Asperger Brother frustrating/harmful

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Hello,

I joined this forum tonight, probably later than I should have, because I can no longer bare to hear my mother cry over the phone because of my brother.

My brother has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. I am away at college, but for the past 3-4 years my family has been working with him through therapy, school, medication, and his social life to help him out, but we are scared because we don't know what else to do.

Let me describe him so everyone here can relate better...

He is 20 years old, and going to school in community college. He does not drive yet. He is very overweight (recently, within the past 1.5 years), and loves to play video games. He is a very smart person, but I don't think this helps him (he ends up over analyzing everything and creates a downward spiral of sadness and stress).

Whenever we try to give him advice or help, he get's angry and feels like we are attacking him personally. Tonight my father told him he would have liked a courtesy call to let him know when to pick him up from an after school activity, and in response he went on a rage outside and started yelling and screaming. He is consumed with sadness and cynicism, and has no aspirations in life, yet.

I may sound like I am talking about him harshly, but this is how I need to describe him, and I am concerned for both him and my mother, who takes his behavior very hard and gets very upset and stressed.

We don't know how to motivate him or help him at all. We are afraid his health is not very good, and he is always stressed, and to talk to him is like a double-edged sword. To not say anything upsets him, but talking with him pisses him off.

I am not sure what advice I am seeking here, but I want to help him SO BADLY...as does my whole family. But it is becoming a huge burden on my mother specifically and I am afraid if we don't do something she is going to wind up in the ER...

if you have any help or insight, we would be very appreciative of you to share...

is he on medications? if not sounds like he should be put on something to help with his anger. then he should receive counselling if he's not already and so should your parents(especially your mother as she is the one dealing with most of it) i know this sounds mean, but he is 20 and you say he's smart. perhaps it's time for him to get some tough love and be pushed out into the big mean world on his own, with help of course as necessary.

I can understand being upset about being criticized about something, that, now in the past cannot be changed. You dad might have gotten a better response if he'd said something like "Next time, or in the future, I would like you to call ahead when you need me to pick you up."

Yes, he's unhealthy. Being overweight is unhealthy regardless of AS/NT. Both women and men who happen to have AS will have additional difficulties with socializing or even getting around if they are overweight. Does he understand the consequences of excessive body mass index? He will need to understand this before he can understand where he is and decide for himself where he wants to go from here. Once educated, the rest is up to him.

A lot of those medications cause severe weight gain. They can also worsen mood swings.

Here is likely the issue. People with AS generally hate change, and your brother is facing some big changes in life, that he probably doesn't want to face, because it's scary and he doesn't know how to deal with them.

In the presence of a therapist, your parents, or the person your brother has the most respect to, needs to sit down with him, and give him a game plan on how he is going to transition into adult life, and also tell him what behaviors of his are not acceptable. For example, no screaming at people, no shouting, no obscenities, and so on. He is to respect people, but likewise, he also gets an opportunity to state what he expects of people as far as them respecting his boundaries go.

Your mother probably also needs to learn how to stand her ground.

If he doesn't want to drive though, he shouldn't be forced to. Remember, AS is primarily a processing disorder and he may have certain spacial/motor processing issues (despite his video game playing) which may impact his ability to be a safe driver. If you force him to drive, you are just going to stress him and make it worse.

See if he'd be willing to go to the doctor for a full physical. There's something about the sudden weight gain that's making me think thyroid trouble. If there is something going on with his thyroid, it could cause weight gain, could contribute to any depression or mood problems, and could cause a whole whack of other problems. (Ask me how I know....)

It must be awful to sit on the sidelines and watch your family and your brother struggle so much. I hope things improve for you all soon.

Sounds like I am reading a blog about my nephew. We are having the same issues with him. He is 23 and has just recently (w/in the past year) began acting up. I think alot of it has to do with the fact that he knows he's an adult but he can't seem to do the same things as the neurotypical kids (non AS). He works in a store with neurotypicals and would love to date the girls there but none seem to want to do anything with him. I'm sure that brings him down, but he has a hard time relaying that to us. He also is very hard on his mother who loves him more than life itself. Her husband/his father has been verbally abusive to her (in the past) and my nephew has picked up alot of his habits. All we can do is pray for them and hope that we can understand and deal with their issues the way they want to be understood. The hardest part is dealing with the anger and knowing the appropriate things to say to calm them down. I know that I'm not offering much, but I wanted to let you know that there others out there also wanting to find answers.

Also my nephew has also gained weight within the last few years, but I think it is a lot of the medication. He recently changed meds and his appetite seems to have decreased some.