Son is failing to launch

[SOS2023]

I know this is a familiar problem on this board as I have looked at past threads. They don't seem to get updated though, so I don't know what has happened in these cases.

Advance warning - this is long.

Our situation - DS 22. Dropped out before A levels because thought he'd fail, we were given no warning and no chance of giving him support.

He had some therapy and was assessed as having ADHD and was also told possible autism, but as the years I think he shows more autistic traits than as a teen. He refuses ADHD medication saying it will make his sleep worse. He sleeps a lot.

Did some hospitality work, got an office job because he was sick of hospitality.
Then we think he was fired from the office job, though he didn't express it clearly.

He spent much of lockdown gaming and I think he was relieved to do that.

Then he got another hospitality job through a friend which he's done for a while, but asked us to pay for a college course, he said he'd do part time hospitality around his course but has already decided not to.

Tbh I am dreading the start of the course next week. I am sure he will come back with a long face and say he hates either the place or the people.

In the middle of all this, he had a lovely girlfriend for about 8 months. He says she left for no reason, but I think the reasons were probably that she had her life much more together. She lives in a houseshare, earns fine enough to pay for that, and I know she's politely suggested he cleans him room. We get him to do that every Sunday.

I am particularly worried as I feel he's gone a bit incel - every comment about women's issues is met with remarks about how men have it worse.

His father asked him to put a shirt on at brunch today, resulting in huffing and puffing, but I noticed he's not shaving his armpits, I know some women don't either but his armpit hair is seriously long. His personal hygiene/grooming is okayish, I have told him to shower once though on a recent hot day.

His younger sister is starting to resent coming here - she's at uni and I think it's a shame. He's usually in his room though but creates an atmosphere.

He eats nothing but junk food, if he can't afford it he just goes hungry.

DH thinks we've done everything we can, I think maybe he needs more therapy. We will pay for that. We both think we should ask for rent. I know he has to pay attention to college but tbh it's one of those courses that's not likely to lead anywhere. But you can't tell your DC that can you?

Welcome all advice. It feels like a real risk that he won't want to move out for years and years. He does his own chores and most of ours. I think he sees that as easier than earning rent money.

He's was diagnosed at age 5.

He was moved to PIP from DLA at 16 with no interview at all. There's no guarantee PIP will continue the next time it's reviewed, but he's still got his room at home and everything, so he'll be OK.

Really sorry to just cherry pick a couple of points - I know people skim read in a hurry

He already uses Head and Shoulders and has tried others. He buys his own stuff and I'm more concerned about the attitude he has now, "everyone has dandruff" is clearly nonsense.

I'm having a new experience here because I'm a bit shocked at the recent lapse in hygiene, he was never like this before.. That's probably happened since his girlfriend left.

I never imagined having to tell an adult to shower.

He used to love nice products and asked for them for xmas etc. Our health club has nice stuff in the changing rooms so he's been used to using nice stuff since he was a teen. I think buying Head and Shoulders was a shock to him because he commented when he started that he was embarrassed.

Tbh all of this is a bit shocking - I know a few people who live and work very successfully and they have ADHD. One in particular is very anti medication. She goes running twice a day, she tells me it's the only thing that helps her. She's senior to me at work.

I must admit, and I've showed DH this thread, he said the same - we had no idea ADHD could be such a serious problem and thought more that it was autism symptoms but now it sounds like it's all mixed up.

College asked about EHCP because he filled in forms pre-enrolment and put it on there.

Re turning wifi off at night, I think gaming probably helps him and sometimes I work at night depending on business and how my day has been, so not doing that. I'm not objecting to gaming as such, he's never let it get in the way of work, but now it's a replacement for football, swimming, socialising.

He has been very organised this week which is good. He's visibly knackered now and has gone for a nap - the Tube was boiling though. I came home and had a coffee to keep going till bedtime. He won't drink caffeinated drinks.

I think he has a good instinct for what his body will tolerate and that might be why he's so anti med, I looked at other threads about this and some of them are comparing those meds to speed?

We are going to sit him down at the weekend and express our concerns and offer help. Chore rota will be changed to account for travel time and study but tbh, he seems to quite like being in charge of chores, especially the supermarket- possibly because it's a way to get out of the house but without socialising? I have clocked the oddity of the supermarket thing because now he doesn't cook, but when I go with him he always notices what's new.

Chores also might feel like an easy win e.g. look at these lovely ironed shirts, look at this bed that's been plumped to look like a hotel bed.

Chores are an excellent way to demonstrate your excellent 'life skills' to yourself without having to actually approach the big scary life skills like being responsible for finding and paying for your own accommodation...

I'm having a new experience here because I'm a bit shocked at the recent lapse in hygiene, he was never like this before.. That's probably happened since his girlfriend left.

Could the lapse in hygiene since his GF left be a sign of depression?

