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Tough Decisions
tugga
Makin' moviesMakin' songsRegistered User regular
Makin' moviesMakin' songsRegistered User regular
Ok so I didn't wanna put this in H/A cause i like you guys better, and this is where I used to post quite a bit.
I have a brother who is 20 years old. This brother has functioning autism, the real kind not LOLASBERGERS, along with bipolar disorder, ADHD, pervasive developmental disorder, and a failed colon among a few other disorders. He is irritable and has the worst temper i have ever experienced, he tends to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat.
Growing up with him has been rather difficult, but never impossible, especially while he was in school and had supervision for most of the day. About 18 months ago he graduated from high school, but he has never had a job. He has applied in a few places, but never gotten anything. Due to the fact that me, my mother and my father all work full time, he is left at home for long periods of time.
As he got older, the problems he created got bigger. He started by taking games that weren't his and selling them at GameStop, which has been a recurring issue ever since he was 16 or so. After that he started taking higher dollar items including PSPs, a $100 set of noise cancelling earbuds i had, multiple mp3 players.. totaling about $800 total. As far as we know he sells them to people or pawns them to get cash to get drugs or whatever. I can honestly say i have no clue what he does when he is not home. I do know he has friends, but they arent the type of 'friends' that would be considered good people. I think most of the people he would consider friends are more the type to take advantage of him for his money or whatever. He seems fairly desperate for friends and tends to rotate who he hangs out with. I dont know if this is because he pisses them off or other reasons.
He was a rather late bloomer (didnt hit puberty til 17 or 18), but i believe it had to do with his bad colon. He has always had a problem with shitting his pants, never really completed potty training and it has been something that we fought for years, never with any success. When he was 16 a doctor finally gave him an abdominal exam and found that his entire lower intestine is blocked. Severely. So much so that it was putting pressure on other organs and was slowing his physical development down. Well after a nice healthy round of laxatives, it was determined that the blockage had hardened and he would need surgery to fix it, most likely removing the lower intestine along with his colon etc. But what the laxatives did help with was the pressure as he finally hit puberty, which brought a whole new set of issues to the table.
I have been told that people with Asperger's or autism tend to be very sexual, and my brother is no different. He is not allowed on computers because he tends to look at porn quite a bit... which is what a LOT of people do, except he visits those 'wrong' porn sites that fill up your computer with malware, spyware, trojans etc. Recently he has discovered WebCam sites and has used my webcam on my system, and now my IP is banned from chatroulette, and he has at least one banned account on WindowsLive. I know he has had sex with at least one underage girl, and i have caught him with another girl who i found out to be 15. At the time he was 19. It seems thats all he can get.. So in his brain he gets what he wants. Which is a felony in Texas.
This is where it gets really bad. As i said above he is addicted to porn, and has called 1-900 numbers jacking up the cell phone bill $300+. After we shut off his phone he used an empty Visa gift card over the phone at the tune of $600, and also has used my mothers checks to give our bank account number and routing number to one of these places for over $500. Thats felony check fraud.
Now my brother has shown that he lacks the ability to support himself, let alone independently. We have looked for help via different services that are offered in Texas. The Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS) which would offer just the help he needed, refuses to return phone calls or emails, and upon visiting the office in person usually ends up in a referral to someone who is busy at the time. We have looked into Mental Health, Mental Retardation (MHMR) for help and after some evaluations said he was eligible for services, but they required he be on Medicare, which isnt actually a "requirement" they just refuse to help without him on insurance. However they did help give my mother Power of Attorney and control of his medical records. So we applied for Social Security Insurance (SSI), and upon request of all medical records from his past psychiatrists, all sent just confirmations that he received care from their office. So our SSI claim was denied, but we have 60 days to appeal, which we are doing with a lawyer this time. But once the appeal is sent, we could wait for up to six months for a decision. We dont have 6 months when he just keeps getting in more and more trouble.
Now this week was my youngest brother's 18th birthday, and as a gift my grandmother always sends us handmade cards with gift cards for about $50 on them. The brother with issues knows this, and because i left the mailbox key out the night before, he got into the mail, and knowing that card would be there, opened a letter not in his name and took the card and spent it; mail fraud.
