HELP! My brother (has Asperger's) won't talk to my parents!

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I'm well aware that it's her problem, not yours. The fact is he can't or won't see his friend any more.

Let's start with the room issue. As has been pointed out, executive function is often an issue with AS. Which means that your brother isn't choosing to have a messy room as much as feeling overwhelmed by the concept of cleaning it, most likely. He has no idea where to start or how to do it. And I'll note that he is probably stressed by the mess himself, just so overwhelemd by the concept of trying to clean it, that he is picking the lesser of two evils: leaving it as is and escaping inside his head or onto his computer because those are comfortable places. The worse it gets, the more he needs to avoid dealing with it. At this point it has gotten so bad he seems to have a need to have a scapegoat: your step dad. He may know intellectually that it isn't all your step dad's fault, but he may not feel that emotionally, and this not talking to him is his defensive reaction.

No one can talk him out of that reaction. He has to work it through in his own time and in his own way. I'd say that is the biggest thing I've learned living in a family with AS and maybe having a few genes myself: back off, put in gentle concise responses when the person leaves an opening for it, and wait.

Handle your brother's upset exactly how he believes he needs to handle Lizzy's: by leaving him alone on it. He is probably taking that position with Lizzy because he knows that is what he prefers when upset.

And back to the room. When was the last time someone said, "tell you what, you decide when would be a good time, and I'll come help you. We can work on it just for an hour and see how far we get, and then decide when to continue." That is how parents here help their AS kids get better habits with their rooms: by doing it with them, devising a process together that isn't overwhelming. Sitting in that room trying to help him with it you will see and feel how stressful this activity is for him, and get a better sense of what he needs to be able to do it.

It is not, unfortunately, something you'll be able to do once and have the issue be over; you'll need to help periodically as the room situation responds to other stress factors and realities in his life.

Another option will be to suggest chore trades: I'll clean your room if you do a chore from this menu for me. My son, for example, likes to cook, and doesn't mind at all taking the garbage out. He also sets up all our new electronics, and trouble shoots our computers. We help him with his room. My son hates messy, he just doesn't know how not to be, and we've had to adapt, just as your family needs to adapt.

As for that compliment: my son doesn't understand the point to many compliments, except for subjective things and things that took a lot of hard work. Your step dad reiterated a fact, something that just is, in your brother's eyes. Something that came naturally to him, not something he had to fight for. A simple fact.

I do hope things improve soon but it is going to take the time it takes, and you have to allow that.

Those are really good suggestions and I can try myself with that since he has no problem with me, however the AS is clashing with my stepdad's bipolar - that's no-one's fault, that's just what's happening. My stepdad is (as I type) in bed in a depression, when he gets really bad he holes himself up in his room for days. My stepdad is getting worn down by it, says the whole house is revolving around Paul at the moment and us tiptoeing around him and the fact that my stepdad's also losing a close family friend (who was practically an aunt to him - she's 96, had a fall in the home she's in and is on death's door) is destroying him. He is standing by his principles and won't budge or apologise. And then there's Paul who won't move. My stepdad is usually patient but after a while he can snap and suddenly become very impatient, threaten to drive off and leave and all sorts - the depression talking, but he's done things like this before.

Probably a really bad move by my mum today but in stress and desperation she went into his room and started tidying some plastic bags. Paul got really angry at her and told her to get not. Now he's not talking to her nor is he tidying his room. I know she shouldn't have broken in to his personal space!


EDIT TO ADD: Would it help tensions if I took my whole family out on a surprise fun day? Like going to an interesting museum, a theme park or something? That way we'd all have to have fun together and maybe in that tensions would lift.

EDIT TO ADD AGAIN: My stepdad is now threatening to move out cos he's really upset and can't live with this hatred being directed at him. I personally take this view to be selfish - when he married my mum, he said 'for better or for worse' - that means you stick together when times get rough. We can't afford for him to move away at the moment, we're barely making ends meet as it is. He said he'd come back when Paul moves out. Paul told me he wants to leave asap - i.e. after college. I don't want my family to split up, this is now just a case of stubbornness between the two because neither will apologise to the other!!

I'm sorry you're dealing with so much. Both AS and depression/bipolar are hard to live with, and it sounds like you're the one who is trying to smooth over the problems people are having with each other. I don't know if this will make you feel relieved or discouraged, but ultimately people are responsible for their own relationships. You can help (and it sounds like you really do) but you can't make people reasonable. What you can do is make your own relationships with them as harmonious as possible. That involves equal doses of helping where you can, ignoring things when you can't, and taking care of yourself.
I think your idea of taking everybody out for a fun day is great. In fact, why not take everybody *except* your stepfather out right now?
J.

Can't immediately because here in the UK it's 8.20pm haha! But I don't want to split us up, the whole point is to bring us all together again.

