countertop. (Maybe that will teach her to put things away!)

MWM, I don't know yet whether my son will need assisted living. He's only 12. But it does make me wonder ...
I DO mind living with-my son. I love him. He can be funny and clever. He's cute. Gorgeous, actually.
But there are so many other odd things, that it really disrupts my train of thought. He still has a poor sense of boundaries and I have to lock my office door and hide a lot of items.
I have taught myself many alternative reactions, behaviors and ways of thinking. Still, he's not easy to live with.

For example, the other day when I went to lock the door, he had his hand there and I nicked him with-my fingernail. He roared at me. You'd have thought I stuck him with-a cattle prod! I did the same thing with-easy child the other day and she hardly even noticed. I apologized profusely and she looked at me like I was nuts.

Anyway, it does look like this is part of his Asperger's. :) He's inside of himself and has to learn that he operates in a larger world.
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Terry, I hear ya. My son has really improved. His boundaries are normal, for example. Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) kids tend to grow by leaps and bounds, and I know you are doing all you can for your son. He will probably be a lot different by the time he is 18. My son is 15 1/2 and I think he will be a lot different at 18 too!!!
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Travis still has the personal hygiene thing. But I never had issues with him not urinating in the toilet. (thanks my lucky stars on that one)

At 22 Travis believes that if he sits in a tub of scalding hot water for 2 hrs he is clean. Notice I didn't say a word about soap. That's because if he uses it I've never seen any evidence of it. Often he leaves the water standing in the tub when he's finished. It's as clean as when he got into it. ugh Although I do believe he is finally washing his hair. He has learned that people don't want to be near you if you don't use deodorant. (took long enough) But I can't get him convinced that people don't wear the same outfit for 30 days straight, clean or dirty.

All that said......he is finally bathing everyday. A major triumph.

I know I made you all feel sooooooo much better. :rofl:
 

4timmy

New Member
Hi Terry

I'm with you. It's unsanitary, and it drives me and my husband nuts.

I have to just close my difficult child's door to his room when I don't have time to clean it. My difficult child will urinate where ever he's sitting when he's "too busy" to go to the bathroom. He's gotten better, but it still happens once in awhile. I even bought those overnite pants (diapers) and made him wear those while he's playing his video games just in case he decides he doesn't want to break from the game!! We put a urinal in his room too and this seemed to work for awhile. It was still pretty gross to clean out, but it was better than having it in the carpet or in his trash can (yes, he would go in his trash can too).

I have a hard time getting him to take a bath, so recently I started giving him a choice between a bath and a shower and I think this makes him feel empowered by getting to choose (??) Now if I could just get him to brush his teeth regularly! I can only get him to bath like twice a week -- which isn't enough. I hope it gets better when he hits puberty because then he will really smell.

Hang in there!!!
 
Terry,

I wrote a response and hit a wrong button - It's floating somewhere in cyber space... I've been doing this alot lately. Anyway, I'm going to try again.

I totally understand how hard it is to live with difficult children!!! Like you, I hate all of the issues with hygiene. difficult child 1 is almost 18. We still have to tell him to take a shower, brush his teeth, trim his nails, etc... If it were up to him, he would wear the same dirty jeans and tee every single day. To him, anything that interferes with gaming is just a waste of time:(. And, he misses the toilet quite a bit - Doesn't care. I make him clean it up. He gets furious.

on the other hand, difficult child 2 is incapable of taking care of himself. No matter how hard we try to teach him how to brush his teeth, take a shower, etc., he still has problems doing these things. He has no concept of time whatsoever. We have to set a timer when he takes a shower. If we forget to set it, he'll stay in the shower until we tell him to get out - He still comes out with soap in his hair, dirt on his face, etc... As far as aiming in the toilet, forget it. He cleans it up if we ask him but he just ends up making a worse mess no matter how many times we show him how to do it. I get so frustrated!!! I feel like I'm still taking care of a toddler:(. And, we've tried everything from laminated picture charts, to written charts, etc., Nothing works!!!

difficult child 2 has some really unusual behaviors too. He tries to save scraps of toenails in a small plastic box. When I explain to him why we don't do this, he acts surprised that they're in his room (It must have been a monster from out of space who put them there... Just me being sarcastic). After he acts surprised that they're there, he gets angry and "tantrums." difficult child 2 is fascinated by what he finds up his nose (sorry, I KNOW how disgusting this is!!!). When he is angry, he'll smear the contents of his nose everywhere.

difficult child 2 is a pack rat. He saves everything - And, I mean everything - scraps of paper with pictures on them of what he calls "monkeys" (He draws wacked out stick figure things with bushy tails and calls them monkeys. Just looking at one of these scraps of paper with a "monkey" on it, makes him laugh hysterically. And, if you go to throw one of them out, he goes into a fit of rage), bits of string, broken elastics, broken bits of toys, etc. He REFUSES to throw anything away. He keeps his prized possessions in a large plastic box under his bed. I could just go on and on and on, etc... His behavior is so strange!!!

