I'm very new to any kind of support group. I've always been the one who can handle things on my own, but now I am at the realization that I can't. I have a 13 year old boy with Asperger's as well as many other mental issues such as ADHD, ODD, and antisocial disorder (the actual disorder - narcissistic, charismatic, pathological lying etc. - and not the one everyone confuses as "not being social"), and as I am reading many of your posts I know you understand and know what it's like just getting to a diagnosis so you know how to handle situations is quite a long road in itself.

We first had noticed OCD like symptoms in my son since age 3 that were quite severe. Those symptoms eventually faded and evolved into behavioral problems in school by the time kindergarten hit. We have been taking my kiddo to therapy since he was about 5. The one doctor we found was outstanding. Play therapy 1-2 times a week and she prescribed medications and monitored his progression. Unfortunately we moved out of state due to work and found that kind of therapy is very rare. We were eventually able to find someone who helped keep us on track as far as behavior and schooling goes.

My son got in trouble a lot, mostly due to social awkwardness, lack of social/spacial awareness, and the inability to think before he reacts. He got picked on a lot for being the weird kid which of course led to many, many emotional issues. Due to unrelated issues, my husband and I got divorced about 5 years ago (not his biological father but he considers him dad). We are still very amicable and they speak on regular basis. But this has also caused a lot of resentment between my son and my current husband who is not replacement dad and doesn't try to be, but I know my son resents him for me not getting back together with my ex. This led to many head to head battles with my current husband and my son.

When my son started acting out 3 years ago (lying and getting poor marks in school), we would punish him. The first time we took his X-box away for lying (and I'm not talking little lies) he acted like we took his whole world away. Granted we are very structured and he's only allowed up to an hour of play time a day and only if all other things like homework and chores are done. But when this happened, he went to his after-care people and told them we are abusing him at home. When they asked us about it I was floored. I explained the situation and it was fine, but this escalated a poor relationship between my husband and my son to a horrible battle of the wills. Long story short, my son cried abuse multiple times and even tried killing my husband. He was admitted to inpatient psych ward for increased homicidal ideations. They took him off many medications and put him on all new ones (but only for ADHD) that didn't seem to make a difference at all.

The battles at home continued, he even had tantrums in public. One tantrum he had (now 2 years ago), he hit himself, pulled his hair, threw himself to the concrete and scraped his back up against a wall. I had to physically restrain him to get him to stop hurting himself. You can imagine my surprise the next day when I got a call from the police that asked me to come in a make a statement as my son had gone to the school nurse and told her my husband beats him. They then used his diagnosis against us and said "taking care of a special needs child can be frustrating and can get out of hand sometimes can't it?" I was at a loss. Both my husband and I were arrested for this incident and I nearly lost my nursing license over it. He was removed from my home for a year, because we basically had to come to a plea agreement for them to dismiss the case. Both our lawyers told us that since he had marks on his body, and that a jury of all peers would never find us innocent we had to take the plea. Talk about your screwed up system. We went into over $40k in debt over medical bills and legal fees that year.

We finally got him back in April and things had seemingly gotten better, but we have come to the conclusion that we cannot punish him at all for anything bad he does. He's incredibly smart, so he finds ways around everything. I'm finding myself reporting situations regularly to the police and to his therapist just so there is a paper trail that I am doing everything I possibly can to keep him out of trouble, but the fact of the matter is, he doesn't care. He doesn't care that he hurts me or my husband, and he feels he is entitled to everything even though this is not the type of household we raised him in. He basically knows that if he wants something bad enough that he just has to act out and blame it on us. He went so far as trying to look up child pornography on my husband’s computer and then I caught him with alcohol he had gotten from someone he knew from school. He told me his plan was to report us again for "force feeding him alcohol and subjecting him to pornography." So he could go live with someone else that will let him hang out with friends and play video games.

I can't prove any of this unless I have someone living with us at all times. He is very charismatic to adults especially. Everyone who meets him tells me what an outstanding young man I have, but the truth is, I am terrified. We have tried bonding with him (trying to see things from his world), explaining what kind of consequences his actions have on not only himself but also on others. He will act like he cares, and will say anything you want to hear just to get out of an uncomfortable situation, but the truth of the matter is, I am scared, my husband is scared, and no one is on our side. We don't even have a social life anymore because he has managed to cause chaos in more than one home and we are no longer welcome anywhere if he is with us, and we cannot trust him to be anywhere by himself. Even my own parents refuse to take care of him. He stayed with my parents during this whole court battle who believed we were the problem and were actually willing to fight for custody. They then figured out we weren’t making it up, after they battled with him for that year. They will only visit with him if we are around.

I am at a loss, and I don't know what to do. I am in constant fear of losing my job, and when he gets angry, I fear for our lives. We also have a 19 month old at home who sleeps in our room and we keep the door locked at night. I never dreamt that I would have to live in such fear of my own family, of my own son. We have tried taking him to multiple doctors, but because of one reason or another, they drop him. I have so many mixed emotions. The mom in me wants to keep him safe and is often in denial that this is even real - that I am blowing it out of proportion, but the sane person in me reads this and knows this isn’t normal. I feel I have nowhere else to go. Please help.