I'm being very much on the fence, seeing things from both points of view at the moment. Sadly neither will budge at the moment and it's gonna break us all up. We already lost three members of our family this year (two grandparents - one who Paul doesn't remember but I do - and our dog). I lost my real dad to drugs and violence, I haven't spoken to him in years and I don't think he cares about us. I can't bear to lose my core family too. I just don't know what to do. I guess there's not much I can do. One has to apologise to the other. Someone has to bite the bullet.

A fun day is fine but probably not a surprise fun day.

It can be a real issue having two people with extreme needs in the same household, and trying to get them both met.

Pragmatically, the one with the most viable choices right now is your step dad, and I can't really blame him for wondering if he should exercise one of them, but the script to use with him is this, "leaving isn't a permanent solution to anything, and no one here wants that: you are our family, too."

But the person who really is going to have to pull things together here is your mom. You can give her support and you can help her with scripts, but she is the only one with authority when it comes to both your step dad and your brother, even if your brother is no longer talking to her.

If you can help your brother with his room, it would ease some tensions. your brother is probably aware that his options are limited, so if you can hand him a lifeline on how to give a tiny inch that will help things in the home, he will probably take it. The script there is that you know the room is hard for him, and you agree that no one has handled that well to date, but if progress can be made with it, it will reduce the stress for everyone, and that includes your brother. Get him thinking about how much more peaceful the room will feel to him if it gets straightened out. If it turns out he actually likes it messy ... Another conversation.

Then your mother needs to help your step dad either pursue treatment or find a way to release his tensions / deal with his depression. Maybe a break from the household? A vacation? You all can't be so afraid of his leaving that you deny him whatever it is going to take for him to get healthy. That need has to get met, too, and while I don't know the process for it, I can say that without the process it can only get worse. The step dad needs to explain what it is he needs to get healthy so that the family can work on the steps to get there. It sounds, btw, like he is focused on things that can't or won't happen, so the trick is to help him see smaller, more realistic, alternatives.

And, yeah, the whole thing is a big mess.

Consider meeting with a professional to get guidance on how to approach the issues. I know AS, I know depression, but I don't really know bi-polar.

Wow, has this brought up a lot of memories for me. I am with the people who say that he probably does not really know how to clean his room. There are many different tasks involved in cleaning a room, and he probably needs it all broken down into it's bits and pieces. My mom tried to make me clean her way - pick up a thing, put it away. Pick up another thing, put it away. Pick up a nearby piece of trash, throw it away. Doing things that way does not work for me, even a little bit. Once, when I was young, my mom told me to clean my room. I knew I was terrible at it and my room was a mess, and I had decided that that time I was really going to do it right. I'd clean FOR REAL and be really, really good.

So I pulled out everything that was under my bed, everything under my dresser, under my desk, and even the mess in my closet, and piled it in the middle of my room. I then proceeded to start sorting the pile. I made a pile of trash, a pile of toys, a pile of clothes, and maybe other piles. I don't remember. Anyway, at that point my mom checked up on me, saw that my room looked worse than before, and flipped her lid. In retrospect - I was doing things exactly right for me. Breaking things into categories and tackling one task at a time is exactly the way I best approach such things.

So he has this awesome room with awesome storage space. Has he ever gone through it and carefully examined all the different spaces and thought about what would go best where (either alone or with someone)? Please note - this would be best done on it's own, rather than while also trying to put things into said storage space.

Also, it might help to break things down into manageable tasks. Instead of "keep your room clean" which is very vague, it could be things like "every evening take all used dishes into the kitchen." And "always put trash into a trashbag (which will have a designated location), and every evening the trash bag should be put with the rest of the trash, and replaced with a new bag." I deal with my laundry and dishes my having designated routines for them. I do them on specific days. I do them in specific orders.

Sorry I can't help with the issue of the relationship between him and your stepdad, but I can certainly understand problems with things like cleaning.

Tried to offer to help Paul with his room, he said thanks but no thanks - even to just dusting - cos he prefers to do his room on his own.

We literally can't afford for my stepdad to go - we have barely enough money for food atm, let alone plane tickets!! He wants to go back to Spain where we have a flat but we really can't afford it. Also out of sight he may do something stupid in his depression. One time he got so depressed he attempted suicide.

OP. You are the child in this situation. It is NOT your job to fix things. I know you want to do everything you can to help, but please understand that it is NOT your fault.


Your step dad may need to be checked into a clinic or maybe some outpatient intensive help. I obviously don't know for sure, but if you are worried about his safety and the safety of your family, your mom needs to have a plan. It seems like his decisions are getting more and more unreasonable while he goes down his spiral. It looks like his current medications are not helping and he needs to find something that will work. In the meantime, your mother should be looking into options in case things get worse. My husband is BP II, so I've seen these spirals and know exactly how it could end up. We've seen many people in his BP community do things that ruin their lives when they are very manic or depressed.