Living with my difficult children, drives me almost over the "edge" daily. I'm sorry, this is your thread, not mine. Anyway, if it helps you at all, you are definitely not alone in your feelings. Sending lots of hugs... WFEN
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Terry,
It may be an Asperger thing too but my difficult child use to do this a lot and he is not autistic. When he would younger, he would urinate in his blocks, in the corner of his room, etc..., that and hide his feces in the drawers in his room.

Now we are dealing with the missing the toilet. After he uses the toilet, I have to make sure I wipe down the toilet seat. The bathrooms just reek of urine and husband is constantly cleaning it to get the smell out. It drives me crazy!!

His hygeine is horrible-trying to get him to shower is not an easy thing. He picks his nose and wipes it wherever he wants-gross. He doesn't understand when we explain why he shouldn't do this.

I also get a lot of the poking, husband actually gets it more.

I can totally understand your frustrations!! Hugs.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Wiz didn't urinate anywhere unusual. But when my dad was little he heard the phrase "a pot to **** in" so he would open up one specific cabinet and pee in one specific pot.

YEARS later my aunt still lived in the house my dad grew up in. Her son (undiagnosed but with a LOT of Aspie characteristics) somehow did the EXACT same thing - in the exact same cabinet and the exact same pot.

It is VERY GROSS and my Gma and my Aunt were each very much not thrilled with this.

I think Wiz knew I was very anti-video games and tv and if he had done something like refuse to stop to go potty he wouldn't have had video games or tv. I had some really strict ideas when I only had one kid, LOL!

But Wiz also had urinary problems from birth. At age 22 months he had to have urinary surgery to fix 2 things - and he WOKE UP during the surgery. The anesthesiologist gave him the wrong medication and couldn't give him any more or put him back under with-o killing him, so Wiz was restrained while they closed up the surgery on the urethra. When he was 4 they had to go back and fix it, and it was horrible. He also had hernia surgery in there. So he didn't potty train until quite late. Each time he had surgery it set him back from being ready to try. But when he finally did it, he did it. HE was so determined NOT to have accidents that with the last urinary surgery they had a catheter in him for 10 days. He was supposed to have no control over his bladder, but he did. Somehow he managed to control it - the doctor said he had never seen anything like that.

When an Aspie is determined, they are VERY determined.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
4Timmy, wow, that sounds like my difficult child! Thank you! :)

WFEN, OMG, the toenails! I totally forgot! Ggf wanted to do that a few yrs ago. I freaked. I told him he could collect toy cars and snowglobes but NOT toenail clippings. He couldn't see why not. He insisted he would clip behind my back and hide them somewhere. I told him I'd find them and throw them away.
Luckily, it was a passing fancy.

Ew, Sharon. Uh, thank you. LOL.

Susie, what a story! Poor kid.
You're right, I think one characteristic is that when they set their minds to something, they really stick to it.

Thank you all! This has been very enlightening.
 
M

ML

Guest
what I meant to say is that manster pees in the tub at times which is right next to the toilet. I just run the water. This is an isolated thing in that he only does this in the bathroom in his room, and I think he's doing it to annoy me at this point. He thinks it's funny. I didn't mean to minimize the issue in general, I apologize.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
We've had the packrat thing, in triplicate. It's got so that I can't throw stuff out easily either, mainly because the problem can sometimes seem so insurmountable.

What we've done over the years, when dealing with the idiosyncrasies of our kids - we'd listen to their reasoning, then work to find a more satisfactory (however short-term and odd) solution.

For example, your problem, Terry - your difficult child said that
1) he didn't want to make a noise and disturb you;
2) he didn't have time to go al lthe way to the toilet;
3) he'd been asleep in bed and suddenly needed to go, urgently.

So let's analyse this. The not wanting to make a noise issue - night-time is when noises really carry. When you're going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, every sound seems like an earthquake. He may be very self-conscious about the sound he makes when going to the toilet, as well as ANY sounds he makes in the middle of the night. The sensible thing to have done, at least afterwards, would be to flush the bathroom basin by turning on the tap. But this makes noise, so he might have been reluctant to do this. Also, he wouldn't think of it because he's not really thinking of others (despite his protestation that he didn't want to disturb you). Once the pressure was off his bladder, he didn't have a problem any more.

