14 year old - OCD/Apergers - "forgetting" medication

Fair play - good on you. Trouble is I've got a teenager who vehemently and violently would have a big issue about, in his eyes "being treated like a baby".

He would quite happily not take his tablets for weeks and say he "forgot" then exploded if I even suggested something like this because "theres no need to treat me like a baby" and "we don't trust him"

He s 14, he is a child.

My husband gives me my medication, I don't feel like he's treating me like a child, he looking out for my health, if he didn't i probably wouldn't  Get them most days 

Nobody advised that he should stop taking meds because of the side effects. I think Taltunes was just saying that your son might be experiencing unpleasant side effects of the medication and that is perhaps why he would stop taking the meds. You have have posted several times about how your son seems immature and doesn't always do what you think is right or logical, so why is it so surprising that instead of discussing the side effects with you and asking to go back to have another appointment with the person who prescribed the meds, he simply stops taking the meds? If he doesn't like going to the clinic, that would be a good reason for not taking what you see as the logical course of action. Also, he might be a little afraid of how you would react if he doesn't do what you think he should (i.e. just take the meds and keep quiet about it).

Your son stoppped taking the meds, so maybe they aren't making him feel better. Since that's what they are meant for, the only logical conclusion I can make about your reaction is that, yes, you are wanting him to take the meds for your own purposes. You don't have a "normal" kid, and meds aren't going to make him normal. I bet the best thing you can do for your son is to accept him the way he is and not try to change him. Perhaps then he'll want to spend time with you and the rest of the family instead of shut in his room in his own little world.

Yeh might be a good idea.

We try to treat him with a bit of respect i.e. ok  you heard what the doctor said and here are your tablets and you know when to take them. Making him sit down and prove hes done so is treating him a little like a child,

But maybe he needs this...

Hi, if I word this wrong i am not meaning to offend. 

Do you feed your child? I mean do you call him for his dinner or anything?

Give him his medication with a meal or make him a drink, give him his tablet and say, take this in a nice voice.

It works here and saves anyone getting over stressed

p.s. I’m not saying your son doesn’t need guidance. My support worker getting a bit annoyed with me and more or less telling me I was acting like a spoilt child, did the trick. Ok I might have got horribly drunk on gin and Valium but everything has improved since then. And I’m certainly not trying to tell you what to do. You’ve got to do whatever you’ve got to do and I would never criticise you for whatever you did. I’m just sharing my experience in case it sheds some light for you and your boy and your family. You’re already doing a far better job as a parent than I could ever do. My child only had to cry and I would freak out. Thank god he didn’t cry a lot. It’s a tough role being a parent and we often get little thanks or recognition for all the effort we put into parenting, so I’m on your side. 

I understand that. Since just before Christmas and up until a couple of weeks ago, I was totally preoccupied with watching black and white movies. I naturally stopped watching them when I started to feel better (incidently this was around the same time as I stopped taking the meds). Now I’ve moved on to playing a game on my phone, which I’ve never done before but it’s helping me in so many ways. For example, unless I’m in a routine, I have difficulty eating and in this burnout, even though I’m trained in Ayurvedic medicine and I’ve been studying nutrition for 30 years, I honestly have been unable to make nutrition a priority. I’m getting a headache now and even though I don’t like taking medication, I will take some solpadiene rather than eat because I’m doing something. I’m talking to you and it’s quicker and easier to take the medication rather than eat, which would prevent the need for medication but it means I can keep talking to you without a gap. However, I have learned by playing the game, that when I’ve had something to eat and I’m not tired, I play better, I get better scores. This is speaking to me in a way that I can now understand. You would think that an intelligent 50 year old with a vast experience of health and nutrition, would be able to understand the need for nutrition. But in a burnout, I can’t. And the only reason that I’m now coming out of the burnout is because I’ve had enough rest. Physical rest isn’t enough for me. I also need rest from my ever active mind and thoughts and the black and white movies gave me that rest. I watch the romantic type films that always have a happy ending. The stories aren’t difficult to follow, you don’t even have to follow them, they don’t go on for hours and they give me a lovely feeling when I watched them and more crucially, they give me a rest from my mind. 

