Help with a repairing/bullying problem

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Hi, folks - long time no see, sorry to have been away. DS, up until high school started, had been doing quite well. Unfortunately, the high school is awful when it comes to supporting neurodiversity, and it's huge and he got a bit lost in it.

He has hung onto his friends from middle school, at least...until recently.

So, here's the situation. DS asked to go on medication, and is on Zoloft. If he misses a dose, it's armageddon for the day - this is a known side effect of the drug. He is pretty good about taking it, we have a little pill reminder...except on complicated days, like his birthday.

So, he decided that on his birthday, he wanted two friends to come over and play Xbox instead of an outing or anything else. He struggles with win/lose situations on videogames in particular, so I asked him carefully if that was really what he wanted, considering that he doesn't like to lose (he sometimes is capable, sometimes not.) One of his friends - his best friend - has a brother on the spectrum and has known him since 1st grade, and the other knows his diagnosis, so I figured we were safe.

Of course, DS forgot to take his meds (I asked, but I didn't go look and should have.) So, after an hour or so of them happily playing Minecraft, I can hear the stony silence building. I get a text that the non-best friend "needs to go." Everybody suddenly comes upstairs, best friend says he has to leave (which is probably legit) and the other friend walks him home - and DS stays stonily silent (his silences are really frightening. I don't know how to describe it.) As the non-best friend is walking out, he says something to the effect of "you need to go!" out loud. This does happen when he has kids over for video games - sometimes he runs for his room and it takes him a while to calm down, but usually it involves another kid who wasn't invited who makes DS feel inferior. (He doesn't do so deliberately, he's just more NT than his other friends.)

Both boys were clearly freaked out - the other boy came back only long enough to get picked up, and was clearly embarrassed and scared.

So, I wrote a note to both Moms (who are friends, who know me, and who deal with special needs kids in their jobs as well) explaining that DS had a meltdown and apparently was rude to the boys on his birthday, that I was very sorry but it was partially my fault because I didn't check on the medicine, and that DS really doesn't see it coming when the meds act up. I got a note back from both Moms that it was no problem, both boys understood and were fine. Best friend's Mom asked what her son did in response, and I told her he just left quickly and quietly - she was grateful, because she's been trying to get this to happen at home. Other kid's Mom said he didn't seem to be bothered; I'm not clear if she even talked about it.

Flash forward to today. DS is getting ready for his girlfriend's birthday, which involves dressing up and going to a fancy restaurant with her Dad and the Dad's girlfriend. He stressed over buying her a gift, got her a very nice necklace, was stressing over his hair...you get the idea.

Suddenly, he starts getting a barrage of texts from the not-best-friend and the "superior" friend about how "lame" his birthday was - and one phone call by those kids from his best friend's phone. They were doing so to make it clear that they got together and didn't invite him, are texting about how much fun they are having, and clearly showing that the birthday was not cool. I counted about 10 notification noises over an hour or so. Best friend is not participating directly, but clearly isn't doing anything to stop it.

So, my question is - do I do something? If so, what? These kids are going into their sophomore year in high school and the first day of school is tomorrow; it's not like elementary school where you can talk to the parents. OTOH, my son probably needs to apologize directly for getting angry and asking kids to leave his birthday (although, frankly, he was pretty restrained.)

Also - this sucks. I am so sad for my son and am at least glad he has a date that will hopefully keep his mind off things.

My son is the same age, so I totally get the quandary we get put into when it really isn't age appropriate for us to intervene anymore, but our kids aren't necessarily able to deal appropriately on their own.

What does your son think of the recent texts? I ask because sometimes my son is almost frighteningly insightful about stuff like this and I end up not having to do anything. In a situation like you described, my son would likely say that there is only really one mean kid involved (superior kid) and that the other two kids were just trying not to be targeted themselves, so they were just going along. And he would probably not react at all.

