A
female
age
,
anonymous
writes:For the past 2 weeks, our 23-year-old son, Simon* who has Asperger's syndrome has been acting differently - showing signs of angst/depression, smoking and drinking [soft drinks] to excess and putting on weight.We weren't sure why and asked him one night and he tearfully admitted to us that he thought he was gay, he said he had sexual feelings for men (mainly men 30+) but had self-loathing about it, he said that he did like women too, but less than men and said he wanted treatment to be "normal" - he said he can accept having Asperger's syndrome and he attends a daycentre for adults with it but says being gay is unacceptable where we are.The conversation was tearful and he kept telling us how low he felt.What he said is true, in our town here in the East Midlands, homosexuality is considered unacceptable, and homophobia is fairly rife - in our local paper there were a few reports recently about homophobic attacks.He said that disability is more accepted than being gay; he said you can probably see disability, but you can't see being gay though - not sure if we agree with him or not.He doesn't have many friends, only two of them from the daycentre (both male), and even then one of them's only in very infrequently now. He has few female friends, apart from a woman in her late 50's who's a friend of our friends.My son's social skills are good but he feels like he could always do better with them.My husband [his biological father] said our son needs counselling, but our son admitted to us he's already been for counselling and it didn't help.How can we help him and get him out of this depression? - which he's had for 6 weeks now - he's no longer his usual confident, happy self.Any advice is appreciated.* "Simon" is not his real name.
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female
reader, chocogirl +, writes (25 October 2011):
That's tough. I think the main thing he needs is support and to know that who he is is acceptable and fine. This could be difficult if that's not the message where you live. If possible, I think it would be nice for him to spend time talking to or spending time with other gay people, or other people in the LGBTQ community, if there is one. If he's able to do that, it might also help him make friends and be more happy socially.
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