I need help seeing things clearly. I can’t think straight anymore. I’m so stressed and worried. I need some ideas how to sort this.
My son 11 is in first year of secondary school has diagnosed ADHD and school think he needs assessed for ASD. I have always thought he has PDA or ASD and requested a referral years ago but was refused. School are now writing a letter for GP to support referral.
My son had what appears to be a breakdown in school last week, he ran out of class, started running round the school, refused to come home with me, became violent towards me and had to be restrained, the police were called and I thought at one point he would need to be sedated. It was truly horrific. I had to get my parents to come to the school as he was attacking me and refusing to come home with me. my mum got him to agree to come home with her. I requested an emergency cahms referral and it was refused as they didn’t think it was a mental health issue- school are absolutely horrified at this response. A Cahms referral has now been made along with a referral to primary mental health via his ADHD key worker. This will take weeks before anyone even gets in touch apparently.
He has now been at my mums since the event (a week tomorrow) and refuses to speak to me. He has not been at school since. He says he is angry with me and his older brother but won’t say why. The only thing he says is that I know why he is angry. The only thing I can think of is that the weekend previously money went missing from my purse. My son has a long history of stealing other peoples belongings and money from me or his brother. So I asked him, calmly, like every other time, if he could just return the money as I needed it for the food shopping. He has a very intense fight or flight reaction so I try and keep everything calm so he won’t kick off or run away. He proclaimed his innocence and cried and said I always accuse him. (This is his reaction every time) It’s true, I do because it is always him that has stolen my money. I can’t pretend it isn’t. So this is where I think I went wrong- I searched his room for it and asked his brother to help me. We didn’t find it but it did miraculously appear back in my purse later (it 100% wasn’t there before). So that’s the only thing that has happened that I can think of but he was totally fine with me and behaving normally after the weekend until this breakdown incident that happened in school last Thursday.
He’s at my mums, he’s calm, not having any behavioural issues, is taking his medication, but he won’t talk about either me or his brother or the incident at school. I have texted him telling him that I love him and if he needs anything from home to let me know. His brother texted him to ask what he would like for his birthday which is tomorrow (he will be 12) and he responded with a list of snacks and that was it. He came home on Monday and stayed for two hours while my mum did some errands but he stayed in his room the whole time and only responded with a sullen “no” when I asked if he wanted some lunch. Otherwise he didn’t speak to me at all and left when my mum came back. I phoned him today to ask if he wanted to come home tomorrow and get his birthday presents or is he preferred for me and brother to come out to granny’s and see him he said “neither”. I asked why he was angry with me and he said “you should know” and hung up on me. I texted after that telling him I am really sorry for whatever it is that I have done to upset him and that I love him and don’t want his birthday to be ruined. No response.
I don’t know what to do. This is killing me. He has never gone so long not speaking to me. He has sulked before but never more than a few hours. He won’t even tell my mum what he is angry with me for. How can I fix this if he won’t speak to me or even tell someone what the issue is? He can’t stay with my parents forever.
My mum is not putting any pressure on him, or asking lots of questions. She is just leaving him be. He is spending his days on his phone and watching tv. Basically he is happy and very comfortable so I can totally see why he doesn’t want to come home. Maybe this is why he is refusing to speak because he knows that will mean fixing the issue and coming home, going back to school etc?
Please, I don’t know what to do anymore.