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Horrendous situation

Hammer

Hi, I'll keep this as short as possible as I could go on and on.

My son's GP referred him to camhs when he was 6 years old as we and school believed him to be showing signs of autism/aspergers.

No test was done but he was kept on their books for 10 years.

In that time he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital twice and had attempted suicide on more than one occasion.

He was unable to sit in a classroom for longer than 5 minutes and was given an educational statement.

He had to move secondary school as he was learning nothing and the school couldn't cope with his emotional outbursts.

Last year he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a second time and was finally tested for autism.

The result came back that he wasn't autistic and the doctors accused my wife a I of looking for a diagnosis that isn't there and that we were harming him.

We were accused of child neglect and were taken to a child protection conference where we were found guilty.

We knew that if our son came home that he would no longer get any help from camhs and his future would be unbearable for him.

His weekly suicide threats and physical abuse towards his family would only get worse.

He was put in Foster Care and we were made to feel like the worst parents on the planet.

Social services of course were working in partnership with camhs and we had to go through the humiliation of being taught how to be a parent, even though we have a daughter at university studying psychology.

After a few weeks of being in care the alarm bells were ringing in social services office as the foster carer had told them that they couldn't cope with our son and that he had big problems.

To cut a long story short our son is now living with his secong foster carer and he has been forwarded to a new camhs team who have told them that they can't understand how after 10 years that his mental health has been missed and that they are 100% convinced that he is autistic.

Social services are now being super friendly towards us but that doesn't take away the horror that our son has gone through and the nightmare that we are still living.

Parents

  • My son now age 22 has Aspergers, diagnosed at 6 years.

    Reading your post and from many years experience with my son, I am strongly inclined to agree with your pursuing a diagnoses on the lines of an autistic spectrum disorder. Key points in your post have striking similarities to what we experienced with my son:

    1. Age when problems became apparent i.e. 6 - starting school. This is when AS first feel the pressure to fit in with everyone else and its painful for them because they don't.

    2. Unable to sit in classroom for 5 minutes - my son was constantly being literally chased along corridors by teachers all through his school years.

    3. Statemented.

    4. Learning virtually nothing - in all his school years he bought home zero homework and finished school with zero qualifications.

    5. Emotional outbursts - that came out of nowhwere.

    6. Self harm.

    7. Physical abuse to family

    We were lucky in that CAMHS Psychiatrists virtually immediately gave a diagnoses of Aspergers. We had absolutely no idea what that meant at the time. Well we do now! Anyway well done sticking by your guns.

    What we found later is that at 16 our son was discharged by CAMHS and basically thrown into the wilderness of adult care of which there is next to nothing in the UK. National Health Service are you listening?: N O T H I N G. In the six years from that discharge until now, his behavioural condition has deteriorated signifigantly I believe because he had no proper support from the mental health services. He has turned into a pathological liar and a scheming, arch manipulator of his family and friends and has turned to alcohol in a big way as well. I had to evict him from home because of his violent and disruptive behaviour and his constant calling of the police to the house which he used as a weapon against us. The shock of what has happened in the last few years has virtually driven me and my wife to the edge of insanity ourselves. Absolutely horrendous for the wider family as well. Today he is living in council provided B&B with zero social services support and he has just been released from the local crisis team mental health services back to his GP who is new to him and doesn't even know him! His life is utter chaos despite our extreme efforts to give and get him the help he needs. If I sat down now and wrote down all the drama and upset that has happened to him and us I wouldn't finish for a month and it would read like a badly scripted soap.

    So to finish, sorry for the rant above but I hope you and your family don't have half the trouble we have had and good luck for the future.

Reply

  • My son now age 22 has Aspergers, diagnosed at 6 years.

    Reading your post and from many years experience with my son, I am strongly inclined to agree with your pursuing a diagnoses on the lines of an autistic spectrum disorder. Key points in your post have striking similarities to what we experienced with my son:

    1. Age when problems became apparent i.e. 6 - starting school. This is when AS first feel the pressure to fit in with everyone else and its painful for them because they don't.

    2. Unable to sit in classroom for 5 minutes - my son was constantly being literally chased along corridors by teachers all through his school years.

    3. Statemented.

    4. Learning virtually nothing - in all his school years he bought home zero homework and finished school with zero qualifications.

    5. Emotional outbursts - that came out of nowhwere.

    6. Self harm.

    7. Physical abuse to family

    We were lucky in that CAMHS Psychiatrists virtually immediately gave a diagnoses of Aspergers. We had absolutely no idea what that meant at the time. Well we do now! Anyway well done sticking by your guns.

    What we found later is that at 16 our son was discharged by CAMHS and basically thrown into the wilderness of adult care of which there is next to nothing in the UK. National Health Service are you listening?: N O T H I N G. In the six years from that discharge until now, his behavioural condition has deteriorated signifigantly I believe because he had no proper support from the mental health services. He has turned into a pathological liar and a scheming, arch manipulator of his family and friends and has turned to alcohol in a big way as well. I had to evict him from home because of his violent and disruptive behaviour and his constant calling of the police to the house which he used as a weapon against us. The shock of what has happened in the last few years has virtually driven me and my wife to the edge of insanity ourselves. Absolutely horrendous for the wider family as well. Today he is living in council provided B&B with zero social services support and he has just been released from the local crisis team mental health services back to his GP who is new to him and doesn't even know him! His life is utter chaos despite our extreme efforts to give and get him the help he needs. If I sat down now and wrote down all the drama and upset that has happened to him and us I wouldn't finish for a month and it would read like a badly scripted soap.

    So to finish, sorry for the rant above but I hope you and your family don't have half the trouble we have had and good luck for the future.

Children
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