Help! Bad Issues with The Teen Years

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I don't know about the other parents on here, but these teen years are tough! My son is considered high functioning and was always somewhat quiet. He is 14 and this last year he has been screaming and yelling a lot and won't let me near him most of the time. He is failing three classes at school. At times I can be near him and he responds to me, but most of the time he demands I go away. He has also developed OCD-like symptoms and if I accidentally touch him or brush against him, he will go and "wash it off". He has washed money that I give him and doesn't want to be in the same room as me because he says I "change the energy of the room" He will also take showers for hours sometimes. I'm trying to help him catch up in school, but since he won't let me around him, it's nearly impossible. I'm also worried because at times he will wrap up in a blanket in the dark and just lie there for a big portion of the day. I'm hoping to get him into winter sports this next season because exercise seems to help his mood, but he will not get out a lot of the time. In the past he has talked of suicide because, according to him, he is in so much pain. He avoids most of us in the family. I've tried getting help from counselors and he is currently in ABA, but I don't know if we are getting anywhere. His doctor has prescribed seroquel to help him sleep because his insomnia was another big part of the problem. Some things have gotten better, while other things have gotten worse. He just seems so miserable and I feel so bad for him, his behavior is often like a frightened/angry animal.

Have other parents experienced this? How did you help your child? And if you are autistic and understand this behavior, what would you suggest I should do to help him? Thank you for any suggestions you may have.

From a sad mom.

i'm sorry these things are happening to you and your son, the following link is certainly a "shot in the dark" but it is at least a source of information for you and your son-
https://www.amenclinics.com/
I do believe he [the doctor] is on the right track at least in terms of things you and your son can do to ameliorate your son's symptoms. please let me know your opinion of this.

Thank you very much for this recommendation. I've never heard of this place and it sounds very promising! It looks like there is a clinic just a few hours away from me, too! Many of the doctors I have seen are quick to blame his behaviors on autism, but I would really like to get to the root of the problem, so this sounds incredibly helpful. I thank you again!

Most of the reactions you are seeing in your son are driven by stress. Normally this stress is driven by name-calling and bullying that he is experiencing from his peer group at school. For boys, this normally peaks in the Junior High School years. He is probably being told that he is worthless, stupid and the world is better off if he was dead.

So what can you do as a parent?

You could have a heart to heart talk with your son to see if he is being bullied? (But do not automatically think that you can solve this if it is a problem.)

You can home school him for a few years if you are able. The bullying seems to diminish for boys in high school and then college can be a breeze.

You can have him receive therapy that teaches him how to de-stress. This type of therapy is the type used on wounded soldiers with PTSD or trauma victims. One example of therapy is called Somatic Experiencing.

You said you would like to get him into winter sports. That is a good thing. High intensity sports or exercise flushes stored stress energy from the body. It would be good if he were taught self defense skills.

Some of that stress energy is stored in his neck/vocal cords/jaw muscles. It needs to be periodically vented and one way to do this is to allow him to scream. But do it in a socially acceptable manner. For instance he should not scream at people. I scream at the top of my lungs around once per day. I live in the country and I call my dog to come home to be fed. My voice travels about a mile. That is a socially acceptable manner. There is a man on this site that goes down into the subway system in New York City and howls like a wolf whenever a subway car passes by.

Unfortunately many of the forms of therapy focus on behavior. Generally those forms of therapy do not work. One needs to relieve the cause of behavior that that is relentless unending stress. You relieve the stress and you minimize the behavioral problems.

^^^you're welcome and I am praying for you [if you don't mind]

If things have gotten worse since starting the Seroquel, then please let the prescriber know. Even if he's sleeping better, if enough other areas have gotten worse it may not be the best drug to use for sleep issues. I was put on Seroquel at a low dose before bed to help with sleeping years ago, but I reacted poorly. Basically, I turned into the wicked witch of the west (to put it nicely).

It took us a few weeks to figure out it was the new drug. Then I never bothered taking them again. Within a week I was sleeping poorly again, but life was much much better off it.

It's just something to consider. Also, if he goes off it, throw out any leftover pills.

what would you suggest I should do to help him?

I found with my son that experimenting with various supplements proved somewhat useful. Unlike pharmaceuticals, most have little or no effect so the risk of side effects is generally less. SAMe has worked well for him as well as zinc and B6.

