Family in crisis - where to look for help?

Hi, I’m a newbie to this forum and I desperately look for  help for my 17yo son and my family.

My son has been suffering from OCD for last 3 years. He is most likely to have ASD and was referred for assessment last year but he doesn't agree to have this assessment. He had CBT two years ago and it helped a lot with some aspects of the disease. Last summer we were back to CAMHS as he decided to starve himself and stopped eating. I must say that he is still angry with me for these therapies and consider it to be carried out against his will.

In the current situation of lock down, my son's condition deteriorated a lot. He is disconnected from the world doing rituals all the time until exhaustion like a broken machine. Unfortunately, my husband got involved in the rituals as he wanted to take some stress away from him and help our son but this turned against him. Now my husband has to do all the rituals and my son is absolutely dependant on him. My husband has to put him to bed, take him to toilet, put his shoes, walk him to the park etc and all this takes almost 24 hours as my son doesn't need much sleep. His dinner last for almost 8-10 hours and at best we go to bed 3-4am, at worst 6.30am.

The problem is that my son doesn't agree for therapy and medication. We are in contact with CAMHS but they cant do anything unless he agrees.

We don't have any family life anymore, we are exhausted and tired. We are family in crisis and need help asap to be able to further support our son. We need help with how to manage this situation to improve it and not to make it worse, we need somebody to work with us towards convincing our son to start therapy. We feel abandoned and isolated with our problem. I'm sure there must be some help like family therapy, I just don't know where to turn to find it. CAMHS seems to be useless in a current scenario.

I hope there are people here who maybe have been through something similar and could suggest where to look for help and how to convince our son to go for therapy. Thank you.

Parents
  • Quick comment, others have already said something somewhat along these lines.

    He had CBT two years ago and it helped a lot with some aspects of the disease.

    but,

    I must say that he is still angry with me for these therapies and consider it to be carried out against his will.

    It sounds like he doesn't altogether consider it to have "helped a lot", or else it was a huge ordeal for him for some reason and he doesn't think it was worth it.  Why doesn't he want to do it again?  Do you know?  If not, can you ask him?  Can't really pronounce on how you can "convince him to go for therapy" without knowing why he doesn't want to. 

    If you've never asked him the question before, he might well be startled by it and not know what to answer at first, so if necessary tell him to take his time and you'll come back later, and maybe say he can write it down if he likes.  That'll also help to show him that this isn't just a new way of trying to pressure him into agreeing to go.

    At a guess, he may be scared in this case because he thinks the aim of treatment is just to force him to stop doing his rituals, and for some reason he can't cope with doing that (clearly he can't, or he would have stopped already, they sound exhausting).  The aim should be to put right whatever is causing him to suddenly need to do all these rituals and to fall apart if he can't, or, failing that, to find him some other way of coping with that underlying problem that works equally well but doesn't take up so much of his day.  To develop a way for him to cope all right without them, not to force him to do without them when he can't cope.  Make sure this is the aim, making sure that the therapist does intend that as well as you, and then make it very clear to him that it is.

  • The aim should be to put right whatever is causing him to suddenly need to do all these rituals and to fall apart if he can't, or, failing that, to find him some other way of coping with that underlying problem that works equally well but doesn't take up so much of his day.  To develop a way for him to cope all right without them, not to force him to do without them when he can't cope. 

    This totally.

    Others have given a lot of good advice.

    For what I know CBT doesn't really work for autism so his reluctance to engage in it again should be realty investigated and respected. Show him that you seek to understand.

Reply
  • The aim should be to put right whatever is causing him to suddenly need to do all these rituals and to fall apart if he can't, or, failing that, to find him some other way of coping with that underlying problem that works equally well but doesn't take up so much of his day.  To develop a way for him to cope all right without them, not to force him to do without them when he can't cope. 

    This totally.

    Others have given a lot of good advice.

    For what I know CBT doesn't really work for autism so his reluctance to engage in it again should be realty investigated and respected. Show him that you seek to understand.

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