How do I help my 25 yr old son who doesn’t want to be labelled ?

So has you son got any skills in IT?  If he has, maybe he should give this a go.  Maybe not as a way into a job, but as something to amuse himself and do while he trues to find work.

https://cybermillion.immersivelabs.online/signin

It was previously the Neurodivergent Cyber Academy, a project sponsored by the Government (I believe) and partially run through NAS, at least that's how I got into it.  I actually applied before my diagnosis and was accepted.

So it's something to do.  All you need to be able to do is some research, answer some questions, do labs.  You can do it as something interesting, or you could do it to get a job in the IT Security business.  The companies that offer work tend to recruit specifically from the ND end of the pool and from a couple of people I know that work for those companies, they understand the problems ASD and ADHD people have and plus psychologists and other medical staff to help them while at work.

I do it, because it's interesting and because I've been doing similar stuff for the last 30 years on and off.  Maybe your son might find it interesting or just something to do for the odd hour here and there.  Anyway, just a thought.

Ann :) said:

if he has a diagnosis but sadly there is so little understanding about autism that it could also backfire

I share your concern on this Ann.  There are plenty of others who will not, and (quite reasonably) assert the counter argument....but from personal experience and by paying close personal attention to how people react to the idea of an autistic employee (in my world circle) I think keeping things on the "down low" is best ....if that is achievable for the individual concerned.

I’m not sure if it will help at interview though (but it will help in lots of other ways to have a diagnosis). He could ask for reasonable adjustments at interview if he has a diagnosis but sadly there is so little understanding about autism that it could also backfire but if that is the case I don’t think it would be a good work environment anyways. I am a neuroscientist currently doing a PhD. Is your son looking for a job in academia? I have quite a lot of scientist friends and I just want to say that it can be really hard to find a job. Has your son reached out to the career service of his former university? Career services tend to also help alumni and may be able to help with interview preparation and applications. It’s such a stressful process to apply and it can be so frustrating when you put in all this energy and have no success. i really hope your son finds work in a place where he is accepted and can flourish. 

Burnout is very common amongst autistic individuals- I’ve experienced it and am also at the moment- it comes from years of masking and pushing beyond your limits. I haven’t figured out yet how to best recover but it takes much more time than I thought possible. It does really help though to know if you are autistic- it just helps understand yourself. 

I agree, he can’t go on like this, he needs to be made to take responsibility for his actions, for his own good, even if this means having him sectioned - it’s such a pity that healthcare professionals these days don’t see their job as a vocation and not just a job, because I see this as a moral issue - as an older gay man and as a traditional Irish Catholic myself, I really believe that tough action has to be taken in this situation 

Thanks for your insight. 
you are right and  thank you for encouraging me to do the right thing even though I feel it is going to be distressing for all of us. 

Thank you Ann. He does want a career job and has been applying for jobs but is not having success. Hence me wondering if it will help him at interviews if he has had a diagnosis.  Since furthering my own understanding I am now thinking  could his current state be burnout ? I wish you well in finding something to inspire you.

There have been a lot of good comments on here already. Is your son a goal oriented person? It is very hard for someone to accept help and try to make things work in life when they don’t see a reason to do so - it’s not easy to become independent and accept help even if we want it. I’m wondering if maybe after finishing the masters which was a clear goal, your son lost sight of where he wants to go and what he wants to do? The reason I am asking is because I am like that. I need some kind of goal in mind so that I have hope and a motivation to get better because there is something I really want to do. It doesn’t have to be a career goal- it could be something else to like wanting to save up for a trip/ hobby etc. I finding things very difficult at moment and I realised it is harder than usual because I have no tangible aim and too much uncertainty in the future. 
For me at least it works best if i have something to work towards 

That is an inspiring back-story Pathfinder and it is good of you to share it.

I don't "need" to hear it for myself, but I still feel a bit inspired by it, so I would imagine it will do wonders for at least one pair of eyes, who will inevitably chance across it here, some day.

I appreciate your reply Unfortunately  don’t have access to any other avenues of support, no male role models in the family either sadly.  I don’t know anyone from his uni and he doesn’t have any friends. I am thankful for the support I have received so far from the forum. It’s hard to know who to  start with to who to ask

I also agree with a tough love approach.  I was your son at 17.  I was probably a touch worse.  I had already fallen off the rails, was in and out of the court system, was getting in trouble pretty much constantly.  if you'd asked me why, I couldn't have told you, I didn't know myself.  My parents kicked me out and off i went to live on my own.  It was really hard for the first few years.  My grandparents softened it a little and my parents did try and help me, but there was a lot hurt feelings and I admittedly cut off all contact for a few years, but a lot of my friends were family friends, so my parents still got updates. 

