Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everybody,
I am sorry but we are failing, we don't know what to do or where to turn. Our son, was diagnosed with aspergers at an early age and is now twenty-one.
We have tried and tried to encourage him, tried and tried to help and support him but we are failing. He left school three years ago and now there is nothing. His daily routine is simply sitting in his bedroom, on his laptop,day in day out. We cannot say or do anything that will encourage him to look for any form of work, any form of social interaction outside his room.
We feel we are enslaved to him, washing for him, feeding him, clothing him, basically providing everything thing he needs. We have tried and tried to talk to him, encourage him but we have failed. We, not our son, have applied for jobs for him, wrote a CV for him, managed to get him a few voluntary jobs. He as simply walked away from them.
We really don't know what to do, all we seem to do now is worry ourselves sick about his future. There is no motivation, no interest and now he is becoming physically out of shape. We try to encourage him to join in with family events, he shows no interest and makes excuses simply to go back to him room.
Night after night now we simply try to formulate ideas, discuss it over and over again and most of the time it simply ends with us in tears, through worry.
Sorry for the long post but we really are the point where we feel we are failing.
People with Asperger's (including myself) often suffer from secondary mood disorders such as depression. It sounds like that may be now your son's main problem rather than the AS itself. Has he been diagnosed with depression and is he receiving any treatment for it? I'm currently participating in the ADEPT study in which Guided Self-Help is being developed for people with autism and depression. If he's registered with a local autism unit, it might be worth asking them about it.
Is he in fact receiving support even for his autism? It sounds like you are having to provide all the support, when he should be able to access it from experienced professionals who could for example provide specialist training and arrange work placements. I know service availability varies across the country.
Young men need as much independence as possible. I speak from experience. At his age (I'm now 55) I resented the smothering attentions my parents gave to their only child and the only solution for me was to move out. That initially meant living in a grotty damp-ridden bedsit on benefits and, though it was tough, I was still happier on my own and soon found work and friends. (I realise the benefits system is now less generous, though I did not have the advantage of an autism diagnosis at his age.) Assuming he is reasonably capable, maybe you need to show him some "tough love" and withdraw some of your support or make it conditional. The depression may need to be assessed and treated first, though.
The fact that he's apparently on his laptop all day suggests he's still interested in something. What does he do on it? Maybe he has obsessions or special skills (as AS people often do) that could spark his interest in something related in the outside world - not necessarily a job at this stage. Does he have friends, visiting him in his room or on the internet? If so, what does he discuss with them?