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Any advice on how to keep my young adult son safe. He has recently been diagnosed with asperger' s syndrome.

NAS37779

My son is 19. He removed himself from peer relationships more or less in the second year of a'levels. He has a university place but deferred. He struggles with social relationships and will not work due to anxiety, though we did try to persuade him to use the help suggested for this in our area, via an advocate. He goes online most of the night. However, he now says that with the bit of money given to him by his grandparents he is going to a conference on anime? in Los Angeles with the people in America he has met online. He hasn't given us any details. He won't even catch a train or go shopping normally!! My concern is it's a scam or that he will be unsafe. We have no one to help as he was diagnosed post 18...after years of chasing for help as we knew something was not right. We feel powerless. We just want him to be happy and safe but something feels wrong about this. He just rants at us and tells us we are controlling parents if we try to find out more details, though we have tried to explain this is what any parent would want to know, venues etc. 

  • in reply to Cassandro

    Yes I think that is true. He is an intelligent young man,I'm just  not used to him wanting to venture out really. 

  • NAS37779 said:
    My concern is it's a scam or that he will be unsafe.

    Just to throw in another generalisation: I think autistic people may be more vulnerable to scams if they don't have time to process information. So a salesperson's time pressure tactics may be effective, but just smiling probably won't work. Given a chance to investigate something in depth, they may check out background more thoroughly.

    Hope the other testimony is reassuring regarding safety. If you express positive interest in the subject, or offer to answer questions about travel and so on, maybe he will volunteer more info and trust?

  • in reply to Blade

    Thank you so much for your outlook. It does seem like a superhuman moment and hopefully he will plan carefully. I have known a couple of other times when he has seemed incredibly confident though normally shy. 

  • in reply to NAS37779

    If it helps at all, as an autistic adult I can go through these superhuman moments.

    I struggle to even use local trains, so I avoid them. I cannot, at all, use local buses or any other form of public transport beyond trains.

    I struggle in all new environments. Especially crowded ones and big cities.

    Yet, for example, I went to London earlier this year because there were some places I was particularly interested in visiting. I took my three year old. We went for 3 days. We used public transport all the time, including the Tube to get around the city, and visited all of the biggest and most popular attractions.

    I can't explain where this came from, but I think a strong level of interest can override the autistic traits for a short amount of time and this might be what's happening for him with his plan to go to America. No doubt he'll come back to all of the same struggles he faces now, unfortunately, but you'll find that he's probably going to plan for every tiny detail when he's there and will have a great time. He'll just come back exhausted, most likely.

  • in reply to Cassandro

    Thank you loads for your reply. I will check if it's that. They did give a list of support in our area but he hasn't taken any local support up. I think he feels more comfortable online and I understand that. Would like nothing more than for him to have a holiday like this, just so worrying and such a big step in regard to how he's been. 

  • Thank you I will look that up. I am glad he has found people to talk to with the same interests...this was a shock and of course worrying but it's also the first time he's seemed motivated in a while. There was supposed to be post diagnosis support but we received no follow up so I'm trying to learn more as we go. There will be university support when he goes there. 

  • He probably knows what he's doing and just wants to meet people with the same special interest. Is it the big animé expo in early July (first one I found online)? He may be motivated enough in order to negotiate all the logistics himself even if he's not done it before, but he might also appreciate you offering general support.

    Was there any post-diagnostic support, like a course or a chance to see an occupational therapist? Would he accept some kind of help with the anxiety/anxieties? Would it also be worth checking out what support is available through the university?