To Drug or Not to Drug?

Many people have sent e-mails or left a message at my website asking why I don't bring up the topic of medication for Asperger Syndrome. Firstly, I am not a doctor and am therefor very reluctant to advise any parent to medicate their child and secondly, the only time I was persuaded to try my son on an anti-depressant was a total disaster. I only agreed to the anti-depressant because I had been concerned for years that my son was in a depression that I couldn't seem to help him out of, and unfortunately, while the anti-depressant made him an extremely happy child in the first two weeks, by the third week, he became a suicidal one.

Having to make a decision to medicate your child is not an easy one to make for many parents. I resisted anti-depressants for my son for many years because there were times throughout the year when he wasn't depressed - like summer holidays, or when things were going well at school, or when he immersed himself in a brand new special interest for days at a time. But, there were other times when he would be so deep down sad over something that had happened and cry for days at a time voicing his desire to be dead. He would eventually come out of this mood and when his sense of humour returned he would say things like "I like my life, wretched though it may be".

I have learned that this mood instability is part of Asperger Syndrome for some individuals, as is the aggression, explosive anger and feelings of hopelessness. In many articles about medicating a child or youth with Asperger Syndrome, the same train of thought seems to run through them and that is - control the behaviours of the child, control the aggression, control the anger and control the sadness. I don't think that I would appreciate someone trying to control all those behaviours that I also have with the use of medication. Personally, we have opted to try to control the environment around our child in the hopes that he will find it easier to deal with. We have had great success at home and modest success at school using this method and our son seems much happier these days, less frustrated and less angry.

There are a few questions that parents should ask themselves before they chose the medication route for their child, and they are:

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