diagnosis of my 17yo son seems like it came to late for help

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wow, i wish i had found this site years ago! what a difference all the info & support i've found here could have made............

i have a 17 yo son who was just diagnosed about two years ago. before that, we spent ten years on a horrible merry-go-round of mis-diagnosis & endless meds & a child who was going more & more out of control. i cant imagine what years of anti-depressents & mood stabilizers & everything else they were giving him has done to make the situation worse! now that we finally have a correct diagnosis & gotten rid of all the medication experimentation they tried, i'm realizing how very important early diagnosis really is. there are so many programs that i've found that are geared towards toddlers & very young children to help them with all the skills they dont learn or understand on their own. but none of them seem to have any clue about where i can find assistance with a teenager. plus, its starting to seem like a lot of that may be a lost cause at this point. all the skills that he needed help with, he's learned to do without for years, so at this point, he just looks at it as, he's gotten by without learning any of these things so far & he thinks he's doing just fine, so why bother now??

the worst part for me is i'm finally realizing that he most likely won't have a good productive life. at times, he's a very kind, thoughtful person who's extremely intelligent & very interesting to have a conversation with or just spend time with. the majority of the time, he doesnt seem to realize he's not the only person in the world & that what he wants isnt the most important thing in the world. he acts like everyone is just a piece of furniture....an inanimate object that doesnt have feelings & is just their for his convenience. if he wants something, he'll spend his all his money in one day to get it, only to not have anything left to take care of his responsibilities (cell phone, etc). If he doesnt have any money or its something that belongs to someone else, he just steals it. he has broken into his brothers rooms on countless occasions & just basically went shopping, taking whatever appeals to him at the time. he has taken his brothers debit card & checking info to indulge in his online porn obsession, has stolen my debit card to buy cigarettes, fast food, etc. he's taken things we have gotten as gifts, you name it, if he wants it, thats all that concerns him.

he's gotten his driving privileges taken away recently, after getting four careless driving tickets in just over a year, two minor accidents, speeding ticket & next month will be the second time he's had to go to court for being stopped while driving against the work/school restrictions on his license. he lies at the drop of a hat, takes off whenever he feels like it, & has an explosive temper whenever he doesnt get his way. above all of that, i'm now to the point that i'm literally scared of him. he told a family friend recently that his grandmother was going to die in her sleep someday soon (they dont get along at all), & last nite when his older brother confronted him about some cds that were stolen out of his room & said that he wanted them back, he threatened to "slit his throat". i'm just so devastated now & was so frightened last nite that i couldnt sleep & every time i heard a noise, i jumped. i've spent years trying to find help for him, trying to find programs to help him learn the skills he needs in life, and now it seems its all come down to finding a place for him where he can be supervised & the rest of my family can be safe. after all the years of begging for help, searching for anything, i feel like i'm throwing away my child. i want to help him so that he doesnt end up spending his adult life on the street, in prison, or worse, but i also have to protect my other children & my mom. i dont think i'll ever forgive myself for sending him away, but i wouldnt be able to live with myself either if he hurts someone else. i have prayed, searched for help, spent endless hours researching, making phone calls, begging for help & crying, trying to find anything to help my child..........and i've failed, both him & the rest of our family

Oh. I haven't had time to read it all yet I'm sorry.

It sounds like there is more going on than AS. I think if he is sent somewhere safe then you are doing the best for him as well as the rest of the family because if he did hurt anyone then that would not be a good thing for him either.

thats what i'm worried about, what happens when you takes someone with AS & feed them full of multiple psychiatric drugs (as many as 8 at a time) for 5-6 yrs? theres no telling what other problems we may be dealing with! but its to the point that now it seems like the time for finding a solution is gone & its all about protecting us from him & protecting him from himself...........

it feels like i've just entered the door to hell

I'm really sorry for your situation. But I think you are blaming too much of his behavior on Aspergers. Perhaps he is too and lets that be a good excuse for his immature behavior. The whole thing of spending all his money and not paying bills is due to #1 you are likely bailing him out every month and #2 his age. NT boys are pulling the same trick on their parents too. Also there is no excuse for him to have an unproductive life. I have Aspergers and I work and am self supportive. I know several others in my town alone who are lower on the spectrum but still have full time jobs.

The stealing stuff is not Aspergers. I have never done anything like that or even been tempted to. Sounds like he has some other mental issues going on. He also needs a good swift kick in the butt and maybe let him spend a few days in jail and scare him.

Since he was on the psych meds you really need to get some blood tests done on him for serotonin, dopamine, norephenephrine & catacholamines. People don't realize psych meds are given without testing peoples. People don't realize it can screw up normal levels of these chemicals and cause worse problems. I bet his serotonin and dopamine is out of whack. Getting them normalized might make him behave better. The stealing though and using people is a learned behavior though and only he can stop that.

i'm not saying that all of his problems are from AS. but i do think a lot of them have come as the end result of not being diagnosed properly years ago. since he was mis-diagnosed, we werent able to find the help that could have made a lot of things so much easier. he has spent years & years being ridiculed, pick on in school, mis-treated by teachers, the entire mess of unncessary med after med, multiple different ones mixed together, all tied together with a lot of bad feelings toward himself because he felt like there was something wrong with him or he wasnt good enough & without knowing what the true condition was, finding the right type of help is almost impossible.

and no, i DO NOT bail him out when he screws up. i have let him suffer the consequences no matter how much it broke my heart. the problem seems to come down to the fact that he doesnt seem to have any fear of consequences, cant seem to see past right now. so no, i dont blame everything on AS, as he also have severe ADHD & he's definitely ocd. but for over 10 years we were missing the big piece of the puzzle & if you have no idea of what type of condition you're dealing with, you have no way of knowing if you're treating it appropriately or if in the end, you're making matters worse.

