Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello my autistic 16 year old son has recently been diagnosed with GAD and PTSD. It’s been a difficult journey to get support - he’s been too anxious to engage with therapy and been off school for some time and missed the whole of year 11. The hope is that the meds might help him enough to start to engage in life again and eventually access the therapy he needs. However, having read about the side effects he is just terrified of how he might feel if he takes the meds. He has lots of sensory issues around feeling nauseous had some general issues with his body and feeling uncomfortable. Although rationally he can understand that he might feel better he’d rather just stick with how he is than risk being the person who gets all the side effects. He is happy to take other medication such as painkillers and antibiotics but feels very different about this. I’ve told him he doesn’t have to take them and to think about it/wait until he’s ready. But I can’t help feeling frustrated.
Has anyone else experienced this or got any advice on how he might be encouraged to try the meds?
Thank you
I've posted my findings and experience before on these threads.
Anti-anxiety medications are designed to boost GABA.
Anti-depressants will lower GABA. SSRIs suppress the heart rate and interfere with hormones - this might be necessary in extreme cases.
A great deal of medical reports are now finding one of the biological differences of Autistic and ADHD is lower GABA. Which acts as an Inhibitor in the brain for pruning pathways and calming down waves spiralling out of control (looping thoughts which need resolution). GABA also helps with the brains ability to Filter incoming signals so they're not 'too real' (Bayesian theory on Autism). In other words, everything will impact with a greater intensity.
Often, more extreme highs and lows in emotions are part and parcel with this intensity of experience. As we grow we need more protection from external sources and more understanding of our physical and social surroundings to help make sense of them. We need a more grounding.
Sometimes allowing the self to simply ride out the emotions and work through them can help build a sense of understanding that feelings come and go. However, when the emotions are far beyond our control (this is the opposite of Depression, or being de-compressed) it can cause one to stay too long in Survival Mode: fight, flight, freeze or fawn and can continue to impact our bodies in traumatic ways. Anti-depressants are not helpful for this, they can make it worse, as this extreme stress is Anxiety. Not depression.
I want to add to this about my own experience. I started taking a Nootropics blend (a bit like a mushroom salad with Lion's Mane and Reishi) daily. My son is 27 and now feels the benefit from them as well. They take time to work, but a good blend will boost clarity and focus, the immune system and Vit D, they can help heal the gut and lower anxiety. All because they happen to boost the gut-brain axis (GABA).
However, there are the more rare moments (once or twice a month now) that a song is looping in my head creating such excitement (the other side of the coin to anxiety) or a work project is looping through my head which cannot be resolved immediately because it actually takes a few weeks or months of waking, working, sleep, repeat to get to the end. Things which demand resolution can take over my brain and this is when I might take a half dose of anti-anxiety medication to sleep. They should never be taken more than a few days on repeat in my opinion.
My son had tried anti-depressants around the same age as yours and they didn't help. He was on and off for a few years trying different ones and one really made everything worse. I wish I'd known then what I know now, but after Uni we switched to an immune building nootropics blend and it made all the difference. In reality, his father was battling cancer, money was also short, among other things. But I also encouraged therapy, minding nutrition, finding a sport, talking through complicated problems, and engaging in self-directed research for what we didn't know. Along with minding human biology - not sleeping in polyesters (wool bedding regulates temperature), a halogen lamp for reading at night, black out curtains, downloading a decibel reader to better address piercing sounds and having ear plugs, and so on. And then reinforcing one introverted day at least every other week. No interruptions, no questions, just rest. These all help.