Got a call from ds after just falling asleep last night. He wanted me to come get him. He's 18, living on his own and going to community college. He's a really good kid, but he has Aspberger's syndrome and OCD. He's somewhat mild in those but they've been blossoming only since about age 14 although it started with the DPT vaccination (including bouts of serious depression). He doesn't experience emotion the way most people do. He thinks in logic and patterns, not feelings. He had eaten mushrooms and my dh and I were going to bring him home, but he was so disoriented I took him to the hospital. I knew if I fell asleep at home, he'd wander out the door and get run over or something...They were so nice there and basically, they just had us all wait it out. He wasn't crazy or wild or anything, just really disoriented and non-functional. He was calm and happy and totally compliant. He lay there and kept asking his own name, what time it was, and could we go take a walk now....
The problem for me was - he's happy and much more "normal" on drugs than he is off them. He feels emotion, he's not depressed, he doesn't THINK THINK THINK all the flippin' time so he can function; he just "lives."
I thought it might last a little. I hoped he might keep some part of himself who can be mentally relaxed, not need the patterns so much. But at about 330 am, he was back, arguing his logic again, analyzing the experience for meaning, making plans for being able to control himself and his life without any help from the outside. I'm exhausted and mourning the loss of a son I can't help. He won't see anyone or take any vitamins that nourish the brain and lessen the OCD; he's got it all under control. He's not depressed NOW so he denies depression as being a part of himself....They let him go when they felt he was not a danger to himself. We took him to his place because he was fine, safety-wise.
I think I'd like to go to the Aspberger's support group in town. They are a great group and ds went once, but dh doesn't get home in time with the car after work so I can go. Ds won't go to the Autism center and get tested for anything, including seeing if he's a candidate for chelation. It's exhausting not to be able to help, to hold him all night and think - aha, now I've got my little boy back and now I can help - but in the morning he's an adult, and functional, and there's nothing I can do.
He feels terrible for doing such a stupid thing. He's not defiant to be defiant, like a normal teen. He simply logically justifies his position and then goes about his business. I just don't want there to be a next time....
Thanks for listening. I know many of you will have suggestions, but you have to understand, there's nothing I can do to "make" him see the light. He's always right (in the moment) in his mind, and not egotistically, but simply right because that's the way the world appears for him. It's not something he chooses and therefore something he can identify and change. But thanks for listening. Sorry to bum you out, but I can't talk to dh anymore, he feels helpless as it is.
