New here.. 8 yo with AS and suicide talk...please help

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Hello everyone. I have an 8 year old son with AS. In the past year he has talked a lot about suicide when he has meltdowns, once he even grabbed a knife out of the neighbors kitchen. He didn't hurt himself or anyone else. But it really scared my husband and I.

After that incident, he seemed to get better for awhile. My husband used to work nights and recently got transfered to a unit where he works days. My son is having difficulty accepting dad into his life and is talking about suicide again. He is on meds. I have an appointment to talk with a child psychologist on 1/3. We tell Jacob all of the time how much we love him and that God gave him a special gift and that he was put in this world the way he is to do great things. He knows he is loved.

He has great paras and special ed teacher to also tell him how wonderful he is. They love him as if he was their own.

Can anyone who is an Aspie or a parent give me some perspective on why he says these things and if you have ever had to deal with that at such a young age. I'm so affraid that he might actually harm himself.

I'm also curious to know how many of you are part of the law enforcement community as my husband is a cop and exhibits a lot of AS traits.

Thanks in advance for all your help!

Traci

Last edited by SgtsWife on 20 Dec 2005, 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

welcome to WP, traci.

i haven't got any advice for you, but there are many people here who probably have - i hope someone can help you out, or at least share your experiences. there are plenty of people here to listen, if nothing else.

Vivi
(as Admin)

Thanks for your reply. I hope someone can help me understand why he's talking like this. I want to cry just thinking about how he must be feeling, I feel so helpless.

This seems to be the symptom of depression and chemical imbalances in the brain. When I was young I said/did similar things. Now I'm on the honor roll and I am very happy and I have friends so I'm certain that he won't be like this forever if the medicine/friend situation is improved.

Thanks Linuxguy! That makes me feel better. He doesn't have many friends, and maybe his meds need to be adjusted. He does take an anti-anxiety. We took him off of the concerta when the suicide talk started and put him on lexapro.

He is in the gifted program and I know his will do great things. He is a very loving child once he gets to know you.

Hi! I live in Minnesota and have Asperger's Syndrome. I am sorry that your son is thinking suicidal thoughts. Is your son unhappy just because your husband transferred to a unit working days instead of nights or could their be something else wrong? I was diagnosed just last year and I had to go to the hospital and stay for one night. For some reason, I don't know why, I had started having thoughts of suicide and or harming myself. These thoughts were very distrubing because I was normally a happy person loving life and even my parents, especially my mom were concerned because this was not how I normally acted. I went to the hospital and they gave me a prescription for Lexapro, the same medication your son is on. I am now taking Concerta and Celexa because I have problems concentrating and the Lexapro was not covered under our insurance, so I started taking Celexa instead. I hope that this will maybe give you some insight into helping your son with his problems and helping him succeed in life.

We have dealt with this with one as young as 5. My 14yo also had suicidial ideations at age 10. Basically, when they threaten this we take them to the ER or intake at a mental facility we like that has been good with the kids. That covers two bases - #1 if they are only saying it for attention or manipulation (a la my Oppositional Defiant child) they get a nice long and UNFUN doc visit which tells them they don't want to do that again for that reason and #2 if they are suicidal the docs are there and see them and get them the help they need, which sometimes has been a hospitalization. I hate to say it, but hospitalizing is sometimes the only way to get things on kilter again and energize appropriate interventions. When we FINALLY got state-funded in-home help it was only because we could prove we had exhaused all other interventions and had a referral from a hospital team.

I'm not necessarily advocating hospitalization, that is a personal choice, you know what's going on better than any of us, but I don't want you to fear hospitilization if it is necessary. Many parents I know won't take their kids because they think its going to be this horrible thing. If its at a good facility it can be a very wonderful help to your family and not a trauma to you or your child. I hate to say it, but sometimes its a much needed break for you all to regroup and rethink what you need to do with the help of the professionals. Plus, you get to tinker with meds without all the environmental crud that can mess with truly seeing what they are or are not doing (ie school). Plus they always do a full physical and battery of other tests to make sure nothing else is physically or mentally going on.

Hope I haven't rambled too much. Its been quite a day here and I'm a little frazzled.

No one on this board, me included, is an expert in this area. Suicide threats should be taken very seriously, and you should call your son's doctor. Now.

Sometimes this is a side-effect of medication, sometimes it's an attention getting device, sometimes it's real!

I'm sorry, I'm not usually an alarmist, but this is a subject for experts.

Good luck.

