My son is 11. He has ASD and is really struggling with the lockdown. He has meltdowns quite a bit anyway but since the lockdown he spend most of his time saying he wants to die, asking for me to kill him, hitting himself in the head. He is refusing to eat lunch most days (part of that is an inability to make a decision about what to have), his sleeping is terrible (waking 2-3 times a night), he won’t engage with school work (although will do joe wicks in the morning and likes to go out to do pokemon go).
Today he is refusing to eat because he says he doesn’t deserve to. He thinks he has done things wrong (telling me I had made his breakfast wrong and refusing to eat it) and because of that he doesn’t deserve to eat, doesn’t deserve to play a game, doesn’t deserve anything nice.
I’m at a loss as to how to help him.
We wouldn’t need the threshold for CAMHS here and the community Paeds service have discharged him so we have no support.
I don’t know where he has got the notion that he doesn’t deserve stuff because he thinks he has done something wrong. How do I try and reverse that?
I worry about the lack of school work (although really try to prioritise his mental health) and he has a younger brother who also won’t do his work as he sees that his older brother doesn’t do any of his.
Myself and his dad (we are divorced) are both key workers so the kids have been offered a place at school but we haven’t taken it up as we work opposite days so officially we don’t need it. However I wonder if him going to school would help with some normality. It’s not what I want but I don’t know how to help him.