Struggling Son

[Guest_40404499]

My beautiful, kind, caring, funny, hard-working son is so lonely, and he is having thoughts of self-harm.

He is on the spectrum, but high functioning. In fact, if you met him now as an adult you would hardly notice his quirky differences.  He started high school with a good group of friends from primary, but as time went by, they realised he was "different" and instead of supporting him, he became their target for bullying and ridicule.  It went so far they even assaulted him.

We thought he was lucky when he made a couple of new friends.  However, post school, they have moved on with their own journeys and left him behind.

He is now 20 and works very hard at a local club.  He has pushed himself to build his confidence.  He has taken care of himself by going to the gym, buying lovely clothes, catching public transport independently, going to concerts and other things, but he cannot seem to make friendship connections.  He knows he has trust issues based on past experience, but he is still trying so hard, yet cannot find his tribe.

I see him struggling and it is breaking my heart.  He talks to me about his loneliness and I put forward ideas, but he can't seem to find his way to even try to do them.  I offer to go with him, but he recognises that it's a bit lame to have his mum with him for some of these things.

I am so concerned that depression is going to take hold of my son and I will lose him.  My heart is breaking for him.  If anyone has any ideas on how to help, please please please share.  I desperately need help to help him.

Thank you.

[therising]

The warmest of welcomes to you. When I read your post, my heart went out to you and your son. This is partly based on feeling for you both so deeply and partly based on me being able to relate to some degree.

Being a mum to almost 19yo son who was diagnosed as being on the high functioning end of the spectrum in year 11, I've watched him struggle in a number of ways over the years. Finding good friends and managing bullying were just a couple of the struggles. It can be heartbreaking, hey, watching someone we love so much try so hard to manage such challenges. While I always had the best of intentions, when it came to not wanting to add to my son's struggles on top of school, I got into the habit of trying to make his life easier by doing a lot for him (to minimise added stress). I never realised until his assessment how this was also the habit of not pushing him to develop independently. Parenting through hindsight can be challenging for everyone involved, that's for sure.

The sudden rise of consciousness for child and parent together can make such a huge difference, something I imagine you've found yourself. All of a sudden it's like 'I have to let go of my need to protect them and push them to develop skills instead' and from our child's point of view it's 'I have to let go of my reliance on she/he who has always made things easier for me'. Navigating this together can be hard, partly because it's an emotional and mental or problem solving challenge. I suppose it becomes about 'Let's work this out together, so that you can go off and achieve this skill or set of skills on your own'. Putting theory into practice.

Developing friendships outside of school definitely requires a whole new skill set. Of course, this becomes your challenge too, as you work out ways to help him develop that. For some, no great skills are needed in making friends but for others it does become about a whole set of skills, based on having a multifaceted nature. The facets to manage can involve 'the feeler' in them that leads them to be sensitive to what they feel, 'the introvert' that can lead them to prefer alone time (partly because it can feel easier to manage for a number of reasons), 'the comedian' that has a particular type of humor that not everyone relates to, 'the reader' of a room and social cues and the list goes on. While 'the introvert' in us can have the kind of dialogue that sounds like 'That's too stressful to manage. It's easier just to stay home', when asked out to a work function or whatever, overriding the introvert can require a lot of skill. I've found a good book for managing different facets to be 'Insanely Gifted: Turn Your Demons Into Creative Rocket Fuel', by Jamie Catto. While no longer in print, it can be accessed digitally.

I think that if certain experiences in life have led to us develop 'the feeler' or 'the sensitive' in us (such as with past abuse, for example), we're going to be able to feel or sense more easily than most, based on practice. This comes with challenges. Being able to feel or sense what's depressing can involve 2 sides of the same feeling or sensitive coin. On the dark side it's about being able to feel/sense a lack of significant friendships. On the flip side or bright side, it's the important feeling that tells us there's a need or challenge in play, to make new friends. It's a self development challenge to accept and rise to. Based on your son's experience with depressing people (abusers), he'll be able to feel who's depressing and who's not. Perhaps part of the challenge is about developing his ability to get a sense who's who in the lead up to making friends. Getting out there, even if it's just to learn to read people, could become a challenge of interest. It's the challenge of developing a very natural or super natural ability. Maybe you can practice becoming super natural detectives together in this way. Shopping centres can be a good testing ground to visit. Can easily detect the vibe of certain people in such a place. If your son can feel peak times in centres as stressful, low times might work better.