Mental illness as an autistic child.

As many of you already know, my 10yo son is autistic. However, over the last few years, other issues have started to crop up. They were really amplified during the COVID lockdowns IMO. The initial issue was severe ADHD but my son also exhibited psychotic behaviors. For instance, he would find bugs and dismember them or pull their legs off. Worse, he would hit my wife or target a smaller child at a park and push them off a high point at the playground. Fortunately, in the case of other kids, we’ve been able to prevent any injury. We’ve been working with in home therapists since 2020 but things never really got better. In March, the great resignation caught up with the therapy as all of our therapists and assistants quit. Conduct at school kept getting worse with intentional harm being caused to himself and other students.

But things came to a head this weekend. My wife and I were on a telehealth meeting with our son’s doctor. During that time, our son was playing in the back yard and found a ground level bird nest. He proceeded to kill three chicks and pull their legs off. He also photographed what he did and was proud of it when he told me. I informed my wife and she became very emotional as she realized that this was an escalation that was leading him to a much darker place. It got to the point that she had a pretty bad panic attack that put her in the ER.

While in the ER, she explained everything to the doc and he asked her to have our son admitted to the ER. We did so and he promptly put him on a 72hr medical hold. We did not know this was coming. While there, the hospital started calling facilities to find a bed for him. All the facilities that had bed space didn’t take minors. The ones that did take minors are completely full. We remained in the ER for over 48 hrs until the doc let us be discharged. He advised us to take our son to the ER at Denver’s childrens hospital. They have a psychiatric center for kids there. We’re planning to take him on Thursday.

As you might imagine, we’re pretty heartbroken over the whole thing. If they can’t find a successful treatment for our son, well who knows. There really aren’t mental institutions or long term care facilities for him. I’m worried that he’ll eventually hurt himself or another person. Then they’ll lock him up with little or no treatment. This country’s mental care system is vastly worse than medical care. I just needed to vent here a bit. It’s bad enough that my son’s prospects for a happy future are dim, I’m worried that even that future is in doubt.