Greetings and Salutations
First thank you for writing such an in-depth account on your life thus far. From what you have shared you have been able to achieve so much despite having Aspergers as does the family member I look after.
With so much going on may I suggest a few things especially where your privacy is concerned.
At 39 I do believe that you have to tell your mother that she cannot simply go looking through your room. In fact I actually think you should install a lock on your door.
You maybe living with your parents but if your to move forward you have to start being a little more non compliant. Before you dismiss this suggestion I’ll explain my reasoning.
Your mother relies on you as her link to the outside world and seems to restrict your attempts at pulling away. This is a more gentle way to introduce her into the fact that although you will always be her son you are your own person and need your own space without the fear of someone, even family simply looking through your things.
Then you need to find out if your sister has an Adult Social Worker and if so you need to find out what services are available for your sister not your mother. You know more than I do about your sisters condition but in order to move forward you also need to start thinking “What will happen in the future concerning support” If your sister has a Social Worker they should be able to assist you.
I’m in the process of trying to get one for my family member as the last one they had left to get married and was never replaced.
It’s slow going but I’m a patient and very persistent person.
Don’t try to deal with everything at once because you’ll end up going no where.
Try making a plan to sort out a few things that will help ease some of the pressure including shopping.
I’m the only driver in my house but I have been teaching the family member I look after how to shop Online and have things delivered.
If you can get shopping delivered then instead of you taking your mum shopping try to find out if there is somewhere near that caters for mature people to just meet or just a cafe where she can go meet a friend for an hour or two.
It’s something to consider.
In my household I have a noticeboard with a set menu for meals so no one has to ask me about breakfast, lunch or dinner. I update it every three months but since I’ve been doing this since becoming a Carer now I just have them on file and reprint when the time is right.
Since I think that my lack of a sexual partner is the biggest single specific factor in my current unhappiness (the second is probably my lack of travel experience) I think some good preliminary measures (which I’ve already started with) are to lose my excess weight (I’m currently 13 stone but should only really be 12) and to do something about my persistent acne (discovering Dermatica last month will certainly help by giving me access to medications unavailable OTC, and without having to go through the NHS’s Kafkaesque handling of dermatological issues). Perhaps once I’ve accomplished both those goals (and maybe got fitter as well – I’m not intrinsically interested in sport, but if it helps me find a woman…) I should set up profiles on some dating sites to see if I get any responses?
How should I deal with my obvious handicaps re dating – my advanced age, my Asperger’s (whose most damaging consequence as I see it is my fussy eating: for example I can’t stand the texture of tomatoes, meaning that Italian food is a no-go for me) and my lack of travel or other life experiences (due to my mam’s overprotectiveness) that means most women would find me very boring?
And even if I’m not too old to marry, am I too old to have children (given female “body clocks” along with the obstacles to finding a younger wife, even if older than the minimum acceptable limit of “half my own age + 7”)?
Just one step at a time. None of us know whether we will meet a life partner or be able to have children. That is gazing into the future and a pointless exercise. Whether you are well travelled or don’t like Italian food is utterly irrelevant. Everyone has their own idiosyncrasies and if you meet the right person they won’t care.
Making yourself happy is the top priority. EVERYTHING else just follows from that.
I think exercise and weight loss also an excellent starting point. Exercise is scientifically linked to improving mood. And if you are overweight it can only improve your health. I’m also not a fan of exercise as such either, but recognise that it is important! You just need to find something you enjoy. It doesn’t have to be “sport” in the traditional sense, could be a martial art, or Nordic walking or the couch 2 5k programme at your local running club. Maybe look to do something in a group where you will meet people?
Also what about starting to fulfil your travel ambitions? I have travelled extensively on my own. Where would you like to go? But do this for yourself, because YOU want to. Not just to impress someone.
As for acne - push your GP for medication. You shouldn’t have to live with it. I suffered in my 20s and medication cleared it up. Also do some research into diet and acne. I suspect by improving what you eat as part of a fitness plan could help.
