This is more of a post to see if anyone else is in or has been in the same situation. My 17 year old son was diagnosed with autism during lockdown. Of course, this was not news to us as a family, more of a ‘certificate of authenticity’ as proof to gain support at school. Despite our best efforts to get support emotionally in school and outside of it, he has always struggled with his diagnosis. We tried, but perhaps we didn’t do enough to support him process these emotions he was feeling (confusion, anger, frustration).
fast forward 2/3 years and he is now 17, and in his second year at college, and we are experiencing what some might call ‘typical’ teen behaviour in the extreme, but his behaviour, attitude and whole self are having an enormous impact on him and the entire family (not in order of most concerning); his college attendance is 35%, as he refuses to go most days for a variety of reasons; he lies in bed all day; spends 95% of his time on his phone; he is verbally abusive/rude/obnoxious/entitled; his eating habits are absolutely shocking, everything is fried and spicy; he goes out with friends in the evening, not an issue mostly as am glad he leaves the house and has a social circle but I strongly suspect he is using drugs. His mental health is at an all time low-unsurprisingly and we have tried several avenues to get him help, the GP refer to CAMHS, who reject him, the support and counsellors we do find, he attends once or twice and then stops going as doesn’t see the point or doesn’t like them. This is already long so I’ll stop there but there are many, many things that are affecting him and the family is being severely impacted to the point where his younger sister is now seeing a counsellor. Has anyone been through similar or have any thoughts?
