Fighting to get help

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We keep having to fight to get any help for my son (HFA & ADHD 15yo). We've had fight after fight with disability services but they just don't want to help. They will happily give us funding for 'find your own' respite (which is useless if you have no-one to ask) but they won't help fund counselling so he can get the help he needs to cope in the world. We had a meeting with the complaints officer yesterday and when we said that it was unfair that funding cut out at 14yo coz autistic kids are a lot more difficult to manage in the teenage years she said that all teenagers have problems and not just autistic ones. I thought this was really mean. Yes it's hard to be a teenager but it is harder to be a teenager when you don't understand social relations and how you're supposed to act. She just completey rubbished how hard it is because normal teens have a hard time - the difference is that normal teens only have to deal with being a teen whereas spectrum teens have to deal with that plus the disability. You'd think that someone taking complaints for disability services should be a little more understanding. I get fed up with people dismissing how hard it is by saying that it's just normal when it's not. She made those comments assuming that we were both NT. I'm not NT (I have ADHD and I need help to understand the world too). When someone says stuff like that it makes me really upset coz it's just so much harder to cope in a world that you don't understand and to say that everyone else has problems too is like saying that the real struggles that spectum teens face mean nothing and are not worth of support and understanding.

I feel so mad that I don't know what to do

I am sorry that you are having so many problems getting the help for your child that is needed. It all varies so much, by locaiton, by professional, and so on. I do hope you can find a better solution.

Meanwhile, I would compose the arguments into a written document. I've found it helps me when I write things down. And then I also have something I can hand over if I lose my direction speaking in person.

Write down the names of the people you have spoken to and the date and time that you talked to them and what they told you. You will be taken more serious if you have names and dates.

Keep going over people's heads until you get some "acceptable" information/reasoning. There are probably appeals you can go through too.

Thenkyou both for your advice. I will take it further - as far as I have to. I do find it disappointing that I have to though.