I never imagined having to tell an adult to shower.

Quite a common thing for people with ASD. Some don't get the normal social cues and some can be overwhelmed with the sensory aspect. Things like a no flavour toothpaste might help his hygiene routine?

Tbh all of this is a bit shocking - I know a few people who live and work very successfully and they have ADHD. One in particular is very anti medication. She goes running twice a day, she tells me it's the only thing that helps her. She's senior to me at work

Lots of people with ADHD live very normal looking lives without medication but they can often be the ones who take positive steps to help with self regulation. Things like going to the gym, high protein diet, running, football and meditation all help. At the moment though he doesn't seem to be doing anything positive to help himself and has dropped the things he used to do. An ADHD Coach might be a help as I suggested earlier.

Before you have the chat with him, I'd look at "How to ADHD". It's got tips on things like self regulation and study tips.

Those saying "move out" i mean where? he 'll need a deposit, then on going rent, even in a HMO, at least £450 per month, money for food phone etc and if he has MH issues etc he wont cope, will he?

Then what? crime? self harm? as for getting a job, some of these individuals have zilch to offer an employer.

Even if the DWP agreed to fund moving out, it wouldn't cover the rent, UC in a shared house is well under £100 per week, outside of London.

There seems to be an awful lot of, mainly, young men in this sort of situation.

Rather than a young adult ‘failing to launch’ you have a neurodivergent young adult not coping with adult life.
If he is autistic fur example, hospitality might nit have been the best choice if work
gor him! He might struggle to
keep a job all his life etc….

Rather than ‘standard advice’ you might want to look how to support a disabled young adult become independent.

Absolutely but then we're back to "does he have mental health issues".

He's done very well in two out of three jobs.

you can still rent a room in your home to a lodger and earn x amount without having to pay tax. We were thinking of that kind of thing. A friend of my parents has done this since her DH passed, she likes having a young person around. We've been to a couple of dinners there and met some lovely young students.

She's got a narrow townhouse so the kitchen is shared but there's a room and bathroom on the top floor. We can pay that and it might help independence in a way. Or is it the same as living here without chores...now just thinking aloud, sorry.

"hospitality might nit have been the best choice if work
gor him!"

he liked it though.

Being ND isn’t having a MH issue.
its not something you can cure. It’s not an
illness. It’s a disability (he might have MH issues on the top or caused by the ND though)

Without knowing your ds it’s very hard to say if pushing him to be independent is something that will work or backfire.
And of your ds is in the spectrum but not acknowledging it, he might be missing clues as to why some jobs/training just don’t work for him.

od start by looking deeper at his diagnosis and how it fits his behaviour. Where does he struggle? Where does he need support? Then I’d build up from
that

Being ND can cause MH issues, though, such as depression at not being able to get things done despite being bright, as may happen in cases of people diagnosed with ADHD, for example.

@SOS2023 I don't know why you think shoving him to your mates townhouse when he is clearly struggling is the answer?
He is not going away to university.
Perhaps he likes being at home? Is it that catastrophic if he stays?
He just seems a bit lost and needing guidance.

I wonder what is making anyone think ADHD rather than ASD, everything here is screaming ASD to me. The hygiene issues are extremely typical - him smelling doesn't bother him so he won't see why it should bother anyone else. Gaming is an excellent escape from the overwhelming real world. The solitude of lockdown suited a lot of autistic people I'd imagine, including my teen. You say he sleeps a lot which doesn't suggest ADHD to me at all, maybe it's ADD though - does he have trouble concentrating and focussing (on things other than gaming)? Executive function can be an issue with ASD as well though.

Please don't kick him out or give him ultimatums, he really needs help and support, He's probably pretty lost and not sure where on earth he's going to go in life. Emotionally it's likely he much younger than his age. Please don't listen to people on here who don't have experience of ND young adults. He probably needs more help with direction than he's currently getting and probably doesn't understand why things that seem easy to others seem so hard for him. You say you're very anxious and it wouldn't surprise me if he was too, but may be masking it a lot which can be exhausting. I don't think he sounds like he's going down the incel route - he just feels things are really hard for him and assuming it must be a man issue rather than an autism issue.

Does he like hospitality or just that one particular job in hospitality? I feel like leaving his hospitality job was the point where everything seemed to start falling apart - why did he leave a job he liked to go work in an office? Could he get that job back? I really wouldn't worry about how well paid it is at this point. I'm not at all convinced I'm afraid that a free course in media is going to get him far. If he wants to set up a youtube channel he can easily do that in his spare time around a job in hospitality. I definitely think if he could get that first job back, continue to live at home and boost his confidence even if it's not very highly paid, then it could benefit him hugely. When you have an autistic young adult you just cannot have the same expectations as people with NT kids.

Has he considered a career in the armed forces?

There's lots of career paths in that sector including support roles such as catering.

