Dear God, somebody help me with my son

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residential treatment centers dont work...I been to a few of them and came back with severe PTSD on top of my problems I had before I went there. Mental hospitals have alot of stress, you are surrounded by crazy people, and the nurses just ignore you except when you act out. They are not places to heal at all, they are hell on earth. The social structures on a residential program is 100 worse than high school and make much less sense. There is alot of bullying by the residents and the mental health workers are alot of times are nuttier than the people they serve. The other patients are scary and steal your stuff, beat you up and expect you to conform to some crazy social rules that arnt explained, dont make any sense even to an NT and you are not given room for error with harsh consquences.
The psychiatrists that work in these places are often bottom rung.

As for what you CAN do.
sounds like he needs medication at this point
the stuck on a page thing is probably a combination of perfectionism and autistic inertia
ADHD medicine helps me alot with autistic inertia. I take adderal, but each person responds to meds differently
Without Adderall, I cant even do the simplest things. Often ppl with autism have profound ADHD and medicine really helps.

Also you need to get into his head and find out what is conflicting him.
The only way to do that is ask questions...specific questions.
Many times when we are feeling totally overwhelmed, we cant express how we really feel in words...only in actions, but if you ask us specific questions helping us put words to how we feel, then we can give you a yes or a no.

I have been suicidal in the past, both times it was due to untreated OCD that compounded with a depression.
OCD is common with us...and it is a nasty comorbid that we feel no one else could possibly understand us.
I wasted my whole teen years battling OCD without anyone else knowing what horrors were going on in my head.
I was terrified to tell someone cuz I was afraid I get sent to the loony bin again.

But there are different types of OCD...you have the OCD where you have crazy thoughts and you ward them off with compulsive rituals
Then you have the avoidant type of OCD where you have crazy thoughts and complusivly avoid things
Then you have the worst kind of OCD which is called "pure O" which is pure obessional...which you have vivid and horrible thoughts that attack your mind, but there is no compulsive ritual or if there is one,,,it is mental not outwardly seen.
I have pure O type of OCD. The times I tried to kill myself has been because I just wanted peace from that constant stream of horrible thoughts.
It also causes attention to be very poor when the intrusive thoughts are rapidly firing in your mind
OCD is a common culprit when you have strong perfectionism.

OCD is unlike schizophrenia in that a person who has OCD knows these intrusive thoughts are not sane, but often feel like no one else could possibly be having the same problem. Mental systems are developed to try to control the thoughts, but they in fact fuel them instead.

Luckily OCD is somewhat easy to treat compared to other psychiatric problems.
The best way is a two pronged approach of a special behavioral psychology method and then medication....prozac, zoloft and a few others do a good job of treating it. I have done very well on zoloft for a number of years. Prozac wears off arruptly which can cause sudden sucidal problems in children and teens.

But you need to stop focusing so much on the outer symptoms, like agruing and depression and start asking him specific questions in a calm structured manner to get to the root of the problem.

To see if OCD is the problem:
Ask him, do you have thoughts that pop in your mind without you thinking about them that are very unwanted and disturbing to you?
Do you have things you feel compelled to do when something bothers you?
Do you have something you are compelled to avoid when else something bothers you?
When if you have these thoughts? do you do anything physically or mentally to ward them off, or avoid certain things?
Do you ever have thoughts that pop up in your mind when you are trying to concentrate on something?
Do you feel that no one else could understand these thoughts and systems you created to control them?

If he says yes to any of these, explain to him what OCD is and it is common with autism.
Explain how OCD works and how it can be treated.

OCD is often present when you have crippling perfectionism and people with OCD can sometimes be very good at masking their symptoms while screaming on the inside.

Often times, when OCD couples with depression...it can totally spiral out of control because the OCD and depression feed off each other.

Based on what you said, my gut feeling is that is what is going on with him.

With OCD, alot goes on beneath the surface that others dont see.
If he doesnt come out about it right away, leave some books around about OCD. Dont tell him to read them, just let his curiosity guide him.
After you are 100 percent sure OCD is not the culprit, then use detective like questions to ask the right question, but do so calmly and compassionately, not in the middle of an arguement or after one.

Also profound ADHD could be causing his problems with school which stimulant medication is a wonder for.

Another thing you may not have considered is vision. I struggled alot with taking a long time to read and do homework because I am severely far-sighted. Glasses helped my schoolwork alot.

Also the last thing that comes to mind is Autistic Inertia. Which can make doing the simplest things very difficult. Basicly it is as the name applies. Once in motion, always in motion, once at rest always at rest applies to autistics well. We tend to get "stuck" in one gear. As far as how to deal with this will take an autism expert cause I have not overcome this yet.
However autistic inertia will not make one suicidal that I know of....but it can totally screw up college grades because it can be like procrasination times 100. I used to think that I had pathological procrasination or something like that...no just autistic inertia. However, if he has a bad case of autistic inertia and his grades flunked, seen all his peers go on to do great things and he felt like a failure to himself, his family and society...then autistic inertia could be a possible culprit for his crisis.

Now one last thing, you say there are alot of arguements and your mariage is at risk....this sounds like a very stressful houshold.
What he needs more than questions and medication is a peaceful enviroment. If he lashes out at you, dont take it personally and go on the defensive. Instead just tell him that you love him. That will stop the argument right there. He is lashing out at you because of his own frustration and mental torture...it has nothing to do with you.
As far as your wife goes...send her on a cruse and a spa...she needs a break.
Hire a maid to do the housework.
Spend some quality time with your son doing things he likes to do.
As far as school goes, he needs to take a medical leave. He is in no shape to deal with the mental rigors of school right now.
You need a doctor's orders to do a medical termination of this semester that will exempt him from the grade penalties of dropping classes.
He does NOT need to be in school until he is better and you find out what caused his mental breakdown and fixed it.
He needs love and a peaceful home more than anything.
You also need to get a pschologist that in experienced with autism to help you all make the adjustments needed to give him what he needs.
If he has any special interests, let him dive into them as a means of comfort.

Since you and your wife are having marriage problems, I assume there is alot of blame going around. That does not help anyone.
What has happened is a probably a result of too much stress at school for his autistic, possible OCD mind to handle.
You did not forsee this, therfore it is no ones fault...this just goes under the "sh*t happens" category

It is vital for your son's mental health and perhaps his life that you get the stress to a minimum in your household.
Also set up predictable routines that happen every day about the same time.
Autistics thrive in peaceful structure and fall apart in disorder and chaos.
You and your wife tell him that you love him often. He needs to feel his life means something to you both.

I will keep you in my prayers.

Jojo

Great job Jojo and all the other posters.

I am waiting to see what the OP has to say to all this very good advice and information.

The family is in crisis and triaging the situation is complicated. I hope they will get all the professional help they can get and yes, your son is in no condition to be in College right now.

Remove that stress factor immediately.

Best of luck to this family and stay strong, it is very tough to handle all of this.

The OP does not say where they live, this will affect the type of care and support they can get.

Check out, for possible local support groups near you.

aspergerssydrome.org

Who's idea is it for him to be college after two failed attempts? Yours or his? Maybe you all need to take a step back and start fresh with counseling for ALL of you.