Depression (?) in Asperger's child *may trigger*

Hi everyone,

I'm new here and I need all the help I can get. My 8 year old son has aspergers, and lately things have taken a very drastic turn for the worse. He gets easily irritable and upset, picks fights over the smallest things, being very confrontational, feeling worthless (calls himself worthless, stupid, etc) and his reaction to insignificant problems are extreme. He even says things like that he should kill himself and we'd all be better off without him.

His behaviour twrrifies me. I'm always trying to sit him down for talks and boost his self esteem, explain that things that he deems important are in fact no big deal, explain to him how important he is and how we wouldn't survive if anything happened to him... But it seems to be getting nowhere. I can't seem to be able to reach him or change his outlook on things.

He's a very bright boy with above average intelligence (attends a gifted kids programme in a university and doing great in mainstream school, he's extremely friendly (but socially awkward), he's only recently began to really face and discuss his emotions and feelings and he is not in any type of therapy, with the exception of 'resource hours' in school, when he meets with a teacher once a day for an hour to 'learn' social skills, emotional coping etc.)

Please, I'll take on board every piece of advice I can get, please give me ideas as to how I can help him.

Thank you.

clearly, the issue here is his low self-esteem. from your post, it's not at all apparent what is causing this. possibly some sort of therapy would be beneficial. i'd suggest it be based on building life skills and thereby confidence in himself, rather that a purely analytical approach. often such analysis can actually accentuate the problem by making the depression a focal point.

Autism can lead to increased irritability in children.
Perhaps you need to contact a psychiatrist. They can then tell whether or not your child has a mood disorder and if it's just autistic irritability.
Autistic people can have mood swings caused by their condition (emotional dysregulation). "Autistic lows" and "autistic highs", are usually caused by an 'overreaction' to an event, whereas mood swings in a mood disorder usually don't have a cause.
I have ASD and I was prescribed Abilify (at a low dose) to help manage my autistic irritability, emotional dysregulation and impulsivity (comorbid to my mood disorder), and it's working wonders. If your son becomes too irritable or emotionally dysregulated, perhaps your son's pdoc can prescribe either Abilify or Risperdal in order to control this.
It's more likely to be autism-related than a mood disorder, but I wouldn't rule out a mood disorder either.