Hugs. We go through this too. Lately DS has started to tell me, "I don't love you now. I only love Dad" when he is angry with me or when I do something he doesn't like (like enforce certain rules). I know he doesn't really mean it, but it still hurts sometimes. He also asks me, "Mom do you still love me?", which also feels like a stab in the heart. So we talk about love a lot. And I tell him that I always love him, even when I'm angry, even when I'm disappointed, even when he does something wrong, etc. I tell him that sometimes the people we love do things we don't like, but we still love them just the same.
A few weeks ago DS got very angry with me and said, "Mom, you're fired!" He was just like a mini Donald Trump, minus the suit. It probably would have hurt my feelings, if it hadn't seemed so funny at the time. I simply told him that being his mother is not at-will employment; I have a contract and he does not have the authority to fire me.
DS does occasionally still have violent meltdowns, but those are becoming less and less frequent as his language skills and emotional control improve. When they happen, they are both physically and emotionally painful.
Gena
DS, age 11 and always amazing
“Autistics are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you're destroying the peg." - Paul Collins, Not Even Wrong