My son feels like a monster... :(

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Wow. I can hardly believe I stumbled upon this. I Googled "my 9yo son says he feels like a monster" and landed here.
Last night, I overheard him say "I feel like a monster!" to no one in particular and today he told me the same thing. A few days ago, he came and told me that he is sad and lonely because he doesn't have any friends. (Lately, he has been asking to make friends with people on an internet game site and I have adamantly told him no.) He was diagnosed with ADHD at age 5 and recently with OCD and mixed receptive-expressive language disorder...something I had never heard of and can find little information on. My son is also very small in stature for his age, but his psychiatrist doesn't seem concerned. Over the past year or so, he has become fixated on fighting, especially with my 5yo son who is usually upbeat and cheerful. In light of all the school shootings and overall violence in our world today, I am becoming extremely worried. I am very much an extrovert - never met a stranger - so I have no idea how to even begin to empathize with him, much less help him. My suggestions sound oversimplified and are probably more frustrating than helpful in his eyes.
Have you made any progress since you posted?

TigerBaby- the original poster on this thread never posted again. Perhaps she is reading and not posting. Welcome to WP anyway! From your brief description your son sounds similar to many other kids here. Kids like ours need to have social skills explicitly taught to them. Try Michelle Garcia Winner's website: socialthinking.com
Its a good place to start.

That is probably the most epic message ever written by someone his age. The intent is obviously to make the bully feel horrible about being a bully, so I hope the letter was delivered and the bully made to feel horrible. It judges without judging, it seethes while only expressing remorse. Oh man.

Oh, that poor little boy....his letter to that girl made me cry. I feel like a monster a lot of the time, too...I know how much it hurts. I hope things have gotten better for the OP and her son since she posted last.

That kid is either completely heartbroken or a precocious master of the passive-aggressive stab.

Either way, ouch. Poor little dude.

The young lady (and I use the term loosely) in question-- well, I'd like to see her read it. I'd like to think it would be a gut-punch.

I doubt it. It would probably make her feel good. Some neurotypical children are like that-- There's something missing in the brain, they're lacking some essential element of humanity that enables us to execute moral reasoning. (Very tongue-in-cheek stab at recent comments about autism).

Either way-- honey, pick up your breaking heart and teach your kid that some people just aren't worth his friendship. Like that little whelp. Do it now, before he grows up into a big dumb dog of a man who thinks that he can be friends with everyone if he just tries hard enough.

That was my daddy. Most of the time it served him well-- he was a likable guy, missed by all. But it got him kicked and called names and taken advantage of, too; it's also been the cause of no end of trouble for me.

Teach your kid now that there are nasty, predatory s**ts in this world and that this girl is one of them. Teach him to identify those people early. It might hurt, but you are doing him a favor.

I wouldn't do grade school again if you paid me.

To any posters who follow the OP: we have collected resources in stickies at the top of this forum.

As for diagnostics, I personally have had bad experiences with diagnoses by the school, by therapists, and by social workers. Find a developmental pediatrician or a pediatric neurologist and look on the CDC's page on autism for the diagnostic tools they recommend for your particular situation - ask for those.

Again, we finally found answers when we went to a local hospital that had a multi-jurisdictional developmental center (with all kinds of therapists and social workers) that was headed by a pediatric neurologist.