My younger brother Is in his early 50’s, and has ADHD, dyslexia and recently diagnosed with “minor” asperger’s which explains a lot. I will keep this as brief as I can. He is divorced with 3 young adult kids who hardly have anything to do with him because he’s been a lousy Dad. His wife divorced him last year, our parents who enabled him financially are dead. He’s blown through any inheritance they left, he won’t get a steady job. We have been estranged for 5+ years, but I had him for Thanksgiving. His life is the absolute pits. He uses every excuse in the books not to look for steady work. The main one is his car could fall,apart at any time, which it could. He pays for rent with teaching online classes 20 hours a week. He has anger issues, lives in the past and is on the brink of tears the whole time. He’s doesn’t bring up appropriate conversations with people. Just a ton of issues. We talked about giving him one of our older vehicles so he’d have reliable transportation for a job. However, I feel that his car works right now and he needs to take those steps. He left early because he was angry when we talked to him about work, options he could do and how it would relieve all the stress he’s under financially. I think he would live on the streets before he would get a job. We spent the whole day after he left talking about him. Does anyone have a relative like this?
My heart goes out to your family. It sounds like my husband’s sister. She is currently couch surfing all over the country. Her four siblings and two children have tried to help her for years. I’m pretty sure she has schizophrenia but she does not think she is ill. That is not “stubbornness,” it’s part of the illness.
When we find her public housing, she stays for a few months and then leaves. Her car is on its last legs and she’s down to a few hundred dollars of savings (all her siblings donated their share of their mother’s small inheritance to her). I guess she survives on her Social Security benefits.
Her younger brother was getting burnt out from trying to help, so now my husband has taken the baton. He listens to her and makes helpful suggestions, which she doesn’t take. He’s finally stopped trying to reason with her that her delusions (such as a religious group is stalking her and that she’s pregnant at 65) are not real. He lets her know she can stay with us if she sees a professional but of course that makes her mad and she hangs up on him.
Right now she’s at her daughter’s house but her SIL is getting fed up. Her son is done with her. She thought he was trying to institutionalize her when he tried to have a private phone conversation, an interview with Amazon.
So that’s the situation. There isn’t a good solution. Sometimes we contact local law enforcement, but when they talk to her she manages to pull herself together and seem rational.
When I teach classes to family members, that’s the most common question I get, how they can help their ill loved one. I tell them to contact their state NAMI chapter, but that’s about all I have. There is a book, “I’m Not Sick and I Don’t Need Help” that has been good for some families.
One thing I do tell people is that some mentally ill people, my son among them, just can’t hold jobs. Forcing them to would be like asking a person with a broken leg run a marathon. That may not be his situation but I thought I would mention it.
Thank you. I don’t think he’s had a “normal” go-to-work job for 30 years and always got fired. . He’s done free lance graphic design that’s never provided any type of steady income. Always looked for handouts from my parents, or tried fly by night jobs. He refuses to do blue collar work like work for Amazon, Home Depot, retail, anything. I didn’t ask for my share of my parents inheritance, or their condo in another country. I knew he needed it, but he squandered it on trying to make some documentary in Europe, basically abandoning his family. He’s just a mess. His daughter, who does have aspergers, is able to hold down a full time job at Home Depot. I honestly think there is a lazy factor here. DH thinks it’s a fear of getting fired. It’s really sad.
It sounds like he has a job, for 20 hours a week.
Can you help him get disability through Social Security and then low cost housing, where he would pay 30% of his income, regardless of how much he makes?
If you really want to help him, I think a better path is to accept his limitations and work with them, rather than pressure him to do something he is potentially unable to do.
Would he consult a professional? Has he had any recent neuropsych. evaluations? Are you educated on his disabilities?
I agree. It may not be the type of job you expect (full time, not at home) but teaching online courses is a job.
Your brother has had a long life of having a silent disability that no one correctly identified and was able to help with. Plus, when he was younger the autism spectrum wasn’t recognized for milder cases. I will add…having “minor Aspergers” is like being a “little pregnant”. Regardless of how mild, folks on the autism spectrum are on the autism spectrum. Many folks on the spectrum have difficulty working with others, and also need to be in control of their environment (changes throw them). So…working at home could be a good solution for this.
As hard as this sounds, you need to meet him where he is…and maybe…maybe he will work halfway to where you are. Celebrate his successes, not his failures.
Great responses.
My favorite part of teaching NAMI classes is when the light bulb goes off for a family member that their loved one is not lazy but ill/disabled.
Just wanted to agree that these responses are really beautiful and helpful. Meeting the person where they are and accepting them with their limitations, celebrating their positives, (and not trying to change them) - it’s all so hard - but so useful.
I’m sorry to hear this. Poor guy. I’m not any kind of mental health professional, but it seems clear that he has mental health issues. I wish there was a way to get him to therapy. Good luck.
Thank you all, such wonderful insights. Sometimes I have a hard time feeling sorry for him because he was abusive with his children. He took his life failures out on them and now he is reaping what he’s sowed. I know this sounds mean, but he can be really weird and hard to have a normal conversation with. The f-bombs are just flying everywhere. DH says he just wants to vent, not looking for help.
Does he have access to behavioral health care? Does he take any medication for his ADHD? Does he even realize he needs help? I think the help he needs is medical.
The statistic is that 50% of seriously mentally ill people do not believe they are ill.
A tough situation for all.