OTOH, I will admit that I have still reached out to my son's friend's mom. His best friend refused multiple invites from my son. AT first I tried to just sit back, but then it happened so much that I was afraid maybe my son had done something to offend him without knowing it. So, I called his mom. As it turns out, the kid has had some major life stressors occur over the summer and his mom had no idea he was turning down invites. She was thankful I called because it helped her see her son was more stressed by the stressors than she had seen.

I guess I am not helping much. I guess the only help I can give you is to say I get it. It all sucks. But we got through all the hard stuff when they were younger, so we will get through this too.

Thanks, yes, I'm marking time for the time being. DS seems to get it to some degree, but he's not sure where "best friend" falls in the situation - and he's feeling (again) like he has no friends and nobody likes him. I think he's really scared because he has to manage lunch, and his best friend has a different lunch period than he does. I'd be more inclined to let it go and allow him to be philosophical if we hadn't had some instances of self-harm this summer.

Well, on to the first day of school...we'll see how this goes.

How did it go?

I'd have been on the phone to that kid's mom in an instant.
I don't care what's appropriate, I'm scary bear-mom.

I talked to my husband, who was - bless him - not really any help at all, just as confused as I, and a couple other Moms. I finally decided to just lay low and see how he does, and also see if this is going to escalate.

I was really proud of him; he was really freaked out by the first day of school, but he went and did fine; turns out there is another boy that he hasn't been close to, but who knew him in grade school and that he's hung out with - so he's not alone at lunch. Annoyingly, the only kid he has class with is the "superior" one, but he kind of took that in stride.

I talked to him tonight and asked about how things went - he said it felt like his best friend was OK, but for everyone else there was this kind of tension. I commiserated, and then I suggested that maybe he could think about offering the non-best friend a vague apology, something along the lines of "I had a lot going on that day and didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He kind of indicated that he understood, so we'll see where that goes.

We'll see what happens when we get more of the school year behind us; hopefully it will keep going OK!

So sorry for your DS. That is an upsetting situation (re: the texts/ call) for anybody, NT or ASD.

I am guessing that maybe the mother of the non best friend did not actually (as you suspected) speak to her son, or ask him about the birthday, so that non best friend had no idea that it was a medication issue, or the reasoning behind your son's reaction. So, he may feel hurt and is reacting. Whether he knows about your son's diagnosis or not, he probably can't get past the surprise of being yelled at to go to consider that your son sometimes struggles in these situations, and it was not personal or that your son has no bad lingering feelings. He may still think that your son has a big problem with him.

If I was good friends with the non best friend mom, I would probably reach out to her. However *disclaimer*: I do not have a son in high school, so I don't know. My son is only going into 4th grade. If I did not know the mom too well, I may just wait and see, and make sure DS apologized (as you are doing).

This stuff is so hard to figure out how to handle. I get it. I hope it blows over. But, your DS seems to be handling it pretty well.

Well, we have had a weird time since last I posted - kind of bridges two threads.

Girls have discovered DS. Unfortunately, even though he's totally open about his diagnosis...they don't quite get it, which is both good and bad. So, unbeknownst to me, during this whole mess with his male friends, while he was going on a fancy date with his girlfriend...a girl he'd had a crush on had contacted him and implied they could maybe get together. (I remember being like this: I'd get HUGE crushes on boys in part because I weirdly interpreted their interest in me as my interest in them. My base assumption was that nobody would like me so I was never prepared; I don't know how else to express this, but I wound up in surprise "relationships" all the time.)

So, managing that was mostly why DS wasn't freaking out about his friends. Unfortunately, this girl is completely NT and totally sensible and finally told him that as long as he had a girlfriend nothing was going to happen between them. DS got in a snit and did a lot of whining about how she broke his heart (in two days) at her over text, finally leaving a voicemail threatening suicide on her phone, and while he was telling me all about it (suicidal is his default, if you remember) the police show up at our front door. (Yay, girl! Wish I had a way to tell her that was the perfect thing to do - for one thing, he was being an ass, and for another, you don't take a risk with that language.) We had a long talk - AGAIN - about how you cannot take your disappointment back to the person who disappointed you, especially when it comes to romantic relationships. I hope this time it took.