RES

Hi SgtsWife,

I was like that when I was 9. Wile it may be the counterintuitive thing to do, but giving him time alone in a relatively safe environment or even leaving him home alone for a couple hours (wihout going very far) but locking away objects that would be easiest for him to hurt himself with might help. For me, being watched and ordered around in a way that wasn't logical to me only made the problem worse. The times I would get suspended from school for basically the same thing and my parent's couldn't stay home and keep an eye on my activities was the only time I didn't really feel suicidal. To this day I cannot get my parents to believe me about this. At that age and having a neuological disorder, he doesn't feel in control of hs own mind and cannot manage his surroundings the way his peers can. Comorbid disorders such as Tourette's ADD, OCD, and Bipolar (TBD in teens or '20s) are extremely common in AS. If he has any of those that might not be diagnosed yet, that complicates the problem for him to manage his body, mind, and life. He is completely overwhelmed and wants out of it. What you can do is negotiate with him new routines that he understands logically, give him space to do his own thing as much as possible, and get him a consellor he feels comfortable with and can relate to.

Feel free to PM me.
-Sean

My aspie son has suffered with suicidal ideation for awhile ~ constant bullying by his peers.......get your son to the dr ASAP. take every threat seriously.

I wouldn't wait until the doctor's appt. That is way too long. Have you told the doctor of the suicide threats? If so and he hasn't seen you ASAP then I think you need to find a new doctor. In the meantime get him somewhere now. Take him to the ER or a mental health intake. Call a hotline for support and to find the nearest place if you need.

I hope all goes well for you. Don't let the doctor's put you off till "after the holidays". You don't want the added stress of the holidays to make it worse!

Kelly

Thanks everyone for your replies! It is comforting to know that other parents and people with AS have had to deal with this too and that they have had great success. I'm so glad I found this site.

He really only makes these statements at school when he has a meltdown. He does have a quiet room and they let him be in there alone with his weighted blanket and bean bag to get himself wound down. Then they ask him if he really means what he is saying, and he says no. The did call Crisis Intervention last year, and we went to the school to meet them. They said they didn't think he meant it because he made a statement that he really just wanted to go home, school was too loud that day.

The time when he grabbed a knife, he was on Celexa and that med, we found out, was making him worse. So we switched him to the lexapro, and he has done much better on it. Just recently he's been making suicide comments. He has a very difficult time with change, and for the past 2 years his dad hasn't been around him much because of his schedule. Since dad is home more now, I think he has a lot of stress because dad is still learning how "we" do things and how not to provoke Jacob.

My husband and I are seeing the district psychologist on 1/3 and our son is seeing his autism doctor (yes, she is aware of the suicide threats) on 1/8, and we will get him a referral to see the child psychologist who specializes in AS kids. If we have problems before then, I will take him to the hospital.

Feel free to call a suicide/crisis hotline yourself if you want someone more trained to speak to and this stuff keeps up. The counselors on those lines are specifically trained to do a basic risk assessment and can probably advise you if you need to hit the ER immediately if you'd like that second opinion.

Sorry for temporarily hijacking the thread. Jennthered, which hospital do you use? I don't forsee us having any suicidal troubles inthere near future, but I don't want to be scambling under pressure.

Due to insurance changes over time, agencies involved and # of kids with problems we've used several - Mtn. View, Hillcrest, Brookwood, Children's, Montclair and Brice. I would NEVER recommend Montclair or Brookwood to my worst enemy. For mental health for minors they are BAD in our experience. To be honest the place we've liked best is Hillcrest. I have heard people say bad things about them from the adult treatment end, but for the kids they have been the most on the ball of any place we've used. Mtn. View comes in a close second with Children's right behind. Mtn. View is just so darn far away.

A lot of people like UAB. We just have never clicked with the docs there, and have never had a kid in the hospital there. So they have not been helpful to our family, although they do seem to want to be very thorough and helpful. They were just not receptive to my concerns and input unless it fit what they already decided was the answer. But I'm open to the fact that UAB might be wonderful for someone else. I worked there for several years (as did my DH). Some doc there are great. Some (including ones I worked for) are so obcessed with their research and own ideas that they lack the openness needed to work with the varying environmental challenges each family presents.

Sorry so long. I could write a book on this subject!

you know, my son kept saying that he wanted to commit suicide, but would then recant.........he really did want to commit suicide, though....i'd really take every threat seriously~ we put our son in the hospital the very last time that he said that he wanted to commit suicide. we explained that every time he said it, we would take him to the hospital because we loved him and hated to see him in such pain~ he hated the hospitalization process so much that he stopped saying it just to say it.