Good luck. Make this the week that you take some positive action. You have nothing to loose. If you take up an activity and don’t like it, you just try something else.
Hello again, George. I’d like to add something to the excellent advice you have had recently from Changlyn and Sally. This is regarding your desire to find a partner and perhaps ultimately become a family man.
You seem to think that your weight may make you less attractive. By all means try to slim, but mainly for your own health and well-being. Your domestic situation is the biggest factor that is likely to put off a prospective partner (apart from maybe someone that wants to strait-jacket you as your mother is currently doing). Hence you need to be working on moving out from there to a home of your own. This need not be far away; you could still visit and help. You do need to assert your independence; then I think other things will start to fall into place. You would have more time for social outlets.
Dating agencies may work for some, but most relationships start in clubs, societies, even workplaces, where people congregate in a friendly manner. Does your workplace have a social club or similar function?
You suggest you are not really interested in sport. Then avoid a sports club; you would be joining for the wrong reason and just add to your negative feelings. In any case, most sporting activities are male-dominated (an exception is swimming).
I really think that your “escape” from that household would be your key move, whereupon you could start to build a decent life for yourself.
I’m not sure how much my mam actually wants to “strait-jacket me” as you put it. To me it seems like her extreme reaction to reading that summary of my life history (vomiting followed by 2 hours of crying!) was the result of seeing in print what she’d done to me and thinking “OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” One factor that may be driving me to do more about my flab and/or acne is that I believe it would send a signal to my mam about my determination to improve my life.
I think what I need from her more than anything is for her to start showing a bit of courage so that my life isn’t constrained so much – I suspect that her constraints on my life are probably driven 10-% by her needs and 90+% by her fears. I’m also unsure that getting a place of my own would free up much time for me (unless of course I substantially shortened my commute at the same time), as I would of course have to do my own washing and ironing as well as making my own meals.
While my employer does hold a social group that meets once a month on Friday evenings, I strongly doubt that I can meet a partner via work, as (IIRC) it has more than 50 men and only about eight women, and almost all the women are already married or at least in a relationship. In some ways I suspect the fact that one particular female co-worker (who was thankfully not in my immediate circle. she’s a web/UX designer while I’m a tools programmer), will spend the rest of 2019 on maternity leave will be something of a relief to me, as I found her super-sexy manner of dressing so intimidating!
Agreed - I don’t think your mam actually intends to strait-jacket you, but that is the situation perceived by outsiders and what seems to be happening. You say yourself your life is constrained.
Probably her behaviour arises from fear of a new situation. You could address this, if you were to get a place of your own, by means of a gradual move away. You could still stay with your family on occasions.
You say that if you had your own place you would need to do your own domestic duties, e.g. cooking and laundering. Plenty of people do live alone and do their own domestic duties as well as go to work, and still have time for social activities. Ask yourself - if that family can look after your domestic requirements as well as their own, are they not so dependent on you after all? You repay them by caring in other ways, e.g. playing games, shopping (though in the longer term they should arrange home delivery of groceries). If commuting takes up too much time then move to near your workplace. You would be further from your family but you would not want to visit them five times a week.
You did well to consider your employer’s social group, even though you found it to be unsuitable for your needs. We need to try many things because not all will work.
Most people, when they reach their twenties, want to fly the nest and set up their own family and life. I did not manage to make a complete break till I was 30, due to career and study considerations (I did my degree in my late twenties). Yes, I had my meals and laundering provided and the money I paid for my “keep” was far less than the expenses I would face on my own. Living with parents brought many constraints; I could not have the visitors I wanted or have furnishings arranged as I wanted for instance. (I once had a row with my mum because she objected to my paying boy scouts to do jobs for me. The reasons for her objection I have never understood.)
Some people have the choice to stay with parents or leave. Others, in broken families, have no choice but to set up on their own. Still others may be constrained to stay with parents because of financial or other considerations. It seems that you do have a choice. Financially you have a very sound footing.
