how can i help my brother?

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hello. i don't know if i'm in the right subforum. i am posting this on behalf of my brother and my mother. i have a kind of sad and upsetting story to tell, but i really need some advice.

my brother is 16 years old. he has aspergers, and perhaps some other neurological disorder but we are not sure - he is currently undergoing a test to see if he does. i am 10 years older than my brother. i will admit i don't know very much about aspergers, i only know that he was diagnosed with it a few years ago, and he has shown signs of it since he was very young. i see him at least once a month, but not enough to spend a lot of quality time with him that i'd like. my parents are divorced. my brother lives with my mom. he sometimes sees my father, but only to go do something fun and he doesn't help raise him. so he basically doesn't have a father in that sense.

it has been difficult with my brother ever since he hit puberty. he does not seem to able to control his impulses, and has been caught at school masturbating in front of people, and tends to ogle women very inappropriately. his social skills are very bad, he doesn't have any real friends. he's kind of growing up to be what society would deem a "creep", as much as i hate to say it. the thing is that he means very well, but because of how he acts it can be very difficult for him to have a normal conversation. it's like one moment he is extremely focused, and the next he is off on another planet. he also tends to repeat himself many many times over.

his biggest problem though is that even though he may know some things that he thinks of doing are wrong, he does them anyway. and later on he doesn't understand why he did it even though he knew that.

just recently this problem hit its tipping point - he was caught at a local gym exposing himself to a woman who called the police. he is now no longer allowed there and will be arrested if he enters the premises again. my mother said she saw the tape from the police officer who visited our house, and she doesn't think he did it on purpose and neither does the officer, but that's still the situation. thankfully the victim isn't going to press charges after my mother spoke to her, although he is very lucky that she was understanding.

he's almost gotten into this kind of trouble at school, but fortunately he goes to a smaller private school that understands his issues better than a public school would. but still, he is walking a thin line and i'm afraid someday he might show this darker side of him to his group of friends at school and will truly be alone in that environment.

but what this has culminated to is that my mother has decided that she needs help to stop him from going down this path. professional help from people who are experts in helping people with things like aspergers. he has a therapist, he's had one for years, but it has not been very effective. he's taken medications in the past, but i don't even know what they were for.

bottom line is, i know nothing i say to my brother can magically fix this problem, and my mom is the only one who really raises him and spends the most amount of time with him, and she cannot handle these problems on her own anymore. she is looking for somewhere to send him for a few months to maybe get some professional help to adjust his behavior and send him on the right path.

the thing is that i don't know if anything like this exists. i was hoping to seek some insight from people here as to what is the best course of action to help my brother. i don't even know if this is the right place to ask, and if it is not please guide me in the right direction. i just want what is best for my brother and my mother, and i know that we can't do this on our own anymore, and if we don't get him help then this will get worse and he could end up in jail, which would be a horrible and dark place for my brother who only has his family and no one else.

i just want my brother to be able to make the right decisions for himself, to have friends and lead a normal life. he's getting older and i feel like he's missing out on a lot because of his problems. he's a good kid, but he has issues that i know myself or my mother cannot help him with as well as someone else out there might be able to.

thanks for reading, and i am grateful for any advice.

I wish I could offer suitable advice.

Is he seeing a therapist? If not, I believe he should start seeing one as soon as possible.

I'm anti-medication. Maybe this is an instance, however, where he should be prescribed meds in order to "blunt" his impulses, without blunting his essence (i.e., his self)

How much insight does he have into what he does?

Where are you located? That's more important than you think. If you're in the UK, the advice would be very different than if you were in the US.

I'm sure people will sympathize/empathize with what your family is going through, and have the knowledge to offer excellent, practical advice.

yes, the same one for a few years. i don't think it has helped him much. maybe he needs to see a different one that is more tailored to his needs. but i don't know much about this aspect of his life.


i don't believe he is taking medication anymore.


basically how the process goes is this:
1. he thinks about doing something he knows is wrong
2. he does it anyway
3. when confronted about it, he doesn't understand/can't explain why he did it.


united states. washington state to be more precise.


thanks for understanding.

I would look for CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) experienced therapist. He needs to work on impulse control. During the summer when school is out working on impulse control multiple days a week would be ideal.

First of all it is great that you are trying to help your Mom and brother. I agree, see if you can help your Mom find him a behavior therapist. There are also lots of groups for teens with ASD, so that he can work on social skills.

Here is the link to Washington's website. It should be a good start. It you post that you are looking for other Washington folks you might find some people who can give you a better idea of your states resources.

http://www.autismsocietyofwa.org/

There's also a book called Quirky, Yes; Hopeless, No that has a bunch of chapters about things like dating and other social situations that he (and/or your mother) might find helpful. It wouldn't help with the impulsiveness, but there might be some topics that are useful to a teen like him.

this seems like a great resource. thank you for the link and the advice.

i just looked it up. thank you.

Another book you might look into, which has stuff on this very kind of problem is A 5 is Against the Law.

thanks, i'll recommend that one. i also found it on amazon.

I know you said he does not know why he does it, but does he understand why it is considered wrong? The books will help reinforce that, if he understands it. If he doesn't understand it, the books may not be enough. Theory of Mind problems could have a lot to do this. If his ToM is insufficient he may need more help. Sometimes a kid can get stubborn when told something they don't think is fair, and if he doesn't think the laws are fair, his mind could focus on that instead of the intended message.

If it is impulse control, but he understands what is going on that is a separate thing. I also do not normally recommend meds, but you might want to get him a psychiatrist to see if this is appropriate for him or if something else would help him in this regard.

that's a good question. he's always had a major problem with empathy. when he was young he was extremely rude to people and didn't understand how bad he could hurt someone's feelings. for example when he was 10 he had a birthday party and he would open a gift from a friend and say something like "hm i don't really want this but thanks i guess" and toss it aside. he's since gotten over that phase with the occasional misfire, but it was a tough road to cross. but now i think that empathy problem is stemming into his inability to step into someone else's shoes in his mind and think about how it might feel if someone was to confront him in the way he confronts other people sometimes.

so even though he may be told that something is wrong and why you're not supposed to do it, he may not completely understand why that is so. this is just based on my experience of being around him as his brother and judging his behavior in that sense.

he also has to be told something many many times before he stops doing it. and even then he may sometimes slip up.