It's all going a bit wrong (and son has Aspergers).

Corelli

Well done for phoning! The therapist sounds like a good person to ask to put something official about his needs on the claim form.

Incidentally you as a carer are entitled to an assessment and support. How that pans out in these days of massively reduced funding, I don't know, but there is some out there.The trouble is all of it involves someone else looking after the person cared for and if they have extreme anxiety and won't be with anyone else then it's a non starter.

CarersUK is the place to go for information and support https://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice

Brighton_belle

WantToBeSE wrote: »

I'm just so tired Sorry, i know that sounds self-pitying, but it's the truth.

It really really doesn't sound self pitying. You're exhausted because you aren't able to get enough sleep and your dealing with a difficult situation 24/7.

WantToBeSE

Thanks everyone for the support.

We have just come back from his therapy at CAMHS and i am just so tired. Tomatoes and Avocado on toast tonight, am far too tired to make anything else.
Crappy mother alert.

Tigsteroonie

WantToBeSE wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the support.

We have just come back from his therapy at CAMHS and i am just so tired. Tomatoes and Avocado on toast tonight, am far too tired to make anything else.
Crappy mother alert.

I think you'll find that's also know as "Special Needs Mum" We spend all our time and energy making life better for our kids, and have no time for basics like making proper meals for ourselves.

Rummer

WantToBeSE wrote: »

I managed to get him out of the house on Tuesday, for a bike ride. It was the first time he had left the house in over a week. It scares me to think about what his future holds. He really wants to go to college at some point...

This is a great step for you both. Exercise can make a world of difference to anyones life.

As tired as you are at the moment you are managing to get things organised that will hopefully make life easier on the short term. If you are finding it hard to make time for proper meals maybe make sure that you have healthy bits in the house that are easy to grab on the go or one day when you have some energy batch cook so you have easy to turn to meals. Toast with avocado and tomato is a perfectly fine meal to have though, quick and healthy.

During the night are there activities that you could leave for your son to do while you and his brother sleep? I appreciate that may be easier said than done however if he has a plan for his waking time it may help you get some rest.

As for the paperwork, appointments and the endless phone calls they will take time and energy however with persistence they will start to lead to help. If there is a local support group or an online one you will often find invaluable information on there.

WantToBeSE

Thanks Rummer.

The batch cooking sounds like a good idea. I do actually have some meals in the freezer that i cooked a few months ago, but my son is fussy with food and doesnt like them.

But i will do a cottage pie for the boys and portion and freeze, as well as some chilli. I have to do separate meals for me a lot of the time, as i dont eat meat/dairy.

Unfortunately leaving activities for him to do during the night doesn't really work for him. He just does what he wants, like target practice on the walls with wooden skewers (we have lovely little holes all over the kitchen walls), breaking up food and making words out of it, or perhaps more acceptable, playing his tablet games.

Last night wasnt so bad, he went downstairs at 11.30 and didnt wake me up all night, so i was able to sleep until 6am Feeling a bit more human today.

Does anyone know if a preoccupation with germs is normal for someone who has Aspergers? It's driving me mad. He wont let me cook for him at the moment, as i have a cold, and he is phobic of germs. Which basically means he is living off toast (if i nag him to death to make it) and fruit.

WantToBeSE

Tigsteroonie wrote: »

I think you'll find that's also know as "Special Needs Mum" We spend all our time and energy making life better for our kids, and have no time for basics like making proper meals for ourselves.

Thanks Tigsteroonie. Thats exactly how it feels right now I promised the kids some pancakes this morning, but now my son wont have them (due to my cold) so I'll make some for me and my youngest son

Tigsteroonie

WantToBeSE wrote: »

Does anyone know if a preoccupation with germs is normal for someone who has Aspergers? It's driving me mad.

I don't know if OCD is common, but obsessions with anything are a very typical trait of someone on the spectrum.

Could you use this as an opportunity to help him develop his own cooking skills, supervising/teaching from an acceptable distance (like the kitchen doorway)?

I'm glad you got some sleep. I wasn't woken at 5am, which counts as a good night in our house!

WantToBeSE

I really do need to bite the bullet and start doing a Google search about Aspergers, and see whats common and whats nothing to do with it.

I didn't realise that obsessions are a typical trait. My son has a few obsessions, i just thought he was VERY interested in these things.

theoretica

One piece of writing on the web I found particularly interesting is Marc Segar's Survival Guide for people with Asperger's syndrome. http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/alistair/survival/ I obviously don't know how well it fits your son's particular situation and symptoms, but it might be worth looking at.