I think my brother has Aspergers....

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I believe my brother has Aspergers. I don’t know if I should approach him about it, but he really needs help.

These are the behavior/things that point to Aspergers:

My brother is turning 28 in a few months, however he has the mentality of a 12 or 13 year old.

He’s extremely socially awkward, cannot empathize with others, and cares only about a few people, including myself. He can sometimes be really mean to others, such as his ex girlfriend. She actually broke up with him two weeks ago due to that, and was fed up with his immaturity. They had been dating on and off for six years, and my brother wasn’t very heartbroken over it. He told me he was just annoyed that she started “acting weird” because she said she was unhappy with their relationship.

He will go on about one thing, and doesn’t notice when others are bored, or want to get away from the one sided conversation.

He’s always excelled in learning about mechanical things, putting things together, or understanding how they work electrically or mechanically.

Sometimes he flaps his hands and he’s very clumsy/awkward when he walks. (Although, I’m pretty clumsy as well when walking and trip over things that aren’t there sometimes….)

As a child he was extremely stubborn and would have the worst tantrums. Unfortunately, my parents were too far in denial/in their own world to notice anything wrong with my brother as a child. My father was an abusive man, and my mother a victim of childhood abuse. She never got help for herself, so abuse was perpetuated by her marrying my father. Currently, my brother and I don’t see or speak to my parents or anyone in my family…but that’s another story and I will try to focus on just my brother.

Anyways, I think his behavior points towards Aspergers, which is not what I'm worried about. What I'm worried about is him feeling lonely, and not being able to take care of himself. My brother doesn't know how to take care of his basic needs without someone forcing him to buy food, clothes, or pay for electricity. He will buy parts for his car, quad, or whatever he's obsessed with at the moment before he takes care of himself. Unfortunately, he also spends a lot of his money on alcohol…

He seems to be stuck in his life and he’s told me he’s thought about suicide, but at the same time he wants to accomplish something. He’s at the same job he’s had since high school, and refuses to get a college degree. Although, he is talking about pursing a contractor’s license (he does grading and backhoe work). Everyone is trying to encourage him to do that, so I’m hoping he will. Fortunately, he works for our kind-of-adoptive family. They have been understanding and trying to help him live a happy life.

I’m just wondering if I should approach him about his behavior? Such as ask him if he ever feels, or wonders why he seems different from others. I know I can’t just tell him what he might have, because he would take it as an insult. I’ve also tried to encourage him to get psychological help for the abuse, like I have, but he refuses. If he did, the psychologist would be able to help him build the tools he needs to live a life that he could be proud of. My brother is the only blood-related family that I have and I really want to help him, but I don’t know how…maybe the best thing to do is just wait until he asks me for help?

Good luck.

Does he think he needs help?

Does he want help?

I'm not sure how that's mean. There's probably more to this than i'm understanding, though. Maybe she's the immature one in that relationship.

I don't think Asperger's makes you mean, just ackward. Socializing can be done (I found reading self-improvement books helped some), but it just takes more mental energy that's all.



This is very indicative of Asperger's. Even with my social skills, i catch myself doing this. More open-minded people don't find it that annoying, though. It can really just be a quirk, something that makes somebody unique, more than a fatal flaw. Having deep interests can work out if you are able to connect information together and synthesize it into something other people don't grasp because they lack depth in subjects.



That's one type of Aspie i guess. I'm more of a verbal person. However, when i did dive into mechanical stuff years ago, i did better than i expected. Just i am not oriented towards as much "male" things like working on cars or mechanical stuff for kicks.

He probably does have Asperger's. Currently the ADOS battery of tests is the only really proven test for adults in the US. A psychologist can administer it, scoring involves alot of subtleties that tests you see on the web will miss, it doesn't account for individual indiosyncracies etc. that a human can. Unfortunately its not cheap, usually around 1000 dollars depending on the rates. He's nearing the age though that i think any treatments will be costly and limited in effectiveness, at best therapy could deal with secondary issues like depression (besides, there aren't any really proven treatments for the core sypmtoms of autism spectrum conditions, many autistics also even question how much of a "disability" this condition is, and not simply a difference). If a person is prone to depression too, there may be alot of grief assosciated with a later adult diagnosis..

Thank you for your responses, they are greatly appreciated.

The question, “does he want help?” I’m not sure if he does. Unfortunately, I don’t see him as much as I used to since I moved away to attend college, so we don’t get to talk as much. Should he get help? Definitely, yes. He’s told me he's not progressing like he wants too, and recently hasn’t been taking care of his hygiene unless someone tells him to (I’m not sure if that’s an Aspie trait). That’s the part that worries me, along with the alcoholism and talks about suicide. However, I also know that a person cannot get help until they are ready for it, which may very well be the case for him.

Nonetheless, realizing that he might have Aspergers has been a huge help for me to understand him more. I’ve been wondering if he’s had for awhile, and at first I was going to post his behavior to see if all of you thought he did have Aspergers. But, as I was actually typing out all his behavior while knowing the symptoms, I kind of answered my own question. I’m also majoring in psychology, and have worked with children who had severe to moderate disabilities, some with Autism and Aspergers. Some of their temper tantrums were very similar to my brothers when he was a child, but I don’t remember too much about his other behavior.

Daedelus1138,

I didn’t go into too much detail about him being mean. He got with his ex when she was 16 and he was 20, she was definitely immature up until a couple years ago. Basically, she started maturing and he didn’t. But an example of him being mean is that he would call her fat, and grab her skin and say it was disgusting. I know being mean is not an Aspie trait at all, but he never understood that his words hurt her. She always complained about being fat, and that might just be how he responded without thinking it was mean.

This may be the key. Instead of talking to him about Asperger's, talk to him in a general sense about things. Maybe you can convince him too start looking for answers. Once he starts looking, then Asperger's can be offered as a possible explanation for his challenges.

More out of curiosity than anything else...

If he's 28, how did he escape an AS diagnosis in this day and age? Presumably he went to school where teachers would be very familiar with these issues?

This is what I'll most likely do, I like how you put it as well. =)



In the late 80s early 90s I don't remember Autism/Aspergers being talked about as much as it is now, but I could be wrong since I was just a kid. My brother always had problems in school, and in high school he went on independent study, which is similar to home school. Also, I don't have much faith in the teachers/ school system my brother and I had. I had childhood depression and only two of my teachers from 1st to 7th grade (I did the independent study thing from then on) asked me if anything was wrong at home. I denied anything, and they left it as that....even though in 7th grade I missed over 90 days of classes in one school year. It was probably the same with my brother....teachers questioning him or wondering about his behavior, but not doing anything about it. In kindergarten he also had an abusive teacher who would taunt him and call him stupid in class for being different. At that time he would also wash his hands repeatedly until they were chapped and bleeding, because his teacher told him he was never clean. After transferring my brother to a new school, my mom told me she took him to a school psychologist. He only went a few times, and she said the school psychologist believed there were no adverse effects from the teacher's abuse, which I still think is BS...