Eventually everything clicked. When i was funnily enough about 25.  One day i was sat in the probation office talking to my probation officer and he said to me "Why do you keep doing this to yourself?", so I went home and asked myself that question and as usual I answered it with "I don't know" and i decided from that point to be a better person.  I reestablished contact with my parents, went to college, went to university, started working and have never looked back.  But I needed that initial push.  I had to fail a lot to reach the point of of succeeding.  I also wasn't diagnosed until a couple of years ago and that is probably a chunk of the problems I had when younger, but having an ASD diagnosis in the 80s or 90s wasn't such a good thing.  I realise my parents wouldn't have wanted me diagnosed back then for that reason.

If you let your son carry on like he is, you aren't doing him any favours.  He needs to sort his act out now.  If not his future is pretty bleak and will possibly include some level of instituionalisation.  The fact his brother is pretty much scared of him is another reason you need to act.

For his own good, you need to take a very tough but necessary approach with this, even though some people still maintain that autistic people must never be permitted to live alone without a live-in carer and that the only way to manage autism is by means of ultra strict discipline, however in this particular case, the latter may be the correct solution - if you have any contact with a local parish priest or vicar or with a police officer or solicitor, these are also potential avenues of support 

Did he get on well with any of his teachers?

Try reaching out to someone who knows him in his chosen field who may know of a situation that would suit. Working side by side with another physicist in a lab setting, for example. Something for him to do? May crack the door open for him. He processes grief in a very different way than you and the other kids, it's obs, and may need a novel approach that doesn't announce itself as "counselor", but as colleague.

OR. It may be he can manage his grieving process with another

counselor, one that is adept with autistic people.

NAS92061 said:

Could you help me phrase, this into the letter please.?

You are a man of logic and facts so I wanted you to be aware of the logic of the costs you are adding to this household and the reason why they are important.

This is not to shame or guilt trip you into paying for them, but as a reminder that you cannot sustain this kind of inaction and need to engage in finding a way to change the dynamic.

Let me demonstrate the costs involved in running the household you you can understand the situation and educate yourself on this for the time you chose to setup your own household.

There are static costs:

mortgage (or rent)

council tax

maintenance

house and contents insurance

water / gas / electricity

TV licence

internet connection

Then there are consumables

food (groceries and eating out / takeaways) - break down which is which

healthcare (prescriptions, vitamins, dentist visits, opticians, eyecare etc)

transport (obviously an individual cost)

gifts for close family / friends

holidays / days out etc

replacement of electronics and furniture (I normally use 15% / year for depreciation on average)

Lastly there are optional expenses

hobbies

entertainment subscriptions (Netflix, OnlyFans etc)

pets

savings / pensions

charitable donations

Put all these in a spreadsheet and work out which are for him alone, which are a % (eg half the food at the moment) and which do not apply to him.

Add up all the costs assigned to him and tell him how much these add up to and how quickly his savings will burn out if he uses these.

Seeing how many months can be a wake up call.

At the moment I am subsidising you but I too am running out of cash so you need to come to a decision on how to get help to involke Newtons First Law of Motion to apply a new force to the equation.

I need you to do this and I think you need it as well.

Let me help you.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. Please see my reply to Iain above. It is not that he is a financial burden. I have supported him up to now, but I have recently retired and am now on a pension and reduced monthly income I have explained to him and his brother we now need to share the bills equally which he is willing to do.   If I tell him to make his own way he would use all his savings to live on. I will give great consideration to how this kind community have replied with ideas and see how I can progress to help him reach his full potential 

Wow thank you for so much detail. I really believe that this is what I have been looking for . A way in to his mind. When I have tried to connect and support I feel I fail because he can’t see my reasoning and gets angry with me. My logic is not his!!  I must clarify , he does have savings from his Dads estate which sadly means he is not entitled to any benefits. He is using this to live on and I do take money from him for food / rent   ( nominal amount) but I am now on a pension so I have asked to pay an equal share which he is happy/willing to pay. I do not want  want him to live off his savings, but I want him to learn he has to pay to live.( I do intend to help him out financially when he eventually sets up on his own…not that I’m telling him that)  Could you help me phrase, this into the letter please.? Ie  Ie a consequence of in action is less savings. Thank you so much for this insight

NAS92061 said:

He is very intelligent…

This is probably the only way to reason with him.

You may need to construct a theory of his current problems and hypothesise a solution - by using logic it is much more likely to make sense in his own mind even though the solution itself involves aspects of life that he is poorly equipped to manage on his own.