I also think the stealing and lying are not to do with AS as we are not usually good at that, all the AS people I know have a strong sense that the world has to be `fair` which is a source of frustration when it isn`t.
I also think AS people tend to ignore and avoid people rather than use them or interact negatively.

Blaming yourself for the past is not logical. You sound like a really caring mother who did what you thought was the best for your child and now you are still doing what is the best for your child as well as for the rest of the family.

lol, trust me, he is not good at stealing or lying! i honestly think that most of the lying is because he doesnt know how he "should" react to different situations or what someone expects of him, so he just says whatever pops into his mind that he thinks they may want to hear or may be the response they expect.

I was just diagnosed with Aspergers and I am fifty years old! There was no
mental health services for children or special education when I was a child
inaccurately diagnosed. Your son has alot more going on than Aspergers.
It is about time that he accepts the consequences of his behaviors before he
does end up "homeless" or in the criminal correction system.
First of all, accept the fact that there is limited services for us Adults as everything is
geared toward preschoolers and children under age 21. At age 21, all those children
are left to fend for themselves. Most Asperger individuals survive because of their loving, supportive families who are willing to address their difficulties and help them to tackle challenges in the best ways that they are able. Your son needs a good Rehabilitation Counselor, Primary Therapist at a mental health clinic and a good Psychiatrist who can prescribe medication when needed. You may not find the "right"
supportive people on the first try. It sometime takes years to make the right connection with the right people. Above all, your son must want to behave appropriately and he just may have to travel a long, hard road before he realizes that
he will never accomplish anything worthwhile in life unless he himself makes the greatest effort.

Sending him away is the absolute best thing you can do for him and for his family. He needs to know that there are bounderies in life, and he crossed them, for which there are consiquences. Make sure that you write down these things that he has done that threaten your and your families safety. He may need to be reminded down the road with what lead him to the place he finds himself in and "why" mom did this too him.

As it stands, he is out of control and no one, including yourself is safe.

I doubt the drugs did that much to contribute to this. I am sure the AS has not "helped" but is sounds like he has a pretty serious conduct disorder, or some sort of personality disorder. This is NOT something that is common in AS children, even ones that go untreated.

Remember, you did the best you could, if it fell short of what he needed, then that is not your fault. You did the best you could, at the end of the day, no one can ask more of you then that. If he becomes angry or enraged with you, you need to remind him of that "I did what I could and what I knew, If I could go back in time and do things differently knowing what I know now, I would; however at the end of the day, you need to help yourself climb out of the mess you have found yourself in, I am here to help you, support you, get you the help you need to do that, but you have acountability in this too."

You may find that he takes a few years to figure out he is at rock bottom. Hopefully knowing he has love and support available to him if he is serious about getting better, will be enough to motivate him to climb back up. Saying "no" and saying "I am afraid of you, you can't live here anymore" is not giving up on him, It is setting a boundery and hopefully the reality check that he desperately needs. I am sure you will do all you can to help him pick up the pieces he has torn his life into. There are kids out there who have bigger problems then you son, nothing is unrecoverable as of yet.

His therapists should be informed to the severity of his stealing, threats of bodily harm, he can still learn to deal with these issues. His therapist should be able to direct you in the right direction for a facility that can help him. But, it all takes action. Don't wait. Call for an emergency meeting w/his therapist, psycologist, someone. Don't wait any longer. These are huge issues, and enmormous insensity. Don't give up on him. If you give up on him now who will be there to believe that he can become better. That he can have a successful, producitive life. You have to fight now, harder than ever. Get him the help before he turns 18. Before he becomes a legal adult. But fight hard, he needs it right now. Get him that help before something awful happens.

i know that you are in so much pain right now. watching your child spiral downward is devastating. it is so hard to not feel guilty for the way our children act. especially when their behaviors have been written off for years as "being the product of an ill-disciplined household" ( this is what i heard about my son)............one of the best things you can do for yourself is stop blaming yourself for everything that's happened in the past~realize that much of what happened in the past does effect the way he is now, but realistically there's nothing you can do to change the past.
he needs to get services now, before he turns 18. at least now, you still have some control over his medical needs. many of his behaviors sound like incredible anxiety out of control.he sounds like he spends much of his time scared~thus the physical threats.....the stealing,i think, is related to his being bullied~"no one respects me, so why should i respect them?"
therapy can help, if he's willing to go & if you have a therapist who understands aspergers.
best of luck !

I agree with everything Ster said your son's situation sounds very similar to mine I was diagnosed one week before my 23rd birthday. I was severely bullied at school and did spiral out of control into shoplifting and vandalism. Given his AS your son probably has problems understanding consequences of his actions. I think what he needs is love and attention if you "give him a kick up the bum" or "discipline" him it will only make things worse and make him feel more alone. The threats he probably doesn't mean it was just said out of anger I feel that ignoring them is the best unless you really feel he is going to act on them (most people do not).