son has aspergers and is suicidal

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my son has difficulty making friends.

we have him in a church youth group and he has started to make friends.

however, he gets depressed because he feels they don't talk to him.

he then feels rejected and this makes him think of suicide.

any suggestions on how to help him?

I suppose I would start by listening to what he is saying, even though it is hard, and just keep telling him it wil take time for him to develop strong positive relationships.

A counselor recommended a lot of supportive listening for my kids. It isn't easy and sometimes, like right now, I want to scream and I want everything better yesterday, not to hear what is being done wrong. It seems like it helps, some anyway.

Kids on the spectrum can get very anxious and depressed. Can you take him to his doctor or a counselor ?

I have ASD, clinical depresson, and severe anxiety. I was suicidal for about 14 years from 15 to 29. I had to literally hit rock bottom to turn around. I ended up very severely slashing my wrist and my mom came into the house at the exact moment I was doing it. It was a very scary experience. I had to almost kill myself to realize that I really wanted to live.

Hopefully it won't get to that point for your son. He probably needs medication. I'm on 2 anti depressants, an anti anxietant and an anti psychotic. They have helped me MASSIVELY. They are expensive freakin' pills though, so that may be a point of contention for some families.

I have never had many friends. There have been periods in my life where I've had a nice clique of friends but for the most part I've had 1-3 friends at any given point in time throughout my life. Sometimes 0. I have figured out what I like to do with my time and what I like to think about and what I like to project and I have found some small parcel of happiness in the world.

Your son needs to talk to other people with Aspergers and he needs to talk to other people with depression. There are free groups for this in my city ( Toronto Canada). I get asperger's support through a charity called Kerry's Place and I occasionally go to depression meetings at MDAO (which I mostly attend to help others at this point).

Please get your son help before he gets too far into the depression.

we have him in a church youth group and he has started to make friends.
however, he gets depressed because he feels they don't talk to him.
he then feels rejected and this makes him think of suicide.

Children (including teens) can be notoriously selfish and cruel. Even if they aren’t, they can be insensitive and blind to the courtesies adults would normally extend to each other.

You might find an opportunity to get your son connected with an older church member if you talk with your pastor and see if you could arrange for a one on one Bible study with a retired person or someone who needs someone to read to them. Both your son and the retired person could think of it as a ministry.

Aspergers people in general look deeper into things. In a world where friendships are growing more superficial by the day, it would be expected that your son may be expecting too much from his peers. If it is possible to have him develop a friendship with someone who could go deeper, it might help him establish a reference point from which he could see various relationships on their own merits and not as some failing of his.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that because these are "church kids" they must be nice.
Insert yourself as a volunteer so you can observe what's actually going on. If they are being nice to your son, you'll be able to reassure him that they truly have friendly intentions. And if not, then you can remove him and find a more supportive social group.
What is your son into? A lot of kids on the spectrum have more success in groups that are organized around a shared interest (a Lego club or an astronomy club, for example).

No idea, but I feel for him.

Teenagers sometimes saying things that are exaggerated.
Maybe his words "I can't make friends there" is the key, and not "I want to kill myself"
Maybe he actually doesn't want to make friends. Or maybe he has habits that make his friends slowly put him aside. Maybe he talks too much, or talks too little. Maybe he is prone to zoning out and forget things.

Talk to his friends, find out what's wrong. Then slowly ask him to improve those conditions with you.

You are asking him to fit into a highly social situation. It's the worst possible case for an autistic person. Find something where he doesn't have to talk much, like an art class or something. Something he's interested in and can do well. He's going to have difficulties making friends. I know I do. You have to explain that making friends isn't everything. Being around a bunch of kids where making friends IS everything won't work.

I strongly agree with this. It sometimes feels reall good to do something you love without feeling pressured to interact.

When I was 17 I liked to go to to movies in midtown Manhattan or hang out in the Metropolitan Museum or American Museum of Natural History because I could be in groups of other people and have some sense of being part of society while focusing on things that interested me and being more or less comfortably "alone in company."

This is also a potential route to making real friends through mutual engagement in an interest, particularly if there is a class or similar grouping around the interest.

I am living in Louisville too, if there is something I can do to help don't hesitate to pm me

It might be better to socialize him with adults as previously mentioned.

If the relationships are such, that he feels suicidal ,they are not friends. He may label them that way. My son labelled his peers that way, in part b/c in the lower grade that is how the teachers label them. Kids with autism cannot always tell the difference between acquaintances, frenemies or real friends.

I think he needs to be in a different group. He may still need a lot of scaffolding, so something more structured might be better.