Day & Night,

Good for you for taking some time off! That's great, and you do deserve to be able to live your life and not have to put up with your son abusing you, no matter his age or dx.

Maybe some kind of self-defense or other training on physically managing people with behavior problems would be helpful. When I worked as a behavior specialist, I did work with some people who were physically dangerous to themselves and others. Not meaning to stereotype, but the ones with Autism were often the hardest to handle because with most of the other clients they would get mad and blow up and it usually made sense somehow or could be predicted when we understood their pattern. But the ones with autism might just start hitting themselves or going after someone else and they did serious damage and would keep it up for hours at a time, and couldn't explain why or what they wanted, and didn't stop when we told them they were hurting someone. One in particular really seemed amused by the whole thing and how he got people to react. Very frustrating!

I trained in a system that we used to restrain people when needed, and we did need it at times. One of these clients had broken his own arm several times and had to be stopped from banging. Others would hurt other clients and anyone else around. Hurting anyone isn't acceptable for anyone, and there needs to be a way to prevent it or stop it in the least restrictive and least harmful way possible.