Published on 12, July, 2020
pls help- my son has been under camhs for 16 months and we were told from the off he has ASD however he doesn’t know yet as advised not too. However we have an appt tomorrow where we are telling him after he had a complete melt down triggered by returning to school after the summer! Resulting him in running away the police out looking for him as he had taken tablets trying to end his life- then showing me he had cuts and burns on his legs! The last few months he has been so happy (even we questioned if he did have autism and that he was just being a normal teenage boy with raging hormones ) but he has been struggling and I had no idea.....I feel helpless
Hi NAS39015,
Sorry to hear your son has been having self-injury issues. There are a few resources that might be of some help to you - we have a self-injury page here on the NAS site - https://www.autism.org.uk/about/behaviour/challenging-behaviour/self-injury.aspx - with information about the causes of self-harm and suggestions and strategies to help prevent or minimise it. There are more links at the bottom of the page including the the NAS helpline and our parent-to-parent line if you would like someone to talk to. There is a more detailed breakdown of research into self-harm in people with ASD on the Research Autism site, which you can view here - http://researchautism.net/issues/11/self-injurious-behaviour-and-autism/Research - (use the menu on the left hand side to see the different sections).
Hope something here will be of some use to you,
Best wishes,
Ross - mod