Published on 12, July, 2020
I am worried about my son's ongoing ESA claim as, for around 2 years now, he has refused to engage with services which means, of course, that there are no appointments, treatments or medications we can refer to, nor any clinic or professional opinion we can include. In short, no corroborative evidence. It is only a matter of time before the dreaded ESA questionnaire lands, in order to update the information that was very well supported for the original claim (crisis team, early intervention in psychosis team, GP and CPN).
Our son (23) is extremely withdrawn, mucky, possibly depressed and very hard to engage in any conversation. In spite of having been discharged from the early intervention team because they diagnosed him with Asperger's and said they could find no evidence of mental illness, our son insists that he doesn't have autism and wants to be left to sort out his own problems in his own way. This he does by avoiding everyone and he seems to find it almost painful to talk to us. Or indeed anyone. He has no friends or interests outside the home and, although we try to be supportive in a person-centred way, it's hard to know what we can do to help.
How might we encourage engagement? And how on earth can we protect his interests financially?
I'm still feeling stumped. Although I now have my own diagnosis (which to my mind sheds some light on what might be going on in the rest of my family), services treat me very much as an individual and can offer no advice or guidance on how to help my son.
Yesterday the Adult Autism Service countered all of my questions about family by emphasising the need to focus on myself as an individual when it comes to accessing services. They then proceeded to talk about my own needs and what I could expect from the referral to a local autism charity.
It seems to me that my most pressing need is for anything which might help me to help my son. This is certainly what is causing me most stress in life. I feel as though I'm up against a brick wall. On the one hand their website indicates the largely genetic nature of autism, yet on the other there is little which takes a family approach and it seems to be actively avoided.