So, despite the fact that DS was even less likely to kill himself than...usual? we spent the entire night in the ER. Did I mention that DH is a firefighter and I run our chapter of the Neighborhood Watch? So, yep, that was mildly embarrassing for a tempest in a teapot...but most of both those groups know he's on the spectrum and we're pretty much live-out-loud kinda people, so in an "oops" sort of way.

I send a THIRD note to the school explaining that, in addition to needing his IEP to be appropriately implemented, DS had spent the night in the ER after he had threatened suicide to a friend who called police, that he would be missing a day of school and I wasn't sure if I would be able to get him to go back - and that he needed his social work minutes that he never got last year NOW.

I'm having lots of mixed feelings about this whole comedy of errors - so, in addition to all this, in his single full school day DS had, after asking his English teacher carefully "are we supposed to be serious?" introduced himself as a "loser" who wants to be "an international assassin." Never mind that I wrote a parent concerns letter stating that he tends to talk about guns, violence, death and videogames and that as long as he isn't specifically threatening anyone, a simple redirect was sufficient. Never mind that the English teacher called me and I explained that DS's strategy is to be the worst and most scary thing he can think of so he has nowhere to go but up socially. The next day, when he voluntarily got himself to school, DS got a police escort from school to the ambulance...and we spent the day in the ER. With different colleagues.

All of this sounds awful, but truthfully all of us - including DS - were kind of amused by the whole thing. I mean, he's been threatening suicide since he was 4 and the assassin thing has been since 4th grade, and considering the school's attitude last year was pretty much "why are you bothering us, your kid is fine" despite my pounding on tables and insisting his IEP be followed...the overreaction was funny. I can't wait to go through my emails and find all the instances where I said this was going to happen in preparation for the next IEP meeting...

All that said, DS is actually seriously depressed, and we haven't been able to find the right intervention - which is not funny. I am VERY glad that got kicked into high gear. He's doing an NT-based partial hospitalization program for depression and anxiety, and he weirdly seems to be relieved about it. The social worker that he saw 4 whole times last year is going to create a re-entry program just for him, acknowledged that the school dropped the ball and that he needed social support, and said something about an anime group and helping him find friends who aren't a-holes (when they did the risk assessment, DS told them the whole story.)

So, in the surreal way that things seem to work out for us...this seems to have worked out for us. The only bad thing is they put DS on the clear and present danger list, I need to do more research on that (after saying he wants to be an assassin, really?) but it looks like the only consequence for that is he can't get a FOID card for 6 years - I'm OK with that, he's just a kid.

Wow.

I am trying so hard to think of something insightful and supportive to say, but everything seems to fall short.

What I can say is that I am insanely impressed by your ability to maintain a sense of positivity and perspective through this. That is an enviable life skill to have.

I hope this was the catalyst that you guys needed for some much needed change. It sounds, at the very least, that things are heading in a better direction.

Keep us up to date.

I am so glad that things got kicked into high gear. And this might sound weird to other people who haven't worked with teens/young adults. But I am so glad that he got in serious "trouble" while he's still a child. It sounds like they are treating the whole thing like he's a youth. And that's so important. Because it gets so much worse if you do this stuff after turning 18. So many of us on the spectrum are socially immature and need more time to grow up before we are really thinking like an adult, but the legal world doesn't make these distinctions. The prisons are full of people who have disabilities. In fact, at least one study found that something like 95% of people in prisons have some kind of cognitive or mental illness. If your son got a dramatic lesson in how bad it can get if he crosses the line, hopefully, he'll pay more attention to where that line is drawn. And he's getting a higher level of support, too. Really good.

It just goes to show that you never know in what clothing the Calvary will come.

There’s no repairing for bullying—the bully will just keep bullying you.

I was thinking of helping my son repair his part of the conflict; at this point none of us care what happens with the other boys. It's moot anyway.