I a *SO* lost. I don't know how to help him!

[eileenAKAmommy]

Jonathan is 8 and autistic. He has generalized anxiety. We are waiting to see his therapist agian (it's been such a fricken run around!) to start cognitive behavior therapy. We don't go until next month.

He worries about *EVERYTHING* until the point of crying. Money (I don't know why, money has never been an issue and we don't talk financials in front of the kids), going to 4th grade, 6th grade & having to move out after college! He's in THIRD GRADE. He cries, gets upset.

Nothing I say helps, and if I say something, he has a million questions about it, and worries about that as well.

I want to help him, I try not to cry in front of him, as that will make it worse. I love him so much, and I don't know what to do.

[BeedieWeedieB]

I feel for you. My son just turned 8 and is in 2nd grade and has aspergers. This school year his mild non treated anxiety built up to the point of a complete breakdown where he cried wishing to be dead to get rid of his fears. Thomas' fears were some of his normal and others that were just over exxagerated like afraid even of the monsters his little sister watched on sesame street. He developed tics where he could get a sentence out without at least 10 tics thrown in.
Our turn around came as a result of a lot of things. I knew a lot had to due with school stress, class was a lot bigger this year, 2nd grade is a lot more social, and they had taken away some of his supports he started the school year with.
My first step was calling everyone to get him seen for psychology and psychiatry, we also saw a neurologist and a licensed clinical social worker while we waited for psychology.
Next I called a meeting at the school with his team, I had his teacher his resource teacher, the school psychologist, his speech therapist and the vice principal there. Basically I said we were in crisis mode and he was not the same kid we had set the IEP for last may. They all agreed and we set a new schedule for him. He was put under extra adult supervision at all times which meant a little more pullout from class for resource room, an added social skills group and the resource teacher spending more time in his classroom.
He had his meltdown in September, we finally got a full psych eval in early November. Since the. He has been on two meds, well one was started by a quack of a psychiatrist we got into earlier who said he was not on the spectrum, did not have OCD or anxiety or phobias and harassed him into crying. We were desperate and tried the med we have stayed on it as his tics did lessen and we aren't sure if it's from the med or just time and things at school calming. He was started by his new team on Prozac, the goal is once we find the right dose of it we try weaning the over med off.
He goes every other week to the psychologist and I go on the other weeks to get my training and help for him. It is a lot and a drive for us but so worth it, my boy is back and more outgoing than he ever was, he plays with his younger brother more now and school is great.
So there is hope and help and yes it is so hard and I cried many times. The best we could do was be there for him. We kept everything very extra structured, I went back to visual charts for daily tasks and his helped and I watched him a lot to make sure he didnt break down again.
Hugs you can get through this. Feel free to pm or write here if you want to talk more

[ajjulian]

My son is 6 and has aspergers. He has been having a lot of anxiety over new people and any routine changes. He flips out and cries and refuses to leave the house. He has even stated once that he just wanted to die so that it would always be the same. We hs so we rarely have to change our schedule and we do not push hard on the social stuff right now. We are slowly working on an activity class like gymnastics or something to help him be with a group without having to do a ton of interacting.
Hugs! I really hope you can find something to help.

[walking-iris]

My 9 year old ds (pdd and ocd) had his anxiety get out of control this year. Just complete crying breakdowns over anything at all. When he started trying to pull out strands of his hairs throughout the day I just lost it. We have him on a 25 mg Zoloft now and it has really helped---not completely yet, because he still gets way too worked up about his little brother or sister. They just do anything and he loses it (they're going to get hurt, break something, make a mess etc) and he still overreacts (misplace a marker top and he is instantly in tears and freaking out about it running out of ink and I have to stop him, tell him to "breathe and no big deal there's plenty of markers in the world and it's not running out of ink this second concentrate oh see it fell in the couch cushion."

It's hard sometimes and I hate seeing my kiddo in some dark place.