A hypothesis states your predictions about what your research will find. It is a tentative answer to your research question that has not yet been tested. It is the basis of most research work in physics.

I'll throw some ideas into the mix for a letter you could write to him. The bits in bold are for you to re-write with the info you have.

"Dear son, I have prepared the following hypothesis as a way of reaching you to try to offer help. I don't write these very often as you can imagine so please forgive my lack of sophistication.

Hypothesis -
Statement of fact
Seeing a therapist to process the loss of a close family member is widely used tol enable people to process the situation and reach a more positive mental state.
For this to be effective for you I hypothesise that confirming if you are neurodivergent will enable a more effective approach to be formulated that best addresses your strengths and weaknesses resulting from the better understanding of your mind.


Step 1. Ask a question
Seeing a therapist to process the loss of a close family member is widely used tol enable people to process the situation and reach a more positive mental state.
You have opted not to do this and your situation has changed to the point where you have become a social recluse, unemployable and a burdon (financial and social) on the family.
In order to discover if this is a result of you being neurodivergent (around 10% of people are) I propose a hypothesis to establish this so that in the event of it being confirmed, an effective process can be crafted to enable you to address the causes of your situation should you chose to engage.

Step 2. Do some preliminary research
Here you need to confirm if there are any cases of autism / ADHD / bipolar disorder in the family as these are all neurodivergent states.
There is a high likelihood of inherited neurodivergent traits so it may be worth you and your other close family members to do one of the free onine assessments to establish if this is the case.
www.thevividmind.org/.../
It is important to be non judgemental about autism and neurodivergence in general at this stage as this will work against you. It is a common bias held by many that neurodivergents are broken or inferior so a neutral approach is essential.

Step 3. Formulate your hypothesis
Was there any childhood assessment? In this day and age I would have thought schools would have picked up on this early on so any early years reports of odd behaviour, lack of friends, late speech development etc would be supporting evidence.
I would also consider reading up on autistic traits and flag up which he exhibits.
Once you have the "markers" that you think match with autism then put it in terms like:
"Examination of the corrolation between the identifiers of autistic traits and the behaviours exibited by the test subject, there is sufficient evidence to support a formal assessment.


Step 4. Refine your hypothesis
Identify how to test - starting with a free online test (linked above) and followed by a private assessment (costs between £500 and 2,000 I believe)
Once the test has been completed then there are a range of areas where the traits are highlighted as having most impact on the individuals ability to exist in society and in everyday life (there are many sensory issues connected with autism as well). Using this information a qualified, experienced therapist can develop a treatment plan to help the indiviual respond to the areas they struggle with and to the specific situation they find themselves in.

Step 5. Phrase your hypothesis in three ways
A positive identification of a neurotypical state will inform the subject of their condition and enable them to make an informed decision on any treatment or even if treatment is desirable.

A positive identification of a neurotypical state will enable the support system of the subject to become better informed of the subjects experience and can develop an approach in conjunction with the subject that is targetted and effective.

A positive identification of a neurotypical state will enable additional external support to be made available to the subject in the form of financial support (possibly), medical support if required and other user group support (this site being the foremost source I have yet found).

Step 6. Write a null hypothesis (The null hypothesis is the default position that there is no association between the variables.)
The null hypothesis is that the individual is neurotypical so the challenges are different in nature.

Personally, I would tell him that he needs to find HIS way of establishing HIS life so that it can be sustainable for HIM without the need for him to be a viewed as an parasite on YOU and YOUR life ‐ in YOUR home.

If he doesn't want your suggestions and offers of help...then that's fine.  BUT, contributing nothing and generating tensions with other members of your loved household, well, that isn't sustainable.

He is a capable grown man who is refusing your kindly help whilst abusing the kindness and tolerance you are extending to him in your home.

Don't infantalise him.  Tell him how it is.

Good luck. [And for the record, I am not a "tough love" advocate.....merely a problem solver at heart.]

Employers are legally obliged to offer 'reasonable accommodations' to disabled employees, this includes autistic people. Whether disclosing one's disabled status before interview, or after receiving a job offer, is best, is debatable. Interviews are very, very stressful for autistic people and good employers should make accommodations available at this stage, but in the real world employers seldom do. I have been on interview panels, to cover the technical side for biotechnology research roles, and, as an autistic man, found it only slightly less stressful than being an interviewee. 

He refused to go back to see the counsellor who identified he needed to process his Dads death. His sister and brother have had counselling and have told him he needs it . Sadly he won’t acknowledge it. Could you say a bit more about your suggestion of reaching him through physics. He is very intelligent…I’m not sure I have the ability