I’m wondering if CC land might have some suggestions of books or documentaries for you/your family to tune into to get a little broader (and maybe not so personal) look at what he deals with being on the spectrum and maybe how you can support him.
Depending on his mental health status it may indeed be quite remarkable that he is able to work the 20 hours weekly.
Perhaps this organization might have some info worth reading.
He takes Ritalin. Oh, he is well aware of all his issues. Now he is using the asperger’s diagnosis not as knowledge that might help him, but as an excuse to wallow. And wallow he did all weekend.
I don’t think you are getting what we’re saying. I don’t believe he’s wallowing. It’s the analogy of trying to run with a broken leg. I think it’s amazing he’s teaching online.
This weekend, I am the one wallowing. yesterday I spent an hour and a half cleaning my adult son’s bedroom, with just a little help from him. I was just hit with the realization, for probably the 10th time, how ill he is and how he’s unlikely to improve much, ever. It sucks. 
An outsider would probably think he’s lazy, while I know he gives 110% every day to function as well as he does.
We’ve got one. I’ll spare you the details of how my in-laws spent most of their resources for 40 years on the adult mentally ill child (who had absolutely nothing to do with them, other than taking their money), while the parents lived in straitened circumstances. Once they’re gone, that child will be out on the street, since the child refuses to apply for disability, since as far as they’re concerned, nothing is wrong with them.
Your brother needs to apply for SSDI. 85% of people with an autistic spectrum disorder are unable to hold a job because of their social disability. He is using the car as an excuse to not apply for jobs, because he cannot deal with the stress and anxiety of a regular job.
You’re right - he WILL wind up on the streets before he takes a job. If there is any way that you can persuade him to apply for disability, Medicaid, SNAP, and the Sec 8 housing voucher that the SSDI will allow him to jump most of the line for, do it. Short of that, the only thing that you can do is to financially support him, which I assume you are in no position to do.
OMG! Clearly, your parents were in total denial about his issues, too. Every penny of “his share” and your foregone share should have gone into a trust, administered by you, for the benefit of him and his children, whom I’m sure he hasn’t financially supported.
Mental health issues are strongly inherited, as you’ve seen. Unfortunately, I bet when you look back at your family of origin’s history, you will see this.
If he won’t apply for the government benefits that he is entitled to, you’re going to have to step back. Offer what help you can, like an older car that you don’t need, when he needs it, and accept the fact that you cannot save him from himself.
When this guy was young, autism was very much a misunderstood and underdiagnosed issue. The parents may have just thought they had a difficult son.
This is a very hard situation for everyone. This man can’t possibly understand the impact of his disability…this is all new for him too. Plus, ASD affects different people in different ways.
I grew up very close to my dad’s older brother that was mentally ill. He was fully supported financially and emotionally by my dad his whole life. Mental illness affects everyone in the family, not just the individual. Thankfully he was a wonderful presence in my life. I think my dad has a more complex view of the situation. I see so many homeless people in the US that are clearly mentally ill and their numbers in Europe are increasing as well. It’s not an easy situation. My dad gave up so much of his life for his brother. He wouldn’t have it any other way though. I feel for you OP.
Give him what he needs, which is your invitation to dinner and maybe your time to direct him to the services he can access. Do not give him cars and money and jobs.
My friend’s brother spiraled out of control after their mother died. Before that, he’d worked for Janus funds, in London and other world cities. He came back to the states and took care of his mother during her last illness, driving her and her lady friends to their hair appointments and medical appointments. I thought he was a saint and always enjoyed talking to him. After the mother died, he just stopped doing anything. His sisters tried to help him but he didn’t want to change anything. He had some money (from his years of working and never spending), he had some inheritance. At one point my friend rented an apartment for him and she ended up on the hook for the deposit because he smoked in the apartment. And then he disappeared in plain sight, and she couldn’t contact him. She knew he was still in the area but just didn’t know where.
On July 2 a few years ago, she ran into him at a Fireworks event. He was living in a motel just a few blocks from her house (that we all drove past dozens of times a month) and had been there for more than a year. Everything was good, he promised to come to dinner at her house on the 4th. I was talking to her on the phone and she said “I have to go, he’ll be here soon.” Nothing. A no show. She finally called the motel. He’d been taken to a hospital the day before and the hospital had no way to contact her. He was in intensive care for 2 weeks and died. I think seeing her was a release he needed. I was grateful we knew what happened to him, that his sisters didn’t have to worry about him any more.
I prefer to look at the good things he did with his life, like taking care of his mother. He was an interesting person but he didn’t want to work any more and just wanted to drink. Their entire family suffered from mental illness (even my friend) and some chose not to treat their illness. They didn’t have a funeral just just a gathering at my friend’s house, and a few friends from his youth showed up. It was closure.
It’s hard to think of your brother (father, son, ex-husband) living on the street, but sometimes that’s what they want. All you can do it let him know you are there to help if he wants it, but that there will be no more money spent on him. Let him work his 20 hours, let him spend his time as he likes. Don’t expect him to change, because he won’t
We have neighbors, an older couple, who are hoarders. They have health issues and we’ve had to call the ambulance a few times. I called the city help line and was told there was nothing they could do if the people don’t want help. The city said the best thing we could do is NOT help them. Don’t help them when he falls, don’t offer to drive them home from the hospital. Seems harsh, but they’ll take the help when they really need it. I do help them put out their trash but they won’t let us cut their grass or shovel for them. Her son tries to help, but they won’t accept it from him either.