new here looking for answers

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Hello everyone,

I hope I have come to the right place...

My wife and I have a 15 yr old son who is definatly Not your typical teenager.
he has been diagnosed with adhd, bipolar disorder, and ODD.
Meds givin to him for these diagnosed problems only seem to make matters worse or at the very least dont change anything.
His very Nasty behavior presents itself mostly at home but his social and maturity levels fall alarmingly short for his age.He doesnt seem to care about anything or anyone other than himself and when confronted with day to day living simply says over and over like a Mantra " I cannot do this".
He has (until a yr ago) been in some sort of therapy or other since tthe age of 6 one therapist insists that AS is the cause of his differences but poorly givin Phsyc evals have failed to support her and therefore treatment cannot or has nopt been followed through for AS.
he seems to get worse everyday and we don't have a clue what to do.
Can someone, anyone please help us in finding the right questions to ask the right weay to go about helping our son and ourselves?? We are so frustrated that we are just before killing him(figuratively speaking) Please anyone??

Hi, I can't think of any obvious answers but what I can say is that you are in exactly the right place here to find them. This site is crowded with good people so I hope you won't be 'atwitsend' much longer. Just wanted to offer you my moral support and say hello.
Speaking as an aspergers, I think he has something inside that he can't get out. Speaking as a father of six, they grow out of the nasty teenager stage around 16 -17 so hang in there!
Best of luck.
Tom

Be proud of who you are

Thank you Tom,

I guess now is as good a time as any to mention that his "Nasty teenager stage " is already 10 yrs old. He experiences a MAJOR meltdown on average once a week and medium to minor ones at the rate of several a day.

Welcome to the Wrong Planet community, atwitsend. All the WP best to you, your wife, and your son. You may wish to check out the Parent's Discussion Forum:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/forum19.html

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Oh, man, it's hard to raise a nasty child. I wish you well.
I have a thirty year old daughter that is calm and happy now, but I had to live through decades of violence to get her there. Scars on both of us.

To WrongPlanet!! !

well you should probably have a look at the actual diagnostic criteria (there are a few around, some are more 'plain english' than others) as to whether he meets it.

below is a 'questionaire' that applies to primary school age children but it may help you.

http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/asp ... twood.html

nothing you've said in your post described Asperger's, but there's not much in it anyway.

welcome to the site.

Thank you Postperson for the link, I actually have done a few of the questionaires and our son seems to fit about 90% of the criteria.
As for my post not having much in it you are correct. I'm not entirely sure how to go about describing our son here, I am afraid that in our frustration we would be assigning traits that may only be our perceptions instead of actual problems HE has. That was the reason for asking for help in finding the right Questions to ask.
I will try to describe his actions in the most basic sense so that you might gain a better picture. He seems to have absolutley no concept of conscience he seems not to care a wit for how what he does or says affects other's he cannot seem to carry on a conversation for more than a moment before he runs off on a tangent that is either totally irrelavant or misses the POINT of the conversation focusing totally on the details. He seems not to be able to carry out simple commands or to attend his daily chores without a meltdown be it minor or major depending on the day.Questions of any sort seem to send him over the edge. His interest in a givin subject runs to obbsession for a short period of time and then basically dissapears, but he also sticks to ONE interest inncessantly (cars) and can qoute unnending statistics for every vehicle you can think of while not having any real understanding of what those statistics mean. His memory for the short term seems almost nonexistent while he can spout off about things yrs ago noone else can recall.Humor totaly escapes him as he takes everything so literally but he thinks he is funny (he is not).
In General he is a 15 yr old young man who perpetually acts like a 5 yr old (ALMOST lterally).