For my mother this was the last straw. She had been contemplating filing charges for the check fraud, but did not want to send her own mentally deficient son to Harris County Prison (downtown Houston). I believe that if he is in a prison system in General Population, that he will not last a week, let alone months waiting for a court date. He is 6'2" 135lbs and has that mindset that he can beat everyone's ass. Instead of certainly incarcerating him, my mother and I talked to our local police about our options.
He pretty much said we have 3 choices.
1. Kick him out of the house. I am certain that he cannot support himself, nor can he find a good enough friend that will be patient with him to let him stay under his roof for awhile. I am afraid that this option will lead to him being a vagrant, or getting into even more legal trouble.
2. Commit him to a state hospital mental health ward for 72 hour observation. To me this is the best option. If after 72 hours the hospital determines he is not mentally fit to leave, he can be committed to the psych ward for a time or even transferred to another mental health facility. However if they choose not to keep him, then this option goes down the drain.
3. Press charges on the check fraud. This will almost certainly lead to jail time, which I dont believe he can survive.
I love my brother, he needs help that i cant give him. Tonight my mother chose to kick him out. She locked the doors and when he showed up she told him that he was not to be sleeping at our house. Hours later he came back and claimed he didnt have a place to stay, but after some words and sticking to my mothers wishes i turned him away, only to have guilt get the best of me and i went and picked him up. It was 24F outside for christs sake and i couldnt let him sleep in that shit. I tried to have a long serious talk with him, but as with everything with him it was difficult and i dont think he got my message that our parents are done with his shit. He does what he wants, and he has no consequences for his actions. I am just at a loss as to what to do next.
If you read all this then thank you.. i just needed to tell someone.
TL;DR:
I have an autistic brother that has committed check fraud against my mother, idk wat do.
ITT: tough fucking decisions
I have a brother who is 20 years old. This brother has functioning autism, the real kind not LOLASBERGERS, along with bipolar disorder, ADHD, pervasive developmental disorder, and a failed colon among a few other disorders. He is irritable and has the worst temper i have ever experienced, he tends to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat.
Growing up with him has been rather difficult, but never impossible, especially while he was in school and had supervision for most of the day. About 18 months ago he graduated from high school, but he has never had a job. He has applied in a few places, but never gotten anything. Due to the fact that me, my mother and my father all work full time, he is left at home for long periods of time.
As he got older, the problems he created got bigger. He started by taking games that weren't his and selling them at GameStop, which has been a recurring issue ever since he was 16 or so. After that he started taking higher dollar items including PSPs, a $100 set of noise cancelling earbuds i had, multiple mp3 players.. totaling about $800 total. As far as we know he sells them to people or pawns them to get cash to get drugs or whatever. I can honestly say i have no clue what he does when he is not home. I do know he has friends, but they arent the type of 'friends' that would be considered good people. I think most of the people he would consider friends are more the type to take advantage of him for his money or whatever. He seems fairly desperate for friends and tends to rotate who he hangs out with. I dont know if this is because he pisses them off or other reasons.
He was a rather late bloomer (didnt hit puberty til 17 or 18), but i believe it had to do with his bad colon. He has always had a problem with shitting his pants, never really completed potty training and it has been something that we fought for years, never with any success. When he was 16 a doctor finally gave him an abdominal exam and found that his entire lower intestine is blocked. Severely. So much so that it was putting pressure on other organs and was slowing his physical development down. Well after a nice healthy round of laxatives, it was determined that the blockage had hardened and he would need surgery to fix it, most likely removing the lower intestine along with his colon etc. But what the laxatives did help with was the pressure as he finally hit puberty, which brought a whole new set of issues to the table.
I have been told that people with Asperger's or autism tend to be very sexual, and my brother is no different. He is not allowed on computers because he tends to look at porn quite a bit... which is what a LOT of people do, except he visits those 'wrong' porn sites that fill up your computer with malware, spyware, trojans etc. Recently he has discovered WebCam sites and has used my webcam on my system, and now my IP is banned from chatroulette, and he has at least one banned account on WindowsLive. I know he has had sex with at least one underage girl, and i have caught him with another girl who i found out to be 15. At the time he was 19. It seems thats all he can get.. So in his brain he gets what he wants. Which is a felony in Texas.