[Noah's-Mom]

look at training for OCD. I have OCD and I get it. I fixate a concern and then can not let go of it.
Music might help. I also learned to tell myself to stop. I have loced my hair so I have a built in figgit to goof with.

[Suzi]

Hang in there! I don't have these sorts of issues with my autistic son. I do work with adults with these sorts of issues and my general advice is to make as much of their life predictable as possible. The therapist should be able to help with this. Visual schedules and visuals of anything you can think of can help some. With some of my adults they will write their concerns down or tell them to an answering machine. Being able to vent that way seems to help the clients feel like they have some control over their symptoms.

[Hungry Caterpillar]

I had a friend like this when I was younger. She especially had anxiety related to the car - where were we going and how were we going to get there? What if the gas ran out, etc.

Whenever we went somewhere, she was given a printed map with the route highlighted in yellow. This actually helped us both with directions and learning to read maps, but I digress. It really helped her to see what was coming next. The adult driving always read off the status of the gas tank and if it was less than half a tank, we went to the gas station first.

Her mom was big about bringing out statistics. Yes, there were car injuries but look at all the cars on the road! After a while it helped.

She also had a schedule posted on walls of every room ( a hanging sheet protector that her mother would put the next day's schedule in every night before she went to bed). It had even minute things on there so she could know what to expect at all times. She had a lot of stranger anxiety so knowing that someone was coming to fix the dishwasher was a huge help. Her mother also used to bring her to the mall, playground, whatever, and they would point out things together (someone hanging off the swing, someone with an untied shoelace) and they would discuss "risk" versus prevention. If you are walking around with an untied shoelace, you may trip. If you tie the shoelace, you are preventing the trip and are then very very unlikely to fall. Once she focused on identifying actual risks, the imaginary ones weren't as huge to her.

However, I do remember that she saw someone fall down an escalator and was freaked out by them for like ten years, so keep in mind that sometimes life is random and if he can't process that stuff, you may still end up with some things that scare him that you will be able to explain.

In any event, my friend became a perfectly well adjusted teenager and (I hear) an adult - we don't keep in touch anymore. I want to wish you luck, though, anxiety can be really rough. Fear of the unknown is always much worse than fear of something you do know, though.

[sarahannecloud9]

Originally Posted by eileenAKAmommy Jonathan is 8 and autistic. He has generalized anxiety. We are waiting to see his therapist agian (it's been such a fricken run around!) to start cognitive behavior therapy. We don't go until next month. He worries about *EVERYTHING* until the point of crying. Money (I don't know why, money has never been an issue and we don't talk financials in front of the kids), going to 4th grade, 6th grade & having to move out after college! He's in THIRD GRADE. He cries, gets upset. Nothing I say helps, and if I say something, he has a million questions about it, and worries about that as well. I want to help him, I try not to cry in front of him, as that will make it worse. I love him so much, and I don't know what to do.

Cayden has multiple issues. I just wanted to share our simular problems. He has a very unique persionality. I found it odd you mentioned money because Cayden is the same way. We don't talk about finances in front of him either. He talks about other odd things. Like taking care of his kids without a wife, college, I don't know where he even get's this stuff. On one hand he is known as the ladida boy at school. On the other hand, he worries about the smallest of things. One good example is when we got rid of his brothers brib. He still is sad about the thing being gone. He doesn't like big changes. When we moved, he cried too. He just walks in balling saying his misses the old place or the crib, or whatever. He just has an odd persionality. He really freaks out about his health issues. He takes things to the extream.

My biggest problem with his behavior is something that may sound silly. He asked soooo many questions about anything at all I just can't take it. And they are crazy questions that I have no clue where they even come from! No matter what I say, there are more questions. It's not the "why", it thing like "what if?" I just get so frustrated, I just tell him to stop and that it's the end of it. I don't know what to say.

I'm so sorry I have no help or advice to offer. All I can say is i'm a momas with some of the same issues and you arn't alone.

Big huggs sweetie! All of the problems add up and can really take the joy out of parenting. Just try to charish the good moments. And love them as only you can!