Anxiety, dermatillomania, self hate in 9 year old son

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My 9 year old Aspie/ADHD son is constantly down on himself. Saying things are futile and that he is worthless. For example: we were mini golfing yesterday and he kept missing the hole and was taking 6-10 shots to get the ball in. He wasn't lining the ball up - he was just bashing it around then complaining that he is a loser because he sucks and can't sink the ball faster. My husband and I both calmly tried to help with tips, showing him how to take time to line up the shot, advised on letting the ball stop rolling before whacking it again, etc. But he was whining loudly and saying he'd never mini golf again and how he hates himself. Our 6 year old Aspie son was doing the same at first, but he listened to us and did start taking his time and lining up the shots and then he did well. I was not keeping score it was all in fun - I know not to keep score because that makes it competitive. But my 9 year old was so down on himself about all his misses then refused to try to help himself - it was so saddening.

His skin is a mess. He started picking his leg (a pimple was the catalyst) 4 months ago and now has multiple sores on his legs and arms from picking scratches, bumps, nothing - until there is a welt/crater there.

He is so negative and flips from hating himself to telling his doctors that everything is fine. He always presents with a happy, cheery disposition when he sees therapists to the point where they say he's not anxious, what are we talking about? He has panic attacks and picks holes in his skin - there's a problem!! Trust me!

He sees a paediatrician that specializes in ASD who put him on strattera last year to help with his impulsivity, aggression and anxiety. The daily violent school meltdowns stopped and he got better as the dose increased to the max for his weight. She believes anxiety is driving this which we know already. We discussed adding Wellbutrin to his Straterra to reduce the depression/anxiety. But are about to try a placebo at my suggestion first.

I feel so awful and don't know how to help him - I'm also Aspie and have major anxiety. The negativity is something I've lived with myself and as an adult finally recognized and realized and now self talk internally to tell myself these are negative feelings, etc not to listen to them, they are not reality but a distortion of thoughts.

But it took me until I was in my 40's to get to this point. I want to help him now!! I've tried talking to him, empathizing with his struggles, sharing my thoughts and past experiences that are similar to try to connect. (Ie - when I was a child I felt fear about new places and such just like you or worried about xyz too). But he doesn't seem to get it nor connect this way.

My younger Aspie son is coming along well with this method though at least.

I'm scared that he is almost out of his childhood and I haven't made any progress helping him. I'm so scared of him committing suicide. He is so negative and hard on himself and yet doesn't respond to any help we've tried.

A genuine question: why does he have to try to be good at mini golf at all?

Every aspie is different and what works for your other son won't be the same for this one.

Coordination issues are a common theme to many on the spectrum, and while there are sporty spectrum people, there are also many for whom even mini-golf will be a frustrating exercise in doing something that will never give pleasure or be something they can do with ease or fun like you can.

Personally I was never able to enjoy or do well anything remotely involving sport-like ball-pushing or throwing or hitting pursuits. I hated anything like it, but have had a rich life in other hobbies and interests, without ball-sports in my life.

Why not try activities or interests for him that he actually wants to do and feels a facility more far more easily or quickly than with this?

That was just an example of what happens constantly. With everything. He beats himself up over not being able to do things perfectly the first time and then won't try - instead he just says he will never try again or about how much of a personal failure he is.

I frankly don't care about him being good at mini golf - it's not about ability - I told him none of us are trying to be professionals. We are just playing for fun. I'm not sporty either. None of us in our family are. I'm clumsy and hate any and all things that require co ordination because I fail constantly. But I tell my kids to give it a try and see. In my first post I didn't mention that it also took me many tries to get the damn ball in the hole. But I didn't care because it was a nice warm day, the place was fairly empty and there was a nice water feature to look at (I found things to like about it - no crowd makes me very happy because I don't like crowds and we weren't being rushed, nice weather makes me calm).

The meaning of the post was that he is miserable about everything. He's picking holes in his skin. He's always down on himself. Anybody have any advice?

Have you tired to see what would happen if you took a couple of weeks (or preferably longer) in summer where he has no school, and no official obligations, and completely removed every stressor you have control over?

The reason I ask this is because we have to do a heck of a lot of scaffolding to make things tolerable for our son. School was making him miserable--and we had to pull him out and home school. It makes a huge difference in what other things he can tolerate. I am not saying that is the solution for you, but just to let you know how stress and un-autistic friendly environments have impacted us.

In our case, there is only so much stress he can tolerate. The summer that we made our final decision, I detoxed him from all stress, and while it took us into the fall to really completely detox him, even adding home school work, at that time, there was a huge difference in his behavior and just general happiness.

In your case it may not be school, it may be something else. or it may be a few things about school that can be accommodated. But the best thing I found was to take all the stress away and than gradually add things back. There was too much to do it the other way, and gradually take stressful things away to see what the issues were. I am assuming that you have tried that already, which is why I was suggesting turning it the other way.

I do not know if this will help or not, but at the very least, it should help you assess more specifically what your child's issues are. Another alternative would be to try to assess particular instances and see if you can determine triggers, but I am not sure how that would work for the skin-picking if he does it at some base level all the time.