Not sure what else to do

My son is 18 and just graduated high school in May. He was always quiet and not very social growing up and through high school. He's smart as most of his classes were advanced and he kept his grades up.

Going back to grade and middle school, he was well liked by all of the kids, but when they would say hi or try to talk to him he would barely say anything.

Last year one of his friends, Tom, from school asked him to start going to these group functions for teens at a local church once a week and a different one at a community center once a week. We thought that was great for him to get out and be around other teens.

Everything was fine for about a year until earlier the beginning of this year something happened. One day we got a call from his guidance counselor that he was punching the walls at school, he said he was angry because he felt lonely.

About a week later he started punching the walls in his room one night, and was very upset. He said he's angry, Tom didn't like him any more, and he didn't want to live like that anymore. We took him to a psych center that night and he was admitted for a night because he told them he was having suicide thoughts.

Things went back to normal for a while, he graduated in May and was deciding where he wanted to go to college. These group functions stopped for the summer and he was back to hanging out by himself.

About 3 weeks ago the police showed up at our door in the middle of the night asking for him. Apparently he was texting Tom (who had been out of town for a while) that he was going to hurt himself and he called 911. He admitted this to the police and they took him back to the psych hospital. This time he stayed for four nights as they wanted to evaluate him some more. They diagnosed him with severe depression and want him to have testing done for autism, which is scheduled for next week.

He was back home and fine again for about a week, but now he's in a state where he stays in bed most of the time. If he's up it's during the night because he comes out to eat. We can hear him crying in his room. My wife and I talked to his friend Tom and he doesn't know what to do anymore, saying my son calls him 30 times a day and texts another 50 times. I think he's in the state he's in right now because Tom has pretty much stopped communicating with him, and told him that he needs to figure out how to get better. Tom is almost the direct opposite of my son, he is very social, has a lot of friends, has had at least one serious girlfriend that we know of.

Tom is starting college next week out of town. My son has since said he wants to wait until next semester to start college now.

Part of me thinks that claiming to want to hurt himself thing was for attention, but I don't want to be wrong. When I do talk to him, he just says he's ok and wants to lay down, and claims he doesn't want to hurt himself anymore and does not want to go back to the hospital. They gave him prozac, 10mg, but he stopped taking it because he said it wasn't helping.

I feel so bad for him. We just don't know what to do. Now that he doesn't have school, he has nothing to do. Do we just wait and see how these test results come back? What then? Thanks for any advice.

I'm sorry you're having such a tough time. If the Prozac isn't helping him, could he be re-evaluated by a psychiatrist and possibly put on other medication? Is he open to therapy to get some of this out of his system? I wouldn't assume his SI is a bid for attention considering the other red flags. Please keep a close eye on him. Sending big hugs.

He's seeing his social worker today for a followup appointment, so this will be the first visit since he's been off the Prozac.

He is going to be tested for autism next week and after that hopefully he will get into therapy. I just don't understand why it took a month to get the testing scheduled and who knows how long after that to get the results and into therapy seeing the state he was in when in the hospital.

I was only thinking the SI may be for attention was that they only happened the times when his friend was away with his other friends, and he always changed his story once he got admitted to the hospital. Only the second time they didn't let him go the next day. It does scare me though and we try to check on him as much as possible.

It does take time for most psych meds to start to work. Maybe he didn't give them long enough to be effective.

Also, therapy would work wonders for your son. It's not only about having someone to talk to, most good therapists will teach coping skills to help with his symptoms.

Here is a follow up on my son. Last night he was taken by police again to psych hospital. Earlier in the afternoon, after his appointment with his social worker, he was in a very angry mood. He started hitting the walls again with his fists and head. Apparently he was also texting some of the people from his church group who thought they should call the police. I don't know what was in the texts, but he claimed they weren't about hurting himself.

Whether he still has intentions on hurting himself or not, we now believe, considering the state he's been in for the last two weeks, that he can't go on like this.

We want to get him out of this hospital and into a facility that can do the therapy that he needs as quickly as possible. I have a few questions:

1. Doing a search for facilities, there are so many choices. How do we know where to start? We don't just want to put him into another hospital, but he needs some kind of inpatient therapy. We are in the Orlando area.

2. I'm pretty sure he will listen to us and go. If he refuses, what can we do?

3. His social worker at the hospital tells us he won't talk about anything with her. While at a new facility, will the doctors eventually be able to get him talking an opening up about whats going on?

Thanks for listening.

Do you think he has feelings for Tom?