I have just taken the pain killers, knowing full well that if I ate some food, the headache would go away, but it’s not possible for me to break away from this just to eat. But I did get myself a drink of hot water so I’ll at least attempt to drink that. There’s no logic in this. I used to fight it because I couldn’t understand it but I’m starting to understand it and the less I fight, the more I eat. I’m still not eating every day and that’s ok. I’m only just starting to come out of this burnout and it’s been quite a year, so I’m being easy on myself. I even forgot to go to court on the day my case was being heard and there was a possible outcome of me losing my home. The woman from the council actually came to my door and gave me a letter with the appointment date on it and handed it to me and said I must be there if I want a chance to save my tenancy. I thought she was crazy. I thought did she honestly think I would forget something as important as that. But three days rolled by, after the court date, when I suddenly remembered I was in court and I had missed the hearing. Fortunately, I got to keep my tenancy. I sound like I’m useless or something but I’m not. I’m used to earning easily in excess of £1000 a week, which I know isn’t a lot for some people, but it was way more than I needed. Yet here I am, not even able to realise the importance of nutrition and not be able to priorities it over other things. I’m at a university tomorrow, to see about joining their masters degree in autism leading to a PhD in the same subject yet I can’t even get myself out of bed, dressed and fed on a regular basis. My support worker got a bit angry with me, saying that I will never manage to get through university if I don’t eat, she’s really worried about me, and inside I’m thinking, what are you getting so upset about, it’s only food, now let’s talk about my new plans! But the game on my phone is finally making me realise that of course I have to eat. If I eat regularly I’ll be better able to do the course, but it’s taken me this long (over a year) to figure this out. It’s almost like a form of temporary dementia. It’s like parts of the brain stop working. I would go into my kitchen, knowing there is food, ordinarily I’m an amazing vegan cook, everyone loves my food, yet I wouldn’t have a clue what to do when I got in the kitchen. It was like I was playing okey cokey. I would put all this fresh food in my fridge then the following week throw it all away and in the mean time if I ate anything it would usually be chocolate. Milk chocolate that I don’t normally eat. I make my own chocolate or eat the dark stuff. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of this and since I decided to stop working it out and to simply go with it, you wouldn’t believe the progress I’ve made in less than a week. It’s simple but complex and almost impossible to explain to somebody who isn’t autistic. My support worker kept encouraging me to write out a simple weekly plan that said eat at 10 am and 2 pm and that’s it. But week after week I wouldn’t do it because I 100% would totally forget, the minute she left my house. I thought it was an amazing idea while we were talking about it  but I just couldn’t remember it after she left. Even if I put reminders on my phone with an alarm, I would switch the alarm off and forget about it. It wouldn’t matter if it was written down in several places, I would still forget, I tried it. In the end I ended up taking some Valium and downing a bottle of gin because I was so confused. This resulted in the best thing ever. My friend did the shopping and came and made me the soup that me and the support worker had been talking about and even though I ended up throwing most of it away, because I’ve had it done for me once, it’s enough for me to do it myself next time.  I’m still not eating every day but I’m eating better than I was. I had pictures on my bedroom wall showing somebody waking up then brushing their teeth etc so I would know what to do when I opened my eyes but they fell off the wall after a while and I was overly ambitious anyway. I had me doing my meditation, yoga, going for a run and doing some spiritual reading and practice, before most people are even stirrring from their slumber. This was before I got a support worker. She’s helping me be more realistic and helping me build up to that but we needed to get the eating thing sorted. She said its like I’m acting like a spoilt rebellious child or something, which threw me into this tail spin and I ended up in a pretty bad state. 

Anyway, I feel for you. I couldn’t have coped with a child like me, no way, I totally give my family credit for not killing me or putting me in a kids home because I wasn’t an easy child and I’m not an easy adult to be around. But not because I’m intentionally difficult, even though I am often intentially difficult, but because I didn’t know any other way to express myself. Now I’m understanding me better in so much as it’s autism and I’m not trying to understand the hell out of it, I’m doing much better but as a kid and even up to a few years ago, I realise now I was a bit of a nightmare, but I honestly never saw it back then. 

Okay, so if it’s that he doesn’t want to leave his computer games I agree that reminders probably won’t work (as he’ll just ignore them in order to continue doing what he wants to do).

Therefore, how about getting him to try and take his medication when he is on a break from his games anyway e.g. going to the loo, getting food/drink, getting dressed, or even just between games (if there are any gaps in them at all). I’m not sure how well that would fit with when he is supposed to take his medication, but it might be better than him not taking it at all.

I did not say anything about how they should stop taking meds - you may have read it as without the involvement of a qualified health professional but I did not say it.

I also made my original comment before you mentioned your daughter or the fact that your son is being violent towards her and I would like to think that I would have answered very differently, if at all, if you had mentioned that in your original post.

Yeh we had the discussion. To be fair hes great when it comes to going to appts, agreeing to take tabs - thats never been an issue.