The message I perceive from all your posts is that you would ultimately like to be a family man in your own right. I can’t envisage this happening as long as you remain living with your parents.
Give up any idea of needing “permission” you don’t need it!
First, you need a home of your own.
Then you need to discover the “real” you. I’d recommend a book called “Starting Again” by Sarah Litvinoff, aimed primarily at divorcees but I found it really helpful when I was widowed.
Your comments about getting a woman dismay me. Do you really understand the concept of love? It’s about mutual attraction, not just liking someone but liking someone so much you don’t want to try to live without them. My husband and I had a great marriage, although we were different as chalk and cheese.
As if things weren’t bad enough, I took my dad to hospital on Monday and it looks like he has liver cancer.
I have been trying to improve myself in the meantime though: I’ve been going for long walks at weekends (which my mam knows about) as well as doing Couch to 5K (which my mam doesn’t know about – I’m currently on week 6)…
Oh George - I am so sorry to hear about your Dad. Is it treatable? Sometimes it doesn’t rain but it pours - hey?
I am so please that you are doing the Couch to 5K. Getting to week 6 is a massive achievement! Don’t let Dad’s illness knock you off track. Physical exercise as a way of coping with the stress of the situation will be even more important. Have you registered for a Park Run at the end? I am NOT a runner, but have found them really friendly.
Don’t know how bad my dad’s cancer is (he hasn’t had the biopsy yet) but at least the lack of obvious symptoms (it was picked up by chance during a CT scan for something else) are a good sign…
My mam is getting really worried though (as if she doesn’t have enough to worry about in her life) that if my dad doesn’t recover it won’t just mean the family taking a dire financial hit, but also that she alone won’t be enough to care for my sister (even if my sister will be getting three days at the NEAS centre instead of two, which we hope to be getting from next month onwards). On days that my sister’s at home my mam is effectively barred in the house (because if she tried to go out – even just to go for a walk as I suggested to her recently – my sister would be screaming at her “don’t leave me! don’t leave me!”). In fact it was something of a struggle for my mam to get my sister to be OK with her going out with me on Saturday to do the grocery shopping!
Haven’t registered for a parkrun yet as I want to stay under cover at least until I’ve finished the Couch to 5K. As a schoolkid I was pretty much the worst in the class at PE, and I’m uneasy as to how my mam would react if she thought I was doing something as apparently out of character as running…
George, the future of your sister is now a huge issue.
Mum has a tough journey ahead of her, now is the time to find somewhere that can care for your sister.
Is dad currently working? (you mention a huge financial hit). Does your family own, or rent the house? Mortgage?
I felt terrible on the 19th as it was my mam’s 60th birthday but I couldn’t buy her a present: she won’t accept money (in fact when I do little things for her like driving her to the shops, she usually forces money on me), the DVD box sets she’d like were all months away from release, and what else can you buy someone who’s basically barred in the house most of the time, and who has little interest in material goods anyway as they so often get damaged by my dad’s carelessness?
Took my dad for his biopsy this morning – hope I’ll be bringing him home tonight so I don’t have to do another 50+ mile round trip on Saturday. I was also talking with my mam the other night and she told me that it was very shortly after I was diagnosed with Asperger’s that she began to suspect that my dad had it too (and more severely than myself) and it was just that his parents were too neglectful to notice it.
As an aside I finished with my Couch to 5k app two weeks ago today (I covered the distance in 26:58 – not bad considering how useless I was at PE in school but still not in the same league as several of my work colleagues) but unfortunately it seems like I injured my left ankle in the process! Maybe once it gets better I need to find some exercises to improve my strength?
Hi George, don’t be too hard on your grandparents.
You may not realise that “Aspergers” is very new in terms of a diagnosis.
I remember a time when the first school in the country for autistic students was opened near where I worked.
Looking back, I’m sure my dad, one of the government’s top scientists, also had many traits of Aspergers.
