Sleep ritual advice - and hello!

[KarenL]

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

 

[carolj]

Hi Karen and welcome to the forum.  I just spotted your post and didn't want to go off to bed before acknowledging it.  I would hate you to come back and think no one was around for you, as you are obviously having to deal with so much on your own.  Its very sad to think your son's father is in the same house, but does not support you in this, which your son must be aware of Im sure.  Its  so much easier to bury his head in the sand and pretend its not happening, but of course you can't do that.

Are they trying to find your son a place in a special unit at school or are they expecting him to cope in a class situation?  

It is heart breaking isn't it, the frustration and exhaustion is terrible, but we love them so much and just want to make it better.

Apart from the medication is your son receiving any other treatment to help him with his thoughts and anxieties?

Carol

 

 

[Lisaa]

Hi I know how you feel I have a 8 year old girl with OCD and it is heart breaking when they are distressed by it and ask you what's happening and they don't like it. We're are still trying different treatments and things so don't have loads of advice but Epsom bath salts in the bath before bed have come really highly recommended by therapist and they do seem to have a gd effect so worth a try. I personally swear by booking in with a good osteopath I rang round to ask them if they could help my daughter they said they had never had anyone with OCD before but they can lower stress levels so worth a try apparently if the body is not lined up properly it can have effects on how it works making things not quiet as they should be and by relining the body through osteopath it gives the body a better chance. So I thought it's worth a try and it honestly worked over night on first session it was a god send my daughter literally changed overnight and was so much happier and less thoughts, slepted better ,played with her toys more because she wasn't always distracted she now  goes in every few months for a mot to keeps things under control. Recently she has got worse again and went to see them and this time it hasn't had the over night quick fix I was hoping for but still a improvement and I will continue to take her. Defo worth a try it change our life when we were at our wits end. Hope this helps xxxx