The routine and discipline might actually be good for him plus he'd make new friends.

His armpits are definitely not your business.

I wonder what is making anyone think ADHD rather than ASD, everything here is screaming ASD to me.

Hasn't the OP said that he has ADHD? I do agree though that he seems to be showing signs of ASD as well.

Re ADHD rather than ASD, ADHD is the diagnosis he got.

In terms of hygiene - would it be normal for that to suddenly happen in adulthood if it's ASD? I can see why it would happen suddenly in depression but not in a condition that's presumably been lifelong? Nothing from childhood fits ASD.

He left the hospitality job for the 9 - 5 office job because he wanted to get something with regular hours to fit in evening classes. Maybe it was bad luck getting a shitty boss.

He's been fine in both hospitality jobs, not just the first one.

Yes he did consider the army but rejected it, this was at 16 though.

I agree about the choice of course but he wants to avoid tech and hated computer science at school.

Re ADD vs ADHD, he used to really need football, swimming etc to work out the hyper side - but I guess that sort of thing comes and goes? Also hospitality involved a lot of running around, both places he worked were big places, he liked the running around aspect at the time, he was like a jumping bean till recently.

In terms of emotional maturity, both sets of grandparents have had health issues the last few years, he's been great with them and really helps them. He also enjoys spending time with them.

He's currently chatting with DH in the garden which is good.

These so-called diagnoses are just labels for clusters of symptoms.

I was born in the first few years of the 1950s, so I'm now aged around 70. When I first heard of autism in 1974, it was thought by specialists in child development to be due to faulty bonding between mother and child. I heard of it while doing a Psychology Ph.D, because a fellow Ph.D student was studying autism at a special residential place. She was speaking to them in sign language, and I remember her teaching me how to sign "cornflakes" in the system she was using

Autism only became so widely diagnosed in England in the last couple of decades, perhaps?

When I first heard of Asperger's Sydrome, maybe 2 decades later, after failing to complete that Ph.D, I instantly thought of my DF. I researched it, and it made our conversations much much easier, without me ever mentioning my hypothesis.

It took me a long time to realise that the label might apply to me as well. Then our communication improved again.

Now Asperger's is not Asperger's. I'm not even sure if its alternative name is still High Functioning Autism these days. Or whether it even exists as a separate category in any form now.

ADHD is a late-comer to the labels available. My neice has just been diagnosed with it, and this knowledge, and a little medication, has helped her cope much better with her job, where she kept finding days would pass without her getting much done.

This seems to fit with my own experience of my own life. Being a chronic underachiever (not writing up my Ph.D is just one example among many) meant that as I went through my 20s, I failed to achieve my potential or anything much of a career, because it was so hard to get myself started, So I became more and more depressed (medication was prescribed for this by my GP, but it had little effect on my depression). Plus for similar reasons, I have always found it a challenge to keep on top of housework. I've lost count of the number of books about procrastination I've read (they usually helped - for a while anyway).

Sorry I've written so much But eventually I came to understand myself much better, and did achieve things, and am proud of the modest career I made for myself. And am now very happily retired

@ImNotWorthy in my area they don't diagnose HFA anymore. Although I have one son with a diagnosis of aspergers and one with HFA they appear absolute.

Confusing isn't it?

Not to me. They are just labels, after all. IME it's on labels such as these that psychiatrists base the medication they prescibe. Which is kind of worrying when you think about it...

Thank you for that post @ImNotWorthy it is very interesting.

I disagree with the idea ADHD or ASD are ‘just’ labels to get medication.

First you might get medication for ADHD but not autism.
But also, as you actually explain, this is about getting an understanding of yourself. This is about others getting an understanding of your reactions.
This explains the relief many adults get from receiving that diagnosis - finally an explanation to their struggles rather than the constant feeling they are failing and they are defective.

Worth remembering that taking medication for ADHD doesn’t make the person NT. It helps them deal with day to day life which is vastly different. ADHD is also much more than struggling to concentrate.

@SOS2023 has your ds dug out what it means to have ADHD? Aka the symptoms, effects on everyday life/his reactions etc…?
Has he reviewed his medication with the consultant if it’s making him drowsy/sleep?
Has he mentioned to them the fact he is sleeping so much?

@LifeIsShitJustNow
you have misunderstood my point, which that these labels are useful in determining treatment, but are not disease entities in themselves, just clusters of behaviours (or to translate to psychiatric terminology, replace "behaviours" with "symptoms").

@itsmyp4rty - just FTR - I have ADHD and so does DS2 and we can both sleep for England. In my teens I was almost narcoleptic. I could sleep on a pavement, at a party, anywhere. It's a way of coping with the overstimulation.

One DC has ADHD, one is being assessed. Pretty sure both me and DH gave it too. A nap for a reset is pretty standard practice here. In fact I could have one now if I put my head down

*have