How do I fix this - relationship with young adult son

[taratill]

I've changed my username from my normal one because this is so personal.
I am having difficulties with my young adult son who is in his first year at university. Full disclosure he is autistic with PDA traits. He had a challenging education and was a school refuser but he pulled himself together, got A Levels and is in his first year at university. He is not good at relationships generally and part of his neurodiversity seems to be that he needs to have relationships on his terms. This has meant that he has given up on friendships easier than most people do and he has had some extremely lonely periods in his life where he's not really had any friends at all.

He seems to be getting on OK at university and has made a group of friends which is great.

The problems have started over the Christmas break, he's definitely trying to cut the apron strings and assert adult boundaries. This results in him only really communicating with his dad and I if he needs / wants something. He comes across as having little to no empathy and has made Christmas very difficult for us as a family. He's spent most of the day in bed and then gone off for long walks and barely engaged. Part of the problem is that he has had girlfriend issues, he has been the cause of them, he cheated, but he regrets it.

So all in all we were relieved to send him back to university. DH wants to go and try to speak to him in a few weeks to set boundaries for expected behaviour when he comes back at Easter. These will be reasonable, try to get a job, be available at mealtimes if you say you are going to be, help around the house, leave room in reasonable manner when you go back etc....

Anyway after taking him back he had asked me for some help with applying for summer internships which I did. I sent him some details of one and said I'd support him with making the application. He then texted me to say he'd done it and I asked him a question about the application which when he responded made it clear he hadn't applied. I then received a barrage of abuse by text and I texted to say that that wasn't acceptable as a response to me helping him when he'd asked me to. Next text was that he didn't want to speak to me any more and that I was blocked.

So where to go from here? He's vulnerable. I pay his phone bill and we support him through university. I am struggling with being cut off for doing so little. We supported him thoroughly through his challenges growing up. How do I set boundaries with someone like this. I need to be there for him because he's vulnerable but don't deserve to be treated by an adult child in the way I am being treated?

I know he is being a shit but his neurodiversity does impact. I'd really appreciate some respectful advice, particularly for people who are dealing with relationships with people with similar needs.

Sorry it is long. I feel as though I can be low contact but deserve to know he's safe. i was unable to sleep last night through worrying. I've been blocked since monday.

Stop paying the phone bill, reduce financial support. Give him some motivation to get a job and be polite as a minimum. He acts like this because he can.

It may be an idea to step back.

You may want him to get a job, but he needs to apply for it himself and get it himself.

Uni can be very hard work and overwhelming , especially for autistic people. They also often struggle with interviews and being social in jobs.

Work out what you are prepared to do to financially support him and hand it over/pay rent etc.

Is he getting DSA and is there study support in place?

Realistically if he doesn't get a job, what till you do? If you stop giving him money the chances are high he will just drop out and wind up living back with you only without a degree and with a lot more debt.

Remember he is 'younger' than his peers too.
The first term at uni is hard, lots of adjustments.
I think perhaps he is finding you a bit overbearing and resenting that he needs your support.
Don't punish him. Think about what works in terms of how you relate to each other. Don't make this about money either.
He's messed up his romantic relationship and is annoyed with himself but pushing at you (probably because you are a safe space.
I think your husband talking to him about boundaries and expectations would go down very poorly right now.
Take a step back. Regain perspective and then reach out kindly.

I agree with the pps, step back and let him cool down. Being ASD will mean uni life will be much more challenging for him than for neuro typicals. l expect when he came home he relaxed back into being a stroppy teen who wants to be left alone in their bedroom again! Personally l would have left him to his own devices, it was only for a few weeks anyway and he was probably upset over the relationship break down (even if the fault was his!)
Please continue to support him financially as otherwise he may not be able to continue with his studies. I suspect you will soon be unblocked when he wants your help and/ or advice.

Thanks, re. the getting the job. Here's the thing he was the one who brought it up and specifically asked for help, otherwise I wouldn't have interfered. When he was applying for university he didn't involve us at all, not even for open days.

He hasn't applied for DSA because he doesn't like being 'othered'. This is another area where we have had to back off. He is entitled to extra time due to dyslexia but I'm not sure he's even made that request.

I don't think there is any option other than to back off. I just find it such a worry, his mental health has spiralled before.

I don't know how to balance his need for us to back off v our need to know he is safe : (

Personally l would have left him to his own devices, it was only for a few weeks anyway and he was probably upset over the relationship break down (even if the fault was his!

We did leave him to his own devices. He made things challenging even though we did this by saying he wanted to do things, then refusing to do them and almost demanding a reaction.