I found that there are three sources of anxiety that can impact Aspergers physiological, developmental, and environmental. If your son has found high school to be overwhelming, it may be that other anxiety sources (which may have been previously managed adequately) now become overwhelming.

The key to parenting a child is to help them transition to adulthood, where they need to be able to manage their own circumstances. At the age of your son, you may want to engage him in the diagnosis of his own situation and guide him to experiment to identify anxiety sources and management options.

For example wrapping himself in a blanket and isolating himself may be a good initial basic strategy, but it may not be the “go to” option for his adult life. If you can help him identify causative stressors and manage things upstream, he may find he has more control.

You may want to keep him home for a couple of days to see if there is an improvement by which you may be able to gauge the degree to which school is contributing to stress.

Your “changing the energy in the room” may be that he views you as a stress source and wants to avoid feeling worse. If your approach to him is more directive, you may want to experiment with being suggestive.

The long showers may be a neurological self-stimulation that reduces anxiety because of the controlled stimulation it provides. Aspergers people may rub their fingers, touch their faces, or scratch an area more often than others because of the need for direct tactile stimulation that helps establish a sense of order and control whereby anxieties may be slightly reduced. You might suggest something like an elastic bandage on the arm under the shirt or on the leg that might provide direct pressure that could be an alternative management option.

A direct cultivation of an experimental framework may produce an environment where your son begins to develop management skills that will give him greater control over the stresses he will encounter in life. Medical doctors often think in the more limited term of what medicine is needed to treat which disease. While this may or may not be helpful (and occasionally makes things worse), your son is going to have to learn a wider skill set than just taking a pill to better cope with the world.

Here is a link to a booklet that might prove useful in understanding some of the challenges this neurological variant can produce.

http://christianpioneer.com/blogarchiev ... e_2017.pdf

If your browser does not open a pdf, you can right click on the link and save a copy to your computer.

When I was a teen I found it very helpful to spend a lot of time with a special interest to legitimately develop skills and confidence.

I think kids are pushed too much so much to fix their "deficiencies" that they don't get a chance to do things that relieve stress and give them confidence. I fixed a number of my issues in my late 30s and 40s, as it wasn't a diagnoses when I was a kid.

Thanks for the link. It was a good read.

Does he really need an anti-psychotic as a sleep aid? I mean did they try anything less intensive first? I got it prescribed for a short time due to anxiety and it just made me feel terrible it didn't actually take away the anxiety just made it harder to let it out like I was trapped with it in my own head and made me feel physically sick to.

Did the doctor even tell you it was an anti-psychotic they are using off label rather than a medication designed to aid sleep? Also though sometimes natural sleep aid supplements are better, they can aid relaxation without as much side effects as pills.

Try not to psycho-pathologize, give healthy examples and goals

14 is resistance and change, don't micromanege behaviour, it will pass

Are there chores and are they updated ?

Apparently you're too much in his space, to the 14 yo son a mother has to keep a certain distance,

privacy and no 'mindreading' and don't feed your 'feelings' upon him

If there's no father in the picture you/he might want to seek some hobby shared with other boy(s);

play chess, learn technical diy stuff, learn play an instrument (from a male teacher), astronomy club, etc


Let him make choices, but not from infinity but from serious propositions and he can add to that as well

Thank you everyone for your comments and Auntblabby for your prayers, I do appreciate them!

To answer the few questions about Seroquel, I need to give a little background to this situation. About two ago years ago, my son suddenly couldn't sleep. He would maybe get 2 to 3 hours a night, if that. For over a year, we tried every natural supplement available, but they did not seem to work. After such a long period of not sleeping, he began to hallucinate and started talking about killing his sister in her sleep. So, yeah, we had to look at something more effective. Once he started taking Seroquel last year, his hallucinations and obsessions stopped, fortunately, and he began to sleep through the night. Once a normal sleep schedule was established over the summer, we were able to ween him off.

A few weeks ago, I realized he hadn't been sleeping well and his hallucinations started to come back. Because of that, his doctor put him on a very low dose (12.5mg) to help him get a healthy sleep cycle again. So far it's working.

I've come to realize that school may be a big source of his issues and am considering homeschooling. We have done it before.

Not meaning to overanalyze, just making sure he doesn't hurt himself or others in this process of adolescence. Hearing from the perspective of someone who is autistic is helpful.

Thank you for the suggestions.