So what can we do to answer his concerns?
He doesn't want to make noise; he doesn't want to go to too much trouble; he doesn't want to take too much time.

Here is my suggestion - buy a number of those plastic bottles they provide in hospitals for men to use when they're bed-bound. The deal is, he can use a bottle at night instead of trying to find the toilet (and miss) and certianly instead of using whatever other receptacle. In the morning, the bottle gets emptied and rinsed out.

The advantage to difficult child in doing this - it's a privilege, it means he has the convenience and the silence. If he complies, he gets to keep the use of the bottle. If he messes up, he loses the bottle and it's back to the midnight run to the toilet.

The other string to the bow is bribery (aka incentive, or positive reinforcement). If he has used the bottle, and NOT used something he shouldn't have, he earns an immediate (small) reward (for difficult child 3, it was generally a mini-box of M&Ms).

Any mess - HE has to clean it up. Not as punishment, but as consequence. He has to not only clean up his spill, but if it's been sitting there then he has to disinfect and deodorise it, as well as anything else contaminated.

Microbiologically-speaking, urine isn't that bad. It's sterile (until bacteria from the air get into it and turn it into ammonia). It won't bring the ants (unless he's diabetic). It's not going to give everyone food poisoning.

However, it does need to be cleaned up.

We rely on vinegar a great deal. The kids learned that I would insist on them cleaning up their mess in communal areas.

Some of the "fun" things my kids have don, in the same odd way:
1) difficult child 1 would swat blood-filled mosquitoes in his room (he slept on the top bunk) and refuse to clean the corpses off the walls and ceiling. He claimed that leaving them there was a deterrent to other mosquitoes. I had to repeatedly stand over him after handing him the spray-on cleanser and a cloth, and watch while he scrubbed his walls and ceiling. He also did this in the toilet (the air vent in the roof let mosquitoes in there).

2) easy child 2/difficult child 2 (and difficult child 1 at times, I suspect) would, while wiping themselves after using the toilet, sometimes 'miss' and get **it on their fingers. They would then wipe their fingers on the walls. WHY they didn't just grab some more toilet paper and wipe teir fingers on that, I could never understand. They both denied it but it could have been nobody else, so I made them take turns cleaning the walls with a scrubbing brush, on the grounds that it mightn't have been them THIS time but it had been them enough times in the past, when I had cleaned it up, that they owed me a lot of turns at cleaning. Making them clean it up was the only way they seemed to eventually get the message.

3) Some of all of the kids (never identified the culprit) would relieve themselves in various places in the bathroom (no toilet in there). The floor drain always smelled ammoniacal. So husband & I began to make the kids take turns swabbing down the entire bathroom floor after all the kids had had their evening bath. We'd go in and do the sniff test after the job was done, and make tem do it over, at least round the drain, if it still smelled. Interestingly, it was difficult child 1 who never seemed to notice the smell...

4) difficult child 1 was a shocker with personal hygiene, especially in the black period after breaking up with his first girlfriend (a long-term relationship). He wouldn't wash, he wouldn't change his clothes, he wouldn't brush his hair, he barely spoke. The hygiene issue was a big one, so I began going into his room when he was at school and taking whatever clothing and bedding I could reach, and washing it. He complained a great deal when I washed his bedding and/or pyjamas, because he said it didn't feel or smell right when it had been washed. It took time and a lot of effort, but slowly we got some improvement in there.

Now some practical tips; I've shared these before. When cleaning, anything of biological origin, especially if it contains protein, will respond to enzyme cleaners. Vinegar will also shift not only stains, but smells. For smells and/or stains, wet them with vinegar (buy cheap stuff just for cleaning - it doesn't have to be labelled "for cleaning" because often that stuff is more expensive). Then toss them in a heap for an enzyme soak (if you think it needs it). Then give them a normal wash in COLD water. Never wash biological origin smells/stains in hot water, you risk nailing the problem in place.
With the vinegar - it doesn't mattter if you splash it on and the garment then dries - the vinegar will stlll do its job because when it dries some of it still remains and will be reconstituted when the garment gets wet again, when being washed.

Next great product - those "oxy-action" ones. I use it with my regular laundry powder, or sometimes in a special stain treatment.

Third - a bar of soap in a plastic soap dish. I try to keep a bit of water in the soap dish so the soap is soggy underneath. Then for any greasy stains, or "ring around the collar" stains, you scribble on the stain with the soggy soap, like you're drawing with crayons.

