Hi, my name is stressedmum38_! My son stays up all night and won't leave the house

stressedmum38_

Hello my son is 18 and will stay up all night sleep all day and will not leave the house, has stopped coming downstairs and is always moody!! I’m sick of it waiting his asd diagnosis but I feel like I have a stranger in my home!!!

poppy123456

It's not unusal for someone with ASD to want nothing but their own company. Part of their condition means they find it very difficult to communicate with others and this can include family members.

Change can also be a very big thing for them too and they often like to keep to the same routine, day in, day out.

I live with my daughter, she's 21 and is also Autistic. She's exactly the same and spends a lot of her time in her room, alone. She rarely goes out and never alone if she does go. She won't use the phone, other than to ring her sister. She doesn't communicate a lot even with myself, unless i talk about something she loves, which includes our cat.

If i do take her out or to visit friends and family, she will just sit in the corner by herself with her phone in her hand. It's very rare she will start any conversation but will answer you if you speak to her.

I know it's difficult when they won't do anything but stay in their room but if that's what makes him happy then try not to worry too much.

I've found a couple of links for you to have a look at and this may help you understand ASD a little more. https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/what-is-autism

https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism

stressedmum38_

Thank you so much she sounds just like my lad, I’m just really struggling with him, he won’t look for work or anything xx

poppy123456

It's extremely difficult, i agree. Is he still in full time education?

elahrairah

It should also be said that staying up all night and not leaving the house are not entirely unknown amongst teenagers.  Is he unhappy, beyond teenage moodiness?  Does he otherwise have good boundaries?  Is he spending all night on the internet watching porn and posting on 4chan (or similar, is 4chan even still a thing?) or is he reading and doing creative arts?  If he doesn't have a job or college or an IRL social life he has nothing to do except hang around and when I was young and in that situation I found that I ended up nocturnal. 

Boundaries are always good.  Sleep hygeine is always good.  Participation in the day to day running of the house is good.  Does he have any expectations upon him?

Boundaries are hard to put into place, because when your kid pushes back they can be cruel and / or appear in deep pain.  They want to test to see what the boundaries mean, can they be broken, does your parent really care about you or are they just being heavy?  If he's never had boundaries before, they will be hard to learn, it might seem to him like you're being weird or nasty. But eventually they pay off - the child feels loved and supported and protected, and they learn to behave with boundaries as adults, and believe me, as an adult without boundaries you cannot keep yourself safe.

Sleep hygiene is also hard, often because it involves boundaries and not doing what you want to do.  If he's watching tv, playing video games, or on the internet the blue light will fry his brain and make it harder to sleep.  Caffeine is also awful for sleep, so if he's drinking coffee, cola, monster energy drinks, or even tea after mid-afternoon he's going to struggle. 

Having the expectation of doing a few chores will probably cause ructions at first, if he's not used to it.  But it can make him feel like he contributes and give him more of a sense of being a useful member of the family rather than a ghost haunting the attic.

I hope that some of this is useful to you, apologies if it isn't.  Good luck!