i cant do this anymore :(

[ThatVikRinA22]

Ds is 20 and has aspergers, dyspraxia and dyslexia, and is still burying his head in the financial sand and i just dont think i can do anything more for him.

He is rubbish with money, he has stolen from me, taken huge interest pay day loans, secretly got and spent to the limit on a credit card and run up 2 bank accounts to their maximum overdrafts.

i thought we had finally sorted it but this month he has come to me in a panic wanting money. I have asked why and to sit with him to see what has gone wrong again, (i have had his bank card so i thought he couldnt spend) but he is refusing to show me what the money has gone on.

i am refusing to help unless he does.
so stalemate

i am worried that he is taking out debt and using our home address to get credit that he cannot pay.

he has gone for a walk and im here feeling shit. Yesterday i spend the entire day at uni with him for his DSA assessment and sorting out his accommodation.

today, i feel like i have no choice but to ask him to leave.
help.

now DH has stormed off to bed because i dont want to sit and watch tv.
He kicked this off earlier because he was shouting at him, normally he is the oasis of calm while i lose it. not today though

so he fucks off to bed and leaves me sat here. this is just fab. i want to walk out right now and just walk and walk and never ever have to come back to this shite. im so sick of it. i wonder really what would happen if i just walked out. i could just go to a hotel and stay there.

So sorry to see this OP and I know exactly how you feel. DS1 is ASD and 22. He has serious issues with money too and has lost £100s buying and selling things over and over and being conned, basically. We are "lucky" that he allows us to manage his money most of the time, but it doesn't always work. He loves travelling too, although not as far as your DS. I sometimes feel like running away, like you. But I don't - best wishes.

Would it be worth calling the police and reporting him as a missing person? Would they take it serious enough to look for him?

Not sure with him being an adult.

Once he comes home, can you ask him to allow you to take control of his finances? Or would that cause further arguements?

My SIL is 48 and has the mentality of an 8 year old. She is in no way capable of looking after her own money, it has been proven when she tried to live by herself in her 20s. She was very vulnerable, the so called care staff that were doing her shopping and paying her bills were also helping themselves and she was not saying anything. She now lives in a care home for young adults. Her Sns are different to your DSs though, she has CP and LDs.

I hope he gets in touch soon, if only to let you know where he is.

ive tried to get him to let us take control of the finances but he agrees for so long then blows it then shuts us down.

im a police officer. i dont feel able to report him missing. i know what it involves and i also know that its unlikely right now that he is a genuinely missing person - he has got to be staying somewhere. And if i report him and they find him, he cannot be made to come home against his will, so its a bit pointless for today at least.
if he just goes completely off the radar then obviously that would be different, but i suspect he is just holed up somewhere, he doesnt have many friends but he has a couple. Im worried about what they will be advising him. neither of them are in work or education. he is easily led.

looks like im sleeping on the sofa tonight. He tend to be up all night so i might try and text again later.

Where is he getting his income from?

It seems to me that bailing him out may not be in your his best interests as if he were to get a CCJ against his name, some of these banks and loan sharks companies wouldn't be quite so eager to advance him money or let him rack up £££'s of debt.

Lasting Power of Attorney may be the way to go but for it to be 100% effective you would need to register it with the Court of Protection and it ain't cheap - although possibly not a lot different to the kind of sums you've been forking out to spare him a trip to the County Court.

Tough love, honey, - but it seems that you need to get some brakes in place before he goes to uni and becomes eligible for a student loan.

izzy - he works part time from home and earns £350 a month as a computer programmer.

he has already squandered his student loans. and then some he is 20. he has been in higher education for the last 2 years with a further year coming up from sept as a residential student - this is what is worrying me - if he carries on like this he wont get there. He wont listen to reason or talk to me. I called his bluff today and said he either came clean and let me help him sort his finances or he couldnt live with us anymore. so he went.

he has done some dubious things in the past so his secrecy and reluctance to let me see where the money has gone is ringing alarm bells.

Has he a proper diagnosis, vicar (it sounds as if he has). He is a vulnerable adult and when it comes to money that can be very vulnerable indeed - to online poker or real-life con artists. I have AS (I think), similar re the lying and naive to the point of riskiness - I look back and am horrified at some of the situations I have got myself into (and out again). However, I am female, and I also like being good with money, so there are similarities and differences between me and your son. Vulnerable adults - social services, as I imagine you know from your job.

