Hi and welcome, @Mel24h . I'm sorry you are so stressed and struggling with your 22-year old son with OCD germophobia.
My thoughts are that if your son could leave home and set up on his own, that this might be a good thing. He could then make the place as clean as he likes, while reducing stress for you at home with your family. I have germophobia myself. I live alone and yet I've had some progress with my germophobia. I used to put about 2 litres of disinfectant into each laundry wash...this made the clothes all sticky and I spent a fortune on that cheap disinfectant that comes in the 2L bottles. I also used to wash my hands in pure disinfectant. I now do neither of these things.
I find that the cleanliness of something is not necessarily logical. For instance, if I decide something is clean, it's clean; the same with "dirty". I have 122 face washers which I use to ritually dry wipe items like library books a certain number of times. I take sanitiser everywhere and have done for years. When I'm at my volunteer job, the staff are used to me spraying the door handles with disinfectant. I find my friends are mostly supportive - I have lost 2 friends over the years due to my germophobia as they were offended by it, but the others are kind to me about my germophobia. I tend to have a shower and wash my clothes and hair after medical appointments and not before, due to the possible germs in the waiting room. I generally can't have people in my home - too stressful - but I meet friends out at cafes. I also wash my hands up to a hundred times a day. It means that everything takes longer, but I still get by OK.
I guess what I'm saying is that you can still live a functional and relatively happy life with germophobia. I am working on it slowly with my psychologist, but I have a number of other conditions which are more urgent to work on. My psychologist has tried me with a little bit of "exposure therapy" - this is the main treatment for germophobia. It hasn't been much of a success yet, but then again I haven't been able to really focus on it due to my hoarding disorder and other conditions taking precedence.
I don't know how your son's Asperger's interacts with his OCD...or whether that would make moving out of home difficult for him. It may be that all he could afford might be an old place...but he could still scrub it clean (I'm in an old place myself). I am wondering if he could get a support worker as well, to help with both his conditions.
Another thing that helps is medication...but you say he won't take it. That's a shame. I wonder what his reasoning is behind this?
I guess you are grieving the hopes you had for your son. This must be hard. But I would like to encourage you that if you can try to accept how your son is, that things aren't necessarily terrible. My father has never accepted me how I am, which has done me an ocean of damage. In fact, it has made my conditions worse. But I consider myself a success, in battling what I do every day, with my other conditions as well, and making it through and working 2 days a week in my volunteer job, and living independently. My father can't see any of that.
I'm not sure if any of this has been helpful. It sounds like you are really struggling...what supports do you have in place yourself? It might help to see a counsellor yourself, to talk through your feelings about all this. At least that way you would have an outlet. And please feel free to keep writing how you are doing and feeling here too, where people can offer peer support. I'm not a carer, so I can't help in that way. But others here can.
A handy forum tip is to type @ and click on someone's name that you want to reply to in the drop-down box - that way they will get a notification that you're speaking to them. If you do this with me and @Shaz51 then we can come here and reply to you.
Wishing you all the best.
