What is your biggest fear for your child with Autism?

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Perfectly put.. these are my worries too!! !
Sometimes I see glimpses of hope, that things eventually will turn out ok, but I know deep down his struggles will be many. I just hope he finds healthy ways to cope with them all.

Hi All,
Putting this question out to the universe:

Does anyone have a particularly successful means of dealing with your child's chronic depression other than pharmaceuticals? Our son can't take SSRI's. He becomes even more suicidal on them. We would love to find something that really makes the kiddo feel better, his complaint is depression, anxiety, irritability. He's 13. He's having trouble keeping normal sleep patterns, wants to sleep in the afternoons, up all night, etc.
THanks,

Treating the anxiety would probably help the depression. I got depressed because of chronic anxiety when I was young. Anti-anxiety medication helped me more than anti-depressants, and of course if he isn't doing it already he should be doing therapy. Also sometimes anxiety is circular. You get anxious because you know you're always anxious and you don't like the feeling. You get afraid of being afraid. It ends up going in this infinite negative loop. You could teach him about the fear-adrenaline-fear cycle so that he can understand that anxiety is his body playing tricks in him making him think he is in danger. You get afraid, your adrenaline kicks in, and then your fear just gets worse. Find any way you can to help him sleep at night, lack of sleep makes people much more anxious and depressed. I used to get anxious trying to sleep, it helped me to fall asleep watching tv or reading, so that I didn't have to lie there thinking waiting to fall asleep, I would just slowly drift off while I paid attention to something else. If you start a new thread asking this question you might get more answers. Most of the people looking at this thread will be parents, you can probably get a lot better answers from the people here who struggle with the same issues.

Thanks, I will do that.

Its strange reading these worries, when you have a son who is nearly 6, doesn't talk and still in nappies. OTOH my son is happy which is really the 90% of what I hoped for for my kids.
And then further I met a man on the weekend who lives with his elderly Mum and while he's intelligent, his life has been made untenable due to Paranoid schizophrenia, no job, no friends, no GF. Ever. Sounds a familiar end-story to AS doesn't it?
She has the same worries as us, plus theres the whole bizarre behaviour/potential axe murderer thing.

I guess I'll keep my 'big baby'.