Where Do We Begin? Help for son

Our 17 year old (18 in August) has been treated for ADD/Depression and has been seen by a counselor for some time. He is just finishing his junior year and still (hopefully) has a year at home although with his behavior, we may be forced to make him leave before he graduates. Several things have escalated out of control in the past year or so (lying, stealing money from us, behavior problems in school, opposition to authority, etc.) and he appears to be headed for a diagnosis of ASPD. He fits the majority of the symptoms that have been described to us by his counselor and what we have read on the internet.

He has not yet shown symptoms of drug or alcohol abuse (he has been drug tested) but with all that we have read about the illness and the hope for successful treatment we are worried sick about his future. Is there any hope to provide him with the tools to control the illness? Is it a manageable illness? We just can't believe that the prognosis is as bleak as we have read and that treatment is so unsuccessful.

We can't get him into a psychiatrist until early July because they are booked until then. We just don't know where to begin to get him the help he is going to need. Any help and suggestions would be so greatly appreciated.

I'm not much of one for posting to forums, but I find in your story much that is familiar.

My son was first diagnosed with ODD when he was six, after taking a baseball bat to his room. There hasn't been any violence since, but he's had a total of 3 psychiatric hospitalizations in the last 8 years, 2 in the last 8 months. He is a compulsive liar, a thief, a compulsive masturbator (at age 14), addicted to porn, tv and video games (please note: I removed all three--it's not that I've allowed this to go on). But when people who don't really know him comment on him, they say he's "sweet" and "charming" and can't understand why I have problems with him. He's passive-aggressive rather than outwardly aggressive. Needless to say, he's failing school and impossible to motivate. He's never been attached to me, emotionally--his grandmother noticed this early on. Nor has he ever had a "conscience"--I remember encouraging him to imagine his own "Jiminy Cricket" when he was a small child, because I recognized he had no conscience, no guilt, no remorse. And no impulse inhibition either. In the last year, he's faked grand mal seizures and two suicide attempts (NO evidence--and the second time, he made marks on his neck with a bath towel to say he hung himself in the psych hospital. no evidence he did what he said--AND the marks are not consistent with hanging--they were symmetrical around the base of his neck)--he faked these to manipulate me & the psychiatric community. His emotions are shallow; he has no light in his eyes & he certainly has no empathy. He has no ability to self-motivate, he seems to desire nothing tangible--this is a kid who's always slept until after noon on Christmas day. I can't tell you how difficult it is now to make decisions about what to do with him--I've tried making him a ward of the state, but they want to prove I'm an abusive mother (not true; his biological father was abusive and manipulative, but we left him when Michael was 4 & I rescinded his parental rights, & put us both in therapy). There is A LOT of mental illness in my family & his biological father's. And now, he's in a "holding facility" because his social worker only asked for placement in a foster home, & no one in their right mind will take him, especially since he was just kicked out of a military summer school (NOT a boot camp; a relatively "easy" 150 year old military school) for sexual relations with another (male) cadet.

Does anyone know of a facility doing research on kids like Michael? Maybe he could get some long term treatment in a research facility.

You know, when Columbine happened, those of us who were parents asked 3 questions: "Didn't the parents notice something wrong about their kids?" "How could they NOT have noticed?" and, finally, "What would I do if I noticed something was wrong with my child?" I'm trying to answer that last question, and getting no help.

Does anyone have any ideas at all?

JLCM