My mam’s point was that my dad’s parents – which I hardly ever saw, to the point that whenever I referred to my grandparents (when they were alive) it was assumed I meant my mam’s parents – didn’t notice anything abnormal about my dad. She said herself that she knew something was abnormal about me even though she’d never heard the term “Asperger’s” before.
Dunno if the issue was that my dad’s parents were neglectful or that my mam was unusually suspicious-natured…
Don’t know if anyone is still following this thread, but I took my dad back to hospital on Thursday and it looks like he has neuroendocrine tumours: at least the doctor claimed that the recovery rate for this type of cancer is good and that there are many treatment options available. He’ll next be going to hospital on the 28th for another scan (using some kind of tracer fluid?) – hope he can get hospital transport as I don’t fancy taking yet another day off work to take him!
While I haven’t been running for about a month now – on my last run of Couch to 5k I must have injured my left ankle (don’t understand how), and while that’s better now I seem to have developed a cold. I’ve decided (especially given the wet weather we’re having at the moment) to work my way through my unwatched VHS videos (watching them and then throwing them away, as it looks like even charity shops won’t take them these days). Those VHS videos which contain stuff I do want are instead going to be replaced (if possible) with second-hand DVDs from the Amazon marketplace. Once I’ve finished with the VHS (first priority both due to being obsolete and due to taking up more space than disc-based media), I’ll then go onto the DVDs and PC games.
I’d already got rid of some unwanted clothes (many of them things that have gone too big since I lost some weight) and every bit of excess stuff I do get rid of will make it easier to move out when (if?) the day does come. I often wonder why my mam was so eager to buy me stuff (to the point that she’s disappointed when I say I don’t want anything) – more charitably it’s out of guilt at the way I’m living while less charitably it is to make it more logistically difficult for me to move out. Thoughts?
One last question: would people here agree with someone on another forum whom I discussed my situation with, who suggested that trying to get into the dating scene before moving out would (due to the amount of my time it would involve: it seemed like he was thinking in terms of online dating) be a bad idea?
Hi I just wanted to say I sympathise I might not contribute too often but I know only too well how you feel. Stick with the exercise those endorphins can be a blessing on a bad day. As for decluttering that will help too not that I’m that far along yet but I have found the eco friendly route to be accepted as an excuse for most things
Does that include claiming to social workers that I’m incapable of looking after myself?
Last weekend I managed to find some documents in my mam’s room from the last time my sister’s status was reviewed (October 2018) – don’t know if they count as the Needs Assessment that some others on this thread have brought up, but they do describe my sister’s limitations in detail, and also included the comment “parents also need to give ongoing support to their son who still lives with them”.
Here’s my copy of these documents (currently incomplete as I sneaked in with my phone to photograph them, and some of my photos were unfortunately too out of focus to be readable – hope I can access them again on Saturday afternoon when my mam goes in the bath). In my typed-up version I refer to my sister as “S” so as not to reveal her or my real identity.
Hope some readers here will find this information useful!
George
I think the actual phrase was "provide support " or something similar. This is very different to saying up you are incapable of looking after yourself.
I provide support for my adult son who I know is capable of living independently , but part of that support includes letting him live here rent free while he saves up for a deposit. That is financial support.
I also support him by teaching him cooking and budgeting so that he is skilled when he does leave. I also help him cheer himself up when he is down building his self esteem
I say this to show that providing support can take many forms and doesn’t demean or belittle the person being supported.
I suggest you read again what the report says about your sister and compare what areas in it you are capable of doing, and that will show the many areas in which you are capable and independent and do not need support
I’ve decided (especially given the wet weather we’re having at the moment) to work my way through my unwatched VHS videos (watching them and then throwing them away, as it looks like even charity shops won’t take them these days). Those VHS videos which contain stuff I do want are instead going to be replaced (if possible) with second-hand DVDs from the Amazon marketplace. 
Once I’ve finished with the VHS (first priority both due to being obsolete and due to taking up more space than disc-based media), I’ll then go onto the DVDs and PC games.