This is where it gets really bad. As i said above he is addicted to porn, and has called 1-900 numbers jacking up the cell phone bill $300+. After we shut off his phone he used an empty Visa gift card over the phone at the tune of $600, and also has used my mothers checks to give our bank account number and routing number to one of these places for over $500. Thats felony check fraud.
Now my brother has shown that he lacks the ability to support himself, let alone independently. We have looked for help via different services that are offered in Texas. The Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS) which would offer just the help he needed, refuses to return phone calls or emails, and upon visiting the office in person usually ends up in a referral to someone who is busy at the time. We have looked into Mental Health, Mental Retardation (MHMR) for help and after some evaluations said he was eligible for services, but they required he be on Medicare, which isnt actually a "requirement" they just refuse to help without him on insurance. However they did help give my mother Power of Attorney and control of his medical records. So we applied for Social Security Insurance (SSI), and upon request of all medical records from his past psychiatrists, all sent just confirmations that he received care from their office. So our SSI claim was denied, but we have 60 days to appeal, which we are doing with a lawyer this time. But once the appeal is sent, we could wait for up to six months for a decision. We dont have 6 months when he just keeps getting in more and more trouble.
Now this week was my youngest brother's 18th birthday, and as a gift my grandmother always sends us handmade cards with gift cards for about $50 on them. The brother with issues knows this, and because i left the mailbox key out the night before, he got into the mail, and knowing that card would be there, opened a letter not in his name and took the card and spent it; mail fraud.
For my mother this was the last straw. She had been contemplating filing charges for the check fraud, but did not want to send her own mentally deficient son to Harris County Prison (downtown Houston). I believe that if he is in a prison system in General Population, that he will not last a week, let alone months waiting for a court date. He is 6'2" 135lbs and has that mindset that he can beat everyone's ass. Instead of certainly incarcerating him, my mother and I talked to our local police about our options.
He pretty much said we have 3 choices.
1. Kick him out of the house. I am certain that he cannot support himself, nor can he find a good enough friend that will be patient with him to let him stay under his roof for awhile. I am afraid that this option will lead to him being a vagrant, or getting into even more legal trouble.
2. Commit him to a state hospital mental health ward for 72 hour observation. To me this is the best option. If after 72 hours the hospital determines he is not mentally fit to leave, he can be committed to the psych ward for a time or even transferred to another mental health facility. However if they choose not to keep him, then this option goes down the drain.
3. Press charges on the check fraud. This will almost certainly lead to jail time, which I dont believe he can survive.
I love my brother, he needs help that i cant give him. Tonight my mother chose to kick him out. She locked the doors and when he showed up she told him that he was not to be sleeping at our house. Hours later he came back and claimed he didnt have a place to stay, but after some words and sticking to my mothers wishes i turned him away, only to have guilt get the best of me and i went and picked him up. It was 24F outside for christs sake and i couldnt let him sleep in that shit. I tried to have a long serious talk with him, but as with everything with him it was difficult and i dont think he got my message that our parents are done with his shit. He does what he wants, and he has no consequences for his actions. I am just at a loss as to what to do next.
If you read all this then thank you.. i just needed to tell someone.
TL;DR:
I have an autistic brother that has committed check fraud against my mother, idk wat do.
ITT: tough fucking decisions
tugga on
0
Posts
If it was something more minor like simple social problems then I would suggest patience and therapy, but your bro is doing shit that could get you into some trouble, and he doesn't seem to give a fuck about these things.
He obviously isn't listening to reason, and doesn't care who suffers for his actions. It seems like only option that is likely to teach him anything is to stop giving him a safe place to live where he can do whatever he wants.
I would recommend you kick him out when the weather is not inhospitable.
It seems a bit cruel I imagine, but it doesn't seem like he cannot differentiate right from wrong. This is the sort of behavior that results in many kids getting thrown out the house. Having autism shouldn't inherently mean he gets a free pass for that sort of behavior, particularly if he's still functional enough to understand what he's doing.
Mind you, I don't think permanently kicking him out is the best idea, but spending a night outside could very well make him reconsider his behavior.
I'm now sure how open to it your mother would be but I would try to sway her to consider the second options you've outlined.
At least it has a chance of working, while it isn't pleasant to see someone you care about in a psych ward sometimes it is for the best.
