Ann says:

Good Morning! My son just turned 17 years-old, is non-verbal and Autistic, on the low-functioning end of the spectrum. I have walked in your shoes, so please, anything I say is from experience and my decisions were based upon what was best for my son. All Autistic children/young adults ARE NOT THE SAME, so what worked for my son, might not work for yours, or might not be best for your family. It is only my story, and you just have to know what is best for YOUR son and YOUR family Upon reaching puberty, my son began to have many new behaviors emerge, such as heightened hyper-sexuality, mania, and severe aggression. Also, many of the behaviors he already had were heightened, such as OCD, self-stim, nervous/anxiousness, just to name a few. The only medication he was on at the time was Risperidone, and upon reaching this stage, it was useless. His behaviors were seen both at home and school, 24/7. One day, the self-injurous behaviors became out-of-control. He was in danger of hurting himself (he had no idea of his proximity to danger), and possibly others. And, I will stop right here to say that I know how you feel when this happens. You look at your son and wonder where that young little boy went. You are now staring at a young man (in my case 180 lbs and almost 6 foot tall!) and wondering, how can I help him! I couldn’t help him. Between the mania, bi-polar, self-injurous, severe aggressive behavior, he needed to be at a place that was safe for him. Let me say THIS WAS NOT EASY!!!! I took my son to the hospital near our hometown that has an in-patient psychiatric ward for children/young adults. I don’t know where your son is on the Autism spectrum, but it was a very painful process for my son. We were in the emergency room for 9 hours, processing all of the intake procedures, and finally there was a bed ready for him upstairs in the psychiatric unit. Due to my son’s Autism and being non-verbal, I was allowed to stay with him in his room. It is NOT a comfortable situation to go through, however, it is necessary, since you are taking a person off of medications and you don’t know what they are capable of, they don’t realize what they are doing, what they could do. Also, this was no easy task for me as I am a single mom, with three other children. My son and I stayed for 7 days, I was with him 24/7, thanks to my oldest daughter who is 18 and held the fort down at home, and thanks to some amazing friends who brought meals over and took my younger two children to their activities!!! The puberty stage of my son’s life was a nightmare. His medications are now adjusted for his needs. There is so much more I could say regarding our stay at the hospital. If you would like me to go into further detail, step-by-step, I would be more than happy to tell you in an email. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family through this very, very difficult time in your lives!