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Concerns regarding my son's mental health, information and advice welcome

jo and jack

Had appointment today at CAMHS with my son(15yrs old, ASD+ADHD). To discuss recent episode of low mood, agitation, anger, hearing voices etc.
My son also discuss for the first time the voices are of around 6 people, male and female. They speak negative to him, telling him to harm people(with a knife). He hasn't acted on these voices and commands.
CAMHS worker will ref for mental health screening but doesn't see depression/mental health diagnosis?
Yes I am worried, shocked and upset, I knew my son was holding stuff back from me.
Have any of you exp this type of behaviour from your children or self???

Parents

  • I suspect they have to give serious consideration to the onset of Schizophrenia which can be co-morbid with autism, and 15 is potentially a point where it might begin to show.

    However with autism it is important to look for other ways of interpreting that there are voices of 6 people telling him to harm people with a knife. With schizophrenia there should also be feelings of persecution and vulnerability. Just voices in his head, associated with anger could be due to other triggers.

    A traumatic experience - bullying or direct assault - could stick in his mind as memories of voices heard at the time. Because people on the autistic spectrum replay and analyse social interactions they cannot resolve, these can get detached from the original trigger.

    Also the meaning could drift from him being threatened with a knife to the voices suggesting he harms others.

    Because people on the spectrum can be impressionable the voices could be because real people are putting ideas into his head, taking advantage of his gullibility.

    So it might be useful to look into whether bullying is taking place, or there have been significant bullying events in the recent past.

    From what has been said about not suspecting depression/mental health hopefully the CAMHS worker is considering other factors related to autism. But it might be worth asking around (other parents with pupils at your school, for example) to see if he has been subjected to bullying or manipulation.

Reply

  • I suspect they have to give serious consideration to the onset of Schizophrenia which can be co-morbid with autism, and 15 is potentially a point where it might begin to show.

    However with autism it is important to look for other ways of interpreting that there are voices of 6 people telling him to harm people with a knife. With schizophrenia there should also be feelings of persecution and vulnerability. Just voices in his head, associated with anger could be due to other triggers.

    A traumatic experience - bullying or direct assault - could stick in his mind as memories of voices heard at the time. Because people on the autistic spectrum replay and analyse social interactions they cannot resolve, these can get detached from the original trigger.

    Also the meaning could drift from him being threatened with a knife to the voices suggesting he harms others.

    Because people on the spectrum can be impressionable the voices could be because real people are putting ideas into his head, taking advantage of his gullibility.

    So it might be useful to look into whether bullying is taking place, or there have been significant bullying events in the recent past.

    From what has been said about not suspecting depression/mental health hopefully the CAMHS worker is considering other factors related to autism. But it might be worth asking around (other parents with pupils at your school, for example) to see if he has been subjected to bullying or manipulation.

Children
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