Hi all
FIrstly, I am new to this forum. My name is Karen and I have a son (16) with various diagnoses - principally atypical autism. He has co-morbid conditions including diagnoses for OCD, PDA, ADHD, Tourette's and echolalia.
I have often wondered if my son's atypical autism is a mixture of high anxiety and OCD. He has a lot of rituals, some of which include controlling behaviours around me. He wants me to 'touch' everything I give him numerous times, for instance. He also constantly 'touches' with his hands and feet in a compulsive way, ie he will literally throw himself out of the armchair to run across the room and touch the fireplace with his foot - ditto outside doors, bottom of the stairs - and on getting into the car. His latest thing is picking the skin around his fingernails until they bleed.
The controlling rituats around me are increasingly hard to live with as they are accompanied by aggression, especially if I try to change them. Chief of which is a bedtime ritual that has kept us both up to 4am and 5am most nights for a week. He says 'night night' and requires me to say the same back, but it must be exactly the right way. Of course, this is impossible - and increasingly so as the night wears on, so the situation gets worse and worse until eventually I think sheer exhaustion carries him off.
I realise | am enabling, but the meltdowns are frightening and I am handling them on my own. My partner, who is my son's father, is living separately in the house and offers no support. My main fears in the night are that my son will stop my other children sleeping, which is happening, and wake the surrounding houses. We are waiting for a school placement having been home educating, so he gets some sleep in the morning. It is not the case that getting him up earlier helps him get to sleep earlier..
He is not really able to articulate what is going on for him. Last night is the first time that he said 'I can't make it stop' - it broke my heart.
I am at my wits' end - and exhausted - as is he and my other children. I would be grateful for advice. He is on 20mg of fluoxetine for the OCD.
with thanks
Karen
