- Remember Neurodivergent people have spiky profiles, some with intersecting neurodivergences.
- Ascertain what challenges and coping/regulation strategies might be required for managing all of these within the home.
- Someone who is AuDHD may be hyperfocused on a task but be easily distracted by a noise. They may also need routine but get pulled in the opposite direction when impulsiveness strikes.
- Alexithymia may make it difficult to name emotions, communicate these, and develop strategies for overwhelm.
KEY ISSUES
It is important that coping strategies for preventing and managing distress and dysregulation are not removed from Neurodivergent people as this can be harmful. Strategies will be needed to navigate the home environment. However, practitioners will need to get clients to consider and take individual responsibility for managing dysregulation and make it clear that no one is entitled to have someone structure or regulate for them. Practitioners can also consider what healthy negotiation of managing regulation and dysregulation looks like in an intimate relationship and within the home (see also 5.5b). This can be framed as equality, reciprocity, and can form part of the work, but only once the abuse is acknowledged and addressed.
PRACTICAL TIPS
Try to identify a specific example of a time when the client became dysregulated
- Tell me about a time when you felt dysregulated and you acted abusively?
- What responsibility did you take at that moment to reduce your sensory/emotional dysregulation?
- What were your expectations of your partner?
- Being Neurodivergent is not an abusive way of being – what responsibility can you take to manage dysregulation?
- What does regulation look like going forward?
- What does managing the home environment look like going forward to prevent discomfort and/or distressing situations?
Equitable negotiation and planning for dysregulation
- What say does your partner have in this planning?
- What does healthy regulation look like?
- What are your partner’s needs?
- What are your children’s needs?
- How can you all work together in an equitable way to ensure everyone’s needs are met?
- Tailor programme tools to meet client’s needs – i.e. de –escalation may involve scaffolding/different regulation strategies that tie in with Neurodivergent person’s pre-discussed coping strategies, time out, communication skills (practitioners should have asked during assessment stage how he/they communicate in the home, self-talk etc.).
- Practitioners also have to consider that the partner may not want to engaged in this process – whether or not she remains in the relationship
- The burden of care should be reciprocal. It is important to maintain contact with the survivor’s safety worker to ensure any strategies agreed by the client/survivor have been entered into willingly (e.g., not because they feel fear, or through unrealistic expectations of what these might achieve).
- Regarding negotiation of relationships and repair – the survivor has a right and choice not to engage with support.