14 year old son about to be diagnosed

This is all new to me. My son is the oldest of 4 children. I'm a single mum. Over the past year he has struggled with thoughts of worthlessness, self-harm, suicide. Living in a bit of a rough neighbourhood in Manchester hasn't helped. He's had issues with cocky and disrespectful teens approaching him and looking for a fight. Then at school as well he's had a couple of incidents of bullying. Before the lockdown he had a speech and language assessment which put him on the spectrum. He really struggled with school previously and I was hoping that not being in school would help but he's been very moody, sad and would not even go out or have some exercise inside. When I try to talk to him about how he's feeling he would tell me to go away and leave him alone. When I ask him about things he enjoys or likes doing he would just say "don't know". He would do some school work at home and I praise him but none of it seems to stick. What have other parents found useful? For anyone whose child struggles with social interactions with peers or even adults, what has helped? I encouraged him to write down how he's feeling. He shared it with me and tbh, most of it didn't make much sense. He's very confused but pushing away all help from school and even Camhs. He seems to have a good conversation with professionals but later would comment that noone is helping, nobody gets him. Does anyone have experience with such behaviour?

Parents
  • One observation that I have is that being the oldest of 4 also makes it difficult for him as he hasn’t got a benchmark to go by - so he is trying to figure out how to function in the world without a user manual so to speak.

    what I would say is that kids rarely want to open up to their parents to as it changes a pre-existing dynamic so pushing him to open up may not be a useful exercise for him. It may be that he better related to another kid close to his age on the spectrum - there is generally based on what I’ve seen, a better connection between autistic people than there is between autistics and neurotypicals. It sounds like he craves to be understood but struggles to articulate it (something I very much relate to - so I’m saying this with a bit of lived In experience under my belt). So maybe looking into groups that have people of or around his age on the spectrum could be helpful. 

    All this aside he’s battling with adolescence- a horrible tome for us all on top of his autism, so it’s really tough. The lockdown makes it trickier but I’d encourage you to make it as easy as possible for him to connect with other people his age on the spectrum, it’ll help :) 

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  • One observation that I have is that being the oldest of 4 also makes it difficult for him as he hasn’t got a benchmark to go by - so he is trying to figure out how to function in the world without a user manual so to speak.

    what I would say is that kids rarely want to open up to their parents to as it changes a pre-existing dynamic so pushing him to open up may not be a useful exercise for him. It may be that he better related to another kid close to his age on the spectrum - there is generally based on what I’ve seen, a better connection between autistic people than there is between autistics and neurotypicals. It sounds like he craves to be understood but struggles to articulate it (something I very much relate to - so I’m saying this with a bit of lived In experience under my belt). So maybe looking into groups that have people of or around his age on the spectrum could be helpful. 

    All this aside he’s battling with adolescence- a horrible tome for us all on top of his autism, so it’s really tough. The lockdown makes it trickier but I’d encourage you to make it as easy as possible for him to connect with other people his age on the spectrum, it’ll help :) 

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