I'm fully functional and I could barely get laid at 19. How does a guy with Autism get laid?
What am I doing wrong with my game plan?
STEAM!
That said, a mental health ward is probably the best option. If for some reason it doesn't work out, then you can move on to other, less palatable choices, but there are mental health specialists and facilities especially designed to help people suffering from autism in similar forms to this. They can provide a level of attention and understanding that most families can't, because they're specifically trained to do so. Obviously the behavioral issues you're talking about won't disappear overnight, but with medical and psychological attention there's a very good chance that they can be mediated and both your family and your brother will be able to live happier and healthier lives as a result.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
And if you can't get any permanent help, well, it's a hard thing to do, but you can't let one person ruin the lives of the rest of the family. He may have to make it in the big bad world as best he can.
STEAM!
(Nah I'm just shittin' around)
But PI brings up a good point, I don't know if it's out of the realm of possibility but there may also be federal programs and/or private organizations that you can look into for long-term care needs for your brother.
E: Also hard as it is, maybe it's a good time for you to get proactive and look yourself. You never know when you'll find something (for whatever reason) that your mother hasn't.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Couldn't hurt to do some looking into things yourself either.
(Also, have you taken any measures to prevent him pinching your things when you're not looking?)
Prison won't do him any good, but neither will keeping him at home (not unless your mom or dad or a full-time nurse/bouncer can watch him at all times of the day). That's reality. I'm sure you know this. That's it's, though. You're basically given a set of lesser evils (as I'm sure you know).
I'm just telling you what I would do. And, being drunk currently, I am hardly giving you dead-on advice. But your brother needs to be taken care of by an institution of some kind, unfortunately. That is a shitty thing to do, but you need to put him in a home before he ends up in a prison.
Also, if he's commiting mail fraud/porn fraud/statutory rape/etc, you can use your lawyer to make a case for his commitment to to a mental institution/sanitarium/group home/whatever they call those kinds of things. You have a decent argument to make, one way or the other. As far as I see it, it is going to be shitty, but there are shitty decisions and then there are shittier decisions, aren't there?
Also, side note: I was going to be a smart ass and tell you that "this isn't the place" but then I realized that this is a much better place to air grievances and ask for advice than Yahoo questions or-- hey, I'm going to say it in Obama's America-- any sort of government institution.
Also, also: I wish my social worker friend wasn't asleep right now, otherwise I would ask her about this situation. Sorry. Give me twelve hours.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Satans..... hints.....
Salient is right, though. She's saying all of the things I want to say with more eloqence and more empathy.
This reminds me of a This American Life episode (being white story incoming) about a grown man with autism and a parents' attempt to care for him (along with the writer of the story). They could not manage it, because they had a six foot tall person who could beat up everyone he didn't like and take a shit whenever he pleased. As much as they loved him, they had to send him away for most of the year.
I can't say that was the right thing to do, considering that the brother of the autistic kind orated the story, but considering the evidence they gave, it seemed like the lesser of all evils and, perhaps, the actual best choice to make.
But, please, don't take my word for it. I'm a lame, sheltered, white person who is unemployed. In my state, we've got a lot of social services (too many, actually, since we're billions of dollars in the hole), but I cannot imagine that you are without life lines in Texas. This is honestly worth cross-posting in H/A, even though they're a miserable crop of cunts.
Best case scenario, they have the ability to help him until he learns to deal with his problems, and he's given the chance to become a better, more functional person.
Which, I think everyone knows, is hardly any kind of consolation.
Life is suffering. Sorry, man. Hope you guys get it sorted out.
i didn't know shit was still getting worse with him
i'm sorry
I'd definitely say #2 is the option to go with.
I had a friend with some serious mental health issues a few years back.
But since we weren't family, we couldn't commit him.
Fortunately he had a few moments of clarity after about 3 weeks of incredible meyhem, and we convinced him to get some mental health treatment, but if that hadn't happened I don't know what would've happened.
Good luck buddy
You should be helping him, but your efforts would be better directed finding other options. Who knows, maybe you'll find a perfect solution! At the least you could take some weight off your mother's shoulders.