Once we started doing this with the mess the kids made of their environment, plus the mess they made of their clothing, we began to see some improvement. It needed a routine, a lot of reminders constantly (not nagging) and almost walking them through it, to slowly see improvement. We're now doing this with difficult child 3. We monitor how long he has been wearing his current garments and tell him, "You've worn those jeans for the past three weeks, they're covered in clay, go put them in the wash."
Or, "I know you love that shirt, you've worn the same one all week, but if you don't want it to rot away, you need to look after it. So take it off, take it to the laundry, spray it with vinegar from the spray bottle, then put it in the laundry tub so it will get washed next laundry day."

We monitored difficult child 1 (and now difficult child 3) for BO. Where possible we make him have a daily shower (it used to be bath) and follow up with, "Did you put deodorant on?"
Next morning, "Did you put deodorant on?" and we watch while he pulls up his shirt to put the deodorant on his under-arm. We shopped around to buy a deodorant that had a high level of active ingredient and was in a delivery system he was happy to use. For example, boys getting underarm hair tend to suddenly stop using roll-on deodorant, because the hairs get trapped in the roller ball. Ouch!
If we detect BO and there's no time to shower, we insist on:
1) remove the shirt and any other undergarments. Spray them with vinegar in te armpit area and put them in the laundry tub.

2) Wash the armpits with a wet wipe (we keep a packet in each bathroom and in each toilet; we also keep a bin in each place).

3) Put on deodorant.

4) Put on a clean shirt.

BO will tansfer from body to shirt, and from shirt to body. If you put a BO'd shirt onto a clean, deodorised body, you transfer BO back to the body. And vice versa. And a kid who is reluctant to shower, won't want to waste a wash!

A lot of the reason they do all this gross stuff, is they like what they are used to. They don't smell their own bad smells, and often dirty clothing also feels softer and smells/feels familiar. They like sameness. You need to teach them to overcome this and to recognise 'dirty' smells.

It is amazing how far they can be taken down the socially acceptable road. I never thought that difficult child 1 would ever be able to live independently. And now he's married!
Mind you, I suspect his wife is now wondering what he does with his underwear. In my experience, what he does with his underwear is a mystery I was never able to solve. The few times I managed to find a forgotten pair of knickers in his room and herded them to the laundry, they fell apart under the shock of being washed. Socks - unbelievable! I gave them the full vinegar soak, then enzyme soak, then wash, several times over, each time watching the rinse water turn a deep, soupy greyish-brown. And still the socks would come off the clothes line, stiff as cardboard.

This is a tricky problem. Sometimes showing too much disgust or shock only makes the problem worse. You need to think laterally, to try to find practical solutions to the claimed reason for tem doing this (even if you know darn well they're just making it up). Call their bluff and show willing to find a genuine answer, to their non-genuine excuse.

One thing to hold on to, through all the wading through of nasty surprises - YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!

Marg
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Marg,

You always have great ideas, and very practical ones. I think this is going to be an issue with Tyler. Not the urinating in his room (his room is right next to the bathroom), but the BO and the bath/shower issues. He HATES taking a bath or shower.

So I will use your advice. (thank you has already asked for that "clinical strength" deodorant so that he won't have to take baths except every other week. I laughed because it startled me. Then I said that we can afford the water a whole lot easier than we can afford $10 deodorant for a child who cannot keep his toothpaste off of the floor! (It then gets stepped on and nasty toothpaste gets ground into the tile flooring and all the clothes Jessie dumps on the floor.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
Susie, water just isn't enough for teen males.

Seriously, the deodorant would be a great investment. Without it, difficult child can claim he stinks because he hasn't got a good enough deodorant. If he uses the deodorant but still stinks, you then have leverage to get him to wash more often.

Try using the "don't waste a wash" argument.

There used to be an ad on Aussie TV, for a brand of family deodorant. It was VERY Australian, the ad concept was "When it finally rains on the red soil plains..." and went on to show a family rejoicing because at last it was raining. They ran about it the rain, danced in it, washed everything they could (including themselves), put on the brand of deodorant (passing it from one person to another), put on clean clothes and all piled into the truck to drive into town to go to a party. And the main point of the ad was, "When it finally rains on the red soil plains, nobody wastes a wash."

From my experience, an adult well past puberty can use those really strong deodorants DAILY to postpone a was to every second or third day, IF they aren't raising a sweat. because it's not just your armpits that sweat. But teens? Who can't sit still? The deodorant will help the BO, but only if they use it daily (maybe twice daily) AND shower at least every second day (probably daily).

But probably actually trying it is the only way of proving your point.

Marg
 
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