I will check thread again in 10 or 15 min.

yes he has a proper dx pink

problem is right now he wont come home - just had a text from him but also had two more letters saying he owes money - 1 from the bank and 1 from some internet company.

he will not "see" himself as a vulnerable adult though. i could get him all the help in the world and its useless if he wont take it.

ive no idea what to do.

in the text i sent back i suggested perhaps a social worker - if he wont allow us to help - i suspect that idea will have gone down like a lead balloon.

ive had no reply.

Sorry, went to bed, have a horrible cold.

Have you heard back from him yet? I think a social worker woul be a good start, someone who is indifferent and not as involved iygwim.

I remembered after I posted last night you were a police officer.

well ive made a referral to social services, spoken again to the disability advisor at uni and told her the full story - she advised social worker and in first instance CAB for his money woes.

He has text and after several pleas from me is going to come here at lunch time to talk to us.

im also still sorting his uni accommodation out - so if we can talk without arguing we might get somewhere.

I rang work to try and get another days annual leave but think its a none starter....

that's great that he's talking Vicar and i understand how hard it must have been for you to make those calls

can you not get a compassion day from work?

Sadly there is a limit to what can be done if the adult has mental capacity - although this in a way is quite right too, it's not illegal to act strange after all.

I had a relative who had schizophrenia (think he may have been a meds refuser too) and despite the family trying to intervene and getting social services involved, they could not persuade him to let someone into his house to help. He was eventually found dead in the bathroom, house was unfit for human habitation. Point made to show how ss are ineffectual in the face of human rights - rightly so, I think, but it doesn't make life any easier.

People with bipolar in very manic phases have been known to run up huge debts while they have lost touch with reality. Not sure what happens afterwards - maybe someone on mh would know. Not saying your DS has bipolar but thought it might be an analogous situation.

And finally - does your son use Excel? He might be persuaded to be more careful with money if he was managing it on a spreadsheet (and making Excel do all sorts of clever things).

my inspector doesnt do compassion janeMare. i was supposed to be phoning them at 3 to beg see if an extra days annual leave had been granted if the numbers would allow....they won't because the numbers are always tight, you tend to have to book annual miles in advance.

plus im being moved from tomorrow so i suspect my inspector thinks im trying to pull a fast one and avoid the inevitable (cos i didnt want to move)

on the whole, my life is sucky at the mo. Wonder how long this will last....

Hi, I hope things go well when he comes back for lunch. It sounds as though he is wanting independence from Mum and Dad and that's understandable for a 20 year old.

I would suggest him looking into finding himelf another advocate - he would have to choose someone to entrust to look into his finances for him. There are organisation that support people in self-advocacy, a way for disabled people to maintain independence but have someone keep an eye on them.

It sounds as though you've given him independence, it's backfired and now you've given him this ultimatum that unless he gives control back to you he's out. That must be hard for him, so perhaps find the middle ground and ask him to chooe who he wants to look after his finance for him?

Nothing helpful to add but what an awful awful situation, I hope you can work towards resolving it together. [hugs]

Only thing I can think to add to other good posts is don't feel it's a waste of 20 years of parenting and caring - you've put in so much. He's at Uni - what's he studying by the way ? .... Just thinking he'd be much worse of without all the care you've given over the years.
Those that offer credit (such as banks) are so irresponsible

well he has agreed to the social services referral.

he is coming home tonight, after work. He has lost his bank card so is going to cancel it and get another.

He knows he has to sort this, which is a start and he also recognised and voiced that us just taking his bank card off him isnt going to sort his problems with money. (im thinking that is a good thing)

i cant get too excited as he does this so often now, but ive asked him to think about how much he can realistically get by on for the next 4 weeks until he is paid again, with a view to giving him cash, but i cant stop him accessing his money via paypal or other means, he has got to want to sort this aswell. hE says he has blocked himself off the online poker sites for 60 days. If we can just straighten him up by uni then hopefully someone from social services can put something into place for independent living/budgeting etc.

he realises this is what he needs and is willing to take the help if its not us doing it.

Wow, you've made a lot of progress Tutu since your OP !

You're a great Mum !

The advocate idea is a great one.

Does he do excel?

It is good that he is recognising his addictive/obsessive tendencies and doing self-blocking. I have the same in a sort of very tight-wad way (AS comes out as penny-pinching in our family, which has its own problems) - I have been known to play Solitaire for hours on end, has to be Vegas rules though, where you can see how much virtual money you have won and lost.

he realises this is what he needs and is willing to take the help if its not us doing it

That's a good sign that he really is growing up. Well done.

I think anything to do with gambling is pretty worrying though ...

can get in a shit load of trouble that way.

Friends of ours had to sell their house when their DS ran up huge gambling debts.

So, steering him clear of anything along those lines might be an idea ...