Your brother needs his space, so give him space. What can you do? Pushing him, he will pull away. What's the worst thing that can happen to his room at this point? It may get super gross, but the other option is forcing him to clean it or clean it yourself and he will flip out. Maybe let things cool off.

My first relationship was similar to your brother's. I met my first boyfriend off the internet and had a long distance relationship for several years. When I visited him his room was like your brother's only instead of being like "Lizzy" I helped him clean it, I realize now he was also Aspie. I'm sorry Lizzy didn't do the same. I can clean very well but have trouble keeping things organized afterward, I can sympathize with disorder but not with refusal to remove moldy plates of food. When things start to smell, attract bugs and become hazardous for others living in the house than yes that is a big problem that needs to be addressed and if he wants his privacy he can't have his room that way. I had a brother who had to be kicked out (more than once) who kept his room in that state, but he also had a drug and alcohol problem that complicated matters. I would think the fear of being kicked out would at least motivate him enough to get the rotting food out.

Regarding the built in furniture, how about discussing with your brother on where to put what?

To share my experience, my bedroom has had the same built-in furniture from the time I was about to enter primary school (elementary school) to now, as a freelancer doing a lot of work preparation at my desk. My needs have changed a lot over the years, but I can't move the furniture around to suit my needs. To convince my dad to dismantle the furniture and get new things, I have to clear things out from my room, in between preparing work, doing chores etc. But that takes time. At the moment there are a few piles on the bedroom floor, and a few baskets to keep unsorted items. Not exactly encouraging that in the meantime, my dad keeps telling me that girls should be clean and tidy.

In your case, as the built-in furniture is new, dismantling it is not an option. Maybe ask him what's practical for him. Maybe have the computer related stuff (computer manuals etc) near the computer, bring cups and plates down at the end of each day before bedtime.

Good luck, hope things work out.

Rotting food and dust have nothing to do with each other. If he is hoarding the dishes, he may not use the dished. If he is leaving food to rot then it should be made clear to him that he may not live there if he continues to do that as the smell is imposing on others and it presents an infestation risk. Take the PlayStation back and give him his money back.

Why does your mother do his laundry?

By the way, being in the same room with most common molds and dust is not going to make him ill. It's actually black mold that grows in/on walls and causes dry rot that can make a person ill and it has nothing to do with old food.



To a lot of individuals, maintaining a certain level of cleanliness does seem like a small thing to ask, however how one keeps their living space is tied closely with how they manage mental tasks and how they navigate life in general. While I don't have much in the way of old food around, I do have paper plates with crumbs, old tea bags in the kitchen, and stacks and stacks of paper, much of which inevitably ends up on the floor. It's more the natural state of my desk than not, for the surface to be hidden under various papers.

The root of the matter is, my mental organization and the way I go about my day is different from that of someone who is more "organized". I put that in quotations because I actually am quite organized. It just appears to others with a different organizational method that I am not.

Is it too much to ask that I change? Generally speaking, yes. However it's not too much to ask that I reserve a day every week or two to clean.



As I said, I doubt he will contract anything from living in a dirty room, unless he had a severely compromised immune system. I would simply require that he not leave rotting food in there. If you are so concerned about how he is caring for the PlayStation, as I said, take it back and give him his money back. And I don't think your mother should be doing his laundry. He is an adult. He can do his own laundry if he wishes to have clean clothes, and he should have adult repercussions, not child punishments.



The reason he is having everything done for him is because they are doing everything for him. No one is making them do that. People with AS hate change and frequently need incentive to become adults. Unlike NT teenagers who frequently really want to move out and be on their own and take care of themselves, people with AS are usually rather comfortable at home in their room, while their mother does their laundry for them, and generally see no reason to change this.

As such, when I was 15 my mother stopped doing my laundry and I was free to wear my dirty clothes as long as I pleased (and it didn't kill me).



Honestly I think this is either an excuse simply because the state of his room bothers or disgusts you and your parents, or you are clinging to western misconceptions about what makes one ill and what doesn't. It's thought that one reason western children are developing asthma and so many allergies today is because their environments are too clean.



Why not just have a day where your mother goes up there and demands the dishes? Or a household cleaning day where everyone cleans?

Come on you can't sell a kids possessions when he's earned it and paid for it himself.

Besides, why take away his only friend AND his hobby? Cruel.

Wow. I just wanted to say that you should listen to wanderer.

As someone with AS I totally relate to your brother and his friend. Guy needs to move out and get away from your parents ASAP if in any way possible. I can't imagine things getting better between them and if he stays he may loose his friend for very legitimate reasons of the stepfauther being unstable plus her own history.

Her having AS or not (she sounds da*n close at least), its not crazy to be scared of someone with an active mood disorder.

It was a conditional sale which he agreed to and he is not meeting the terms of the agreement. And he's not a kid, he's 18.