I have a DD with adhd who is now through university.

I'm sorry to be blunt, but your "need" to know that he is safe cannot be met.

He's at uni. They aren't going to talk to you. You can't make him get a job, apply for dsa, or do anything else. You can't monitor his mental health.

All you can do is be available when he wants help.

If you come over too strong when he isn't able to deal with it he'll block you like he just did.

Sorry.

It's not an easy road.

I know university won't talk to me I wouldn't try to intervene. It's just bloody difficult on a personal level to be funding university, to have had a good/ close relationship up until now. To be doing what he asked us to do (he asked for support with the internship) and to be blocked for helping.

So are adult relationships with ND people based purely on their demands?
Being told to fuck off for doing something someone asked for help with just needs to be ignored. Future relationships are entirely on their terms?

How can a person learn to manage other adult relationships on that basis?

If he has blocked you then really you have to leave it. Has he blocked your dh? I think you do have to put in boundaries and stop treading on eggshells, although the worry is hard. I would not stop the financial support right now as pulling that could be very difficult for your ds. At some point a discussion will need to be had about how you communicate with each other, what is and is not acceptable. This is a massive change for him and you and honestly that first holiday home is often tricky. Remember you love him, keep in mind that door is always open. It might be that your dh needs to talk to him. And no what he has said is not acceptable and you are allowed to be angry and sad about it. Ds is now 24 and much of this has calmed down for us, although I still feel sometimes it could blow up but we have learnt to give space when needed.

No, as far as I know, he hasn't blocked DH.

He hasn't tried to contact him since Monday because the risk is that he will block him too (if he hasn't already).

You start by not using his Autism as an excuse for all of his behaviour. Pay his bills but on the understanding that he has to have applied for DLA by the start of April. Other than that let him get on with it, maybe a couple of months without contact will make him realise what he is missing. It is time for him to grow up.

We have experience of this kind of thing with DS2 (22) who has dyslexia and probably undiagnosed ADHD.

First term/year of uni was INCREDIBLY hard for him which resulting in him lashing out at us whenever he came home - it was as if he'd had to bottle everything up during term time and needed to find an outlet for it in the holidays.
Like you we wanted to try to agree boundaries (not eating all the food in the fridge without checking, not banging around in the kitchen at 6 am or taking the car without checking first) but we held fire for the first year of uni and tried to ignore it, as if we so much as suggested his behaviour was unacceptable it resulted in horrible angry scenes.

This is hard to do I know, but in the face of all his behaviour we basically love-bombed him and did everything we possibly could to help make his life easier. We found he'd fly into a rage about something, but the next day act as if nothing had happened, so rather than impose sanctions or force an apology (which never came) we just let it pass for the first period of uni.

By the summer holidays he'd settled much better and we were able to have matter of fact 'could you please do this, rather than that' type conversations.

Personally I'd tell your DH not to rock the boat at the moment, but keep offering help and try to keep the communications channels open.

FWIW DS2 had DSA support and it took 9 months to get arranged and was a waste of time!

No, "adult relationships with ND people" are not "based purely on their demands".
It's clear you wrote this because you're understandably upset but, as autistic adults are best placed to help you to figure out what's going on with your son, you might want to avoid rude generalisations when venting.

He comes across as having little to no empathy and has made Christmas very difficult for us as a family. He's spent most of the day in bed and then gone off for long walks and barely engaged.

Was it the lack of engagement that made it difficult for you? And did you say anything about this to him?

I ask because this could be the clue as to why he's become more confrontational. I'm autistic, and I have two autistic children. We all present differently, but all three of us need varying amounts of alone time after we've had to interact with others and mask for periods. If I demanded one of my teenage sons have a full conversation before they'd had an hour to decompress after they got home, I would be on the receiving end of a hell of an attitude - and it would be my own fault for demanding he do what I want rather than caring about what he needs. We can all push through for a while, but if we do we're likely to burn out (get emotional, feel physically ill, be less able to tolerate things we might usually cope with) before long.

Going off to university, especially as someone who doesn't want to be 'othered' (so probably masking quite heavily) is exhausting.
If he's burned out and needs time alone now he's back somewhere familiar, anything that seems like a demand to engage could feel like an almost impossible task. Wanting to be alone isn't him being rude, it's a way of regulating himself.

If he feels like he let his girlfriend down, and now he feels like he let his family down by not behaving 'normally' over Christmas, AND he hasn't been able to regulate himself properly, this could be why he's kicking off at you apparently out of the blue - all of that together would be quite overwhelming.

He might also want to feel independent, and is resenting your help even though he initially asked for it.

