Julie Gardener
New Member
Autism by Anonymous
My 18yr old son has a type of pervasive developmental disorder that's related to autism. Despite his disability, he is very high- functioning. he is hypersensitive to all senses and extremely impulsive, with outbursts of anger and difficulties in communication. I was told he had little to no ability for abstract thought. He started smoking pot at 15, and for the next two years I fought him very hard to leave marijuana alone, unsuccessfully. Finally his therapist told me to give up, that I was driving myself crazy trying to stop the boy from smoking pot. Following his therapist's advice, I stopped grounding my son every time I caught him high. Shortly after this change in my discipline practices I began to notice that the boy and I were having conversations he had never been capable of before. Marijuana seemed to slow his thought processes down enough so that he could prove that indeed he did have the ability for abstract thought.
Within in three months, he no longer needed the three valiums a day he had been taking since he was 11. His impulsive behaviors almost disappeared, and his outbursts of anger lessened in both intensity and frequency. Even his behavior at school improved.
When I shared this information with his doctors, they weren't surprised at the changes and admitted that the marijuana succeeded in doing what countless medications had been unable to. In less than a year my son went from taking sedating medications every day (which he always hated) to taking nothing. Unfortunately, now my son and I are criminals.
Source: Comments and Observations
My 18yr old son has a type of pervasive developmental disorder that's related to autism. Despite his disability, he is very high- functioning. he is hypersensitive to all senses and extremely impulsive, with outbursts of anger and difficulties in communication. I was told he had little to no ability for abstract thought. He started smoking pot at 15, and for the next two years I fought him very hard to leave marijuana alone, unsuccessfully. Finally his therapist told me to give up, that I was driving myself crazy trying to stop the boy from smoking pot. Following his therapist's advice, I stopped grounding my son every time I caught him high. Shortly after this change in my discipline practices I began to notice that the boy and I were having conversations he had never been capable of before. Marijuana seemed to slow his thought processes down enough so that he could prove that indeed he did have the ability for abstract thought.
Within in three months, he no longer needed the three valiums a day he had been taking since he was 11. His impulsive behaviors almost disappeared, and his outbursts of anger lessened in both intensity and frequency. Even his behavior at school improved.
When I shared this information with his doctors, they weren't surprised at the changes and admitted that the marijuana succeeded in doing what countless medications had been unable to. In less than a year my son went from taking sedating medications every day (which he always hated) to taking nothing. Unfortunately, now my son and I are criminals.
Source: Comments and Observations