Hes not so much forgetful. ITs he gets engrossed in his computer games and nothing else in the world seems to matter.

Well, I'm sure you would have had very different responses had you simply written on the post "I would like a phone number for an official helpline", which I assume now is all you wanted since you've called the moderator's a 'decent reply'.

However, when you posted on the forum it was somewhat assumed that you would want opinions and thoughts as well as the 'stock response'.

The fact is that you are quite aggressive in the way you type, and you seem to have a low opinion of your son. He's just 14 years old but you've made claims including: "Not impressed I must admit but that's my son to a tee." and "If you just sit in the corner and refuse to let people help you or listen to PROFESSIONAL advice then that's not going to work."

Remember that he is still just a child. Yet, you are expecting him to have very high levels of communication skills (hard enough for any teenager, let alone one on the spectrum) and to use these to discuss what can be quite a complex medical topic. It sounds like you are controlling the professionals he sees and are very involved in what medication he is expected to take, but expect him to be enthusiastic about it all despite him probably not having much of a say in any of it.

Now, we on the forum don't know the intricacies of your family life or why you've made the decisions you have, but the fact remains that you do, frankly, speak to people like they're far lesser beings and like you know it all - and your son probably has to deal with this kind of attitude on a fairly regular basis which certainly won't be helping with his ability to communicate about a very difficult and sensitive topic.

Also bear in mind that this may just be forgetfulness on his part, so getting angry and saying 'this is him to a tee' is putting unnecessary blame on him for something that can't be helped.

Aspies can definitely have short term memory problems, though their long term memory is often excellent. This is definitely true for myself - I can be asked to do something and not five minutes later forget what it was. It doesn’t matter that I know I was supposed to do something, I just can’t seem to remember what it was no matter how hard I try. This is why I write notes to remind myself and I put everything on my calendar and set reminders.

With regards to the issue with your son, I would suggest that first you need to find out if he is deliberately not taking his medication, or if it is genuine forgetfulness. You could try asking him why he thinks he is forgetting his medication, or if it’s that he doesn’t want to take it. Certainly if it is genuine forgetfulness then there would be ways to help remind him (such as above), but if he is doing it so as to avoid taking the medication then this is something you will have to discuss with him to find out why. Then once you know what the issues are, hopefully you would be able to come to a mutual solution for all.

I don’t think creating our own space where we feel safe is creating an ‘us’ and ‘them’ situation, I think it’s creating our own space where we feel safe to express ourselves. Lots of people have their own groups and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone accusing them of creating an us and them situation. Feeling safe to express ourselves will help us find our voice and will encourage confidence in ourselves so we are better able to communicate more effectively with nt’s, should we desire to do so. 

Yes fair point Blue Ray. Maybe we need to help him remember a little better.

Unfortunately, at the moment, we're having a lot of trouble helping him remember anything - hes totally occupoed with computer games. Homework the lot gets forgotten about.

" Absolute rubbish" was in response to a comment from the poster which has no basis in fact. Advising that someone should stop taking meds because the side effects are too bad without the involvement of a qualified health professional is not clever. We should not be condoning this on a forum.

"Pathetic" was my response to the same posters inference that I was looking after myself which IMHO was out of order. No-one knows in details my family situation or how things are.

There really is no need for this them and us attitude.

Neither, would I suggest is personal comments about what you consider my attitude to be.

No offence Taltunes but surely its not helpful having two separate forums. Its just going to widen the gap and turn it into a "them" and "us" thing which is not helpful  to anyone IMHO.

I’m 50 years old and I forget to take my medication and because of that I’ve stopped taking it altogether now. It was causing me more anxiety just to remember to take it, even when I put it on the little table I use to put my drink on in a morning, I still forgot. I honestly don’t know why I forget to take it so often and I haven’t told the doctor yet that I’ve stopped taking it, I just can’t seem to remember and I haven’t got anybody to remind me so I’ve just stopped. I’m not causing any physical violence to anybody but I’ve noticed I do speak my mind a lot more when I’m not taking it and that often upsets people. The only thing I could suggest is somebody giving it to him so he can’t forget. It must be a very frightening situation to be in when he is violent, particularly with a young child around. 

Sorry NT is short for Neuro-typical which is how most people on the spectrum describe people who are not on the spectrum. One problem with using normal instead of NT is that the opposite of normal is abnormal which some of us on the spectrum feel is derogatory. For similar reasons I prefer ASC autism spectrum condition to ASD autism spectrum disorder

NT?

Perhaps this community needs to be split in two - one for people on the spectrum and one for NTs