If he's reached a point where he's acting completely out of character you're unlikely to have a productive conversation. If he's still happy to talk to your DH, just go with that for now. He's dealing with a lot of big changes and his emotions are heightened, so he might need some extra understanding if he says or does something you find offensive or upsetting for a while.

@niccnok, I didn't mean to be offensive. Apologies for that. I just find getting the balance right to enable him to have the best life possible difficult. What I mean is that I understand, and have always catered, to his needs, particularly the PDA type ones. The problem is that when you feel as though you have walked on egg shells the whole of a persons life you question whether continuing to do this is in their best long term interests, I want him to be able to have good relationships with other people. I want to parent well. Both of my children are autistic and I am 99.9% certain that DH is too (albeit undiagnosed) along with his parents. My daughter's needs are very different to my son's, she demonstrates more empathy.

The rest of your post makes a lot of sense to me but I just want to emphasise that wanting to be alone isn't the problem, we went away as a family to a place we always go for a few days, he wasn't enjoying it so came back home on his own - no problem. What was the problem was swearing at me and generally being verbally abusive over minor things, one example was the night before returning to university he couldn't find his glasses and thought he'd left them in the holiday cottage, I knew he hadn't and offered to help him tidy his room as I was sure the glasses was under the sweet wrappers, clothes, dirty crockery that he's left in his room. That resulted in a mouthful and then 'punishment' by him saying he wouldn't now do the treat thing he'd asked to do on the return to his university city, I can't drive there and back in one night so I drove with his sister and the two of us went and did the treat, theatre, his ticket was wasted, this was a show he'd wanted to go to! He did however allow me to pay for a meal! I didn't say a word about this behaviour as I know when he is like this not to.

So I wasn't allowed to look for his glasses and the room was left a tip and DH spent 3 hours tidying the mess in his room which was like a bomb had hit it. Surprise surprise DH found the glasses which now need to be posted.

It is like the bottle of pop analogy all over again. When he was younger this was managed with anxiety medication, he won't entertain the idea of this again, and obviously we can't force him. The truth is we can't talk to him at all. Any conversation results in outbursts like the one above. It is very sad.

We used to have a good relationship and I felt he really trusted me, I get things change but I am finding this difficult.

@GameBoy one of the reasons I haven't pushed the DSA is that I know it won't have any benefit to DS. For him it is essential that the masking works. He doesn't identify with his autism so it really wouldn't be of benefit. I am glad that things are better now with your son.

Just to add you mentioned he had PDA tendencies and of course as you know with this quite often anything that is perceived as a demand of him can lead to meltdowns or pure avoidance. Have you any interventions or coping strategies that worked with him in the past?

Ella, this is a valid question. With DS and his PDA traits when he is well regulated if he is given options he doesn't see a demand as he was in control of the outcome.

I suppose seeing the thing he has chosen (to chose the theatre show) as a demand is a sign that he is not coping. Back to the bad old days : (

SSRI's were very beneficial to him between 12 -17 but he chose to withdraw.

I sent him an email yesterday saying this :
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just wanted to drop you a quick line after you blocked me on Monday.

I understand that you want less contact and that's OK. It's a normal part of growing up and being an adult that you want less to do with parents.

However it was a bit confusing because you had asked for help with applying for internships and that was what I was trying to do. If I got that wrong then perhaps it's better not to ask for help from me.

I am allowed to be worried about you as my adult child. I am worried that you are feeling bad since you have split up with *** and I hope that you are OK.

I didn't sleep very well last night because I am worrying about your safety generally. Being worried is totally normal especially when I know you have been hurt.

Can we come to an agreement like we had over the new year when you went back to when we were in ** where you just let me know you are OK. For example if I send a text every couple of days I say just can I check in and you say I'm fine or whatever, that way I will stop being so anxious. Being anxious is not good for my health as you know, you told me you were worried about that over christmas ( for context I have HBP and was having nose bleeds which are connected and he was really worried about me when these were happening)

Hopefully one day you will want to talk to me a bit more about things. If and when you do I will be here.

Otherwise I'll let you get on with life.

Love you.

Mom x
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He has definitely seen this because he texted DH last night to say he's fine and is dating someone else.

So I guess just back off now and wait for him to come to me if he wants to.

This is so hard for you. Well you are doing everything you can and he knows you are there for him so be good to yourself.

He blocked you maybe because he's so frustrated with college and everything else college is not easy and he answers your email then that's good he doesn't hate you he just wants a breather just send him quotes and pics and love you but don't argue or telll him what he needs to.do.because he knows