E: Just checked and woah, turns out 24F is -4C. I am amending my advice to include that you could perhaps let him sleep in your car if you're not worried he will drive off in it, or at least give him a jacket.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
When my brother was younger we had him committed to a psych ward after he threatened a teacher and himself with a knife. It was hands down the worst thing I have ever gone through but I'll tell you what, it got better after. Slowly but it did. I mean I don't know for sure but I think he really needed to see how far things could go and that this is what happens in life if you run out of control. And he also knew if it wasn't for a loving family he could be in a much worse place.
So while it will be incredibly difficult for everyone mentally, emotionally, maybe even physically. Going to the hospital is the best bet. And maybe if you are lucky things will start to change.
the other 2 options don't provide any benefit to anyone at all (especially him) and both basically are the same thing, which is jail with him being in rough shape (plus if he's kicked out of the house, you don't know what sort of trouble he's going to get in before he ends up being arrested)
but good luck, I hope things can calm down and you and your mom can get him the help/supervision he needs
my handicapped brother has the whole "do what i want don't listen to anyone" attitude and a serious addiction to talking to boys, but he's also at home with someone all the time so he doesn't get into too much trouble other than being annoying sometimes
my fucking shithead brother that i don't ever really want to talk about that stole our shit and sold it and stole money from the family and made death threats and is an alcoholic and all that shit has been kicked out of the house a good six or so times; the last time for over a year after he was drunk and threatened to kill me and i just went nuts on my parents about him. but in the past month or so my parents decided to take him back in (which meant driving the two hours to philadelphia to get him from wherever the fuck he was and drive him back to their house) so now he's back to living with them and I'm just arguing with my parents all the time now
he's closer to brother #2
as i showed (and you showed), option #1 isn't going to work. you or your parents will feel guilty and bring him back in, even if you know it's not the right thing to do for him. considering his handicaps and all, he can't survive by himself; he needs someone to help him live and he needs someone to help him behave.
you're gonna need to go with option #2. it'll suck and you'll all feel guilty and like you're abandoning him, but it's the best thing you have to do for him and it's your only option in keeping you guys and him safe. like others said, help your mom in finding the right place. she's looking, but she's his mom; she's not going in with a clear and logical head despite what she might tell you and herself. she needs your help. shit, she needs your dad and brother too; this is a family affair
like i said, i can kind of relate to you, and i know it completely sucks and it will make your family miserable for a bit but it needs to get done for everyone's sake. best of luck to you guys, i hope everything turns out good
Secret Satan
basically I'm just going to agree with what PI and Salient have already said
the unfortunate fact is that whatever decision your family goes with, you got yourself a shit sandwich to eat
the only question is which sandwich has the least amount of shit on it, and I'd agree that's sandwich #2
While he doesn't do many things wrong toward other people is can be incredibly loud and obnoxious about his opinions, to the point of seeming threatening when it comes to politics, as well as not taking care of himself very well.
I just want him to be a healthier happier person.
My problem is he doesn't see anything as big of an issue as it really is and he just suppresses everything and it's not like I can just call and get him setup with appointments myself, and our mother, bless her, isn't pushing very hard for it, but hopefully she can get him to call and set something up.
it had to be Texas, didn't it?
welp
get him in observation; this isn't the 1950s, metal health facilities are not the barbaric inquisition-like lock-ups they're often portrayed as.
if this were another state there would be more options, like community homes (maybe not the best for someone that asocial) and one on one assistance programs
options one and three just lead straight to jail and probably prison
option four (live with the guy) doesn't seem very sustainable
good luck
I guess I have nothing really to add except another vote in favor of option #2
Even if no progress is made and he gets kicked out, I think you will be justified having first made every effort to help him
That said, I can't imagine walking in your shoes for even a day without becoming a fucking mess
I hope it works out and that your appeal is resolved quickly so you can get some real assistance
It is not a good option.
I agree that #2 seems like the best way of course.
We will have to see what happens tonight.
Being committed isnt so bad, and is more than likely our best option. We can just drop him off at the state hospital, and if he goes 72 hours without an episode, it will be the first time in his life. Being committed is the safest option for his health. They may provide the care that we cannot.
STEAM!
really, really sorry to hear it tugga, and best of luck with everything
I cant imagine how much your family has dealed with over the years
I just hope it doesn't bare down too heavily on you. It is your brother and he is family but you can only do so much, even for kin.