matzoball

we live in a 2 bedroom house, and my brother was only supposed to be living here temporarily - to clarify i am 32, and my brother is 28. i am lucky enough to have a job, so i have to work a full day then come home to no retreat. neither my brother or this 18 year old girl work so they eat the all food i provide for the house so i have to buy more than usual, use the heat and electricity i pay for without even putting towards it. i don't grudge anyone food or the basic needs but i can't afford to furnish their lifestyle as my mum doesn't contribute to the bills. they play xbox til 6 in the morning, then sleep til teatime and it starts all over again. whenever i ask if she is going home my brother intimidates me. i have told them the effect this is having on me and have been called schizo or retarded.

i live with my mum and brother - my brother brought up a girl from wales who was only supposed to stay 3 days and now she has been here a month. i thought i could cope when my routine was distrupted just for three days but now it has been 4 weeks. i have been ousted from my own bed, i have nowhere to retreat to and i can't do anything i would normally do as part of my routine. i have been stressed and upset for weeks now and my brother doesn't seem to care even when i get angry - i even got so stressed my ankles and wrists swelled up in pain. i've asked my mum to get them to leave but she just avoids the issue or tells me it's me making the situation stressful - i can't seem to get through to her at all and i feel completely trapped.

As a woman with AS it's been a long hard road for me in regards to diagnosis, now I am for some reason being re-assessed as my new GP thinks I have High Functioning Autism because she feels i am not typical of a woman with Aspergers. I didn't think that a re-assessment was possible but there you go. The list is something that ticks a lot of boxes with me, but certainly not all of them - this doesn't mean I don't have AS, or am part of the new breed that was mentioned in an earlier post. I learned to hide things when I was little, and developed these hiding skills the older I got - playing a part if you will. Now that I am older and in more or less complete control of my life I don't have to do that anymore. But looking back I do see most of my teenage social life as one big performance. The point I'm trying to make is that the list does seem to cover behaviours I have and others no doubt have, but it's not exclusive or exhaustive - it's easy to forget that not everyone falls into the same area of the spectrum - whether mild or severe or somewhere in between, we all have needs and need support. I am actually being interviewed for a magazine today for an article about women with ASD - it will be interesting to see how the interviewer percieves females on the spectrum. I will probably post a link to it or scan it once it is published.

i think perhaps it may be best you talk to your own parents about this, if you are really worried for your friends safety they may be able to offer helpful advice. my gut instinct is to tell your friend to take someone with him if you can't tell his parents. does he have friends that he could take with him?

hi - welcome

i'm 32, and was diagnosed a few months ago. and i can tell you that i am still learning about all of this - i ask myself questions everyday about whether my behaviour is typical of someone of aspergers and there is no 'one' answer. this is why there is a spectrum, and why there are so many definitions of what having asd means. please take the time to not just read books, talk to people on here, listen to what they have to say, and maybe you will find the answer you are looking for. we're good people.

welcome

hi all! thank you so much for watching - yes i was as soaked as i looked, still soggy now!! i recommend it to anyone who has signed up!!

AUI, while it is great that you care enough to make your own site, can i just point out that people who have ASD and Asperger's are often mistaken for being rude - so to point out what you feel is rudeness on a site that tries to explain that behaviour is (however unintentional) rude in itself. Every new site and organization that forms to educate about ASD and autism is great, an achievement in itself. So I think it is wonderful you are taking the time to do this. I would just ask that you respect existing sites such as this - we are all in the same situation so should be fostering a community instead of picking at each other.

hi gordie i've been adddicted to watching sky arts ever since one and other started - just hope i won't be featured for falling off or something haha kathryn - thanks for putting me on the forum calendar - hope you enjoy the show! i like bunnehs...

boyfriend and i have managed to stay togther for a year - and it has been great. however we keep having the same argument over and over. his workmates girlfriend keeps touching my boyfriend, and as far as i am concerned only i should. this gets my back up immediately. she calls his house phone to invite us over to their house for drinks, which i feel is highly innapropriate. now she is caring for my boyfriends grandfather in a care home. i have tried to keep control of my jealousy so far but it always turns into me berating my boyfriend for letting her do these things(touching and flirting, not caring for his papa). he went to see his papa this week, and i was told that she put her arm around him and introduced herself as my boyfriends new girlfriend. according to his sister this was all a big joke, and she likes to wind up other people in the home. but i failed to see the funny side. i ended up making digs at him to the point he nearly drove me home because he was sick of hearing it over and over. we managed to talk it out, but now i can't say another thing about this girl. i understand in a logical way why he is upset - but i am obsessed with the fact this girl seems to want my boyfriend. Having AS and a relationship is hard as it is, but now my paranoia usually associated with everyone else, is focussing on her and i can't stop myself. i really don't want to ruin my relationship.

i think this is a time thing. your son will have to take some time to adapt to having your daughters' boyfriend around - he probably feels threatened because he now has a new factor in his life to deal with that he can't control and this may make him feel a little bit powerless so he retaliates the only way he knows how. your daughter may need to reassure him that she is still his big sister, and perhaps limit the amount of exposure he has to the boyfriend to get him used to it in small doses. then the bigger doses are perhaps a little more easy to handle.

thanks smiley1590 - great to know there is support out there!

thanks for the good wishes the folk from the project have a live video feed - www.oneandother.co.uk but i will be uploading my own video(friend is filming me) to youtube so i will send you the link

Hi All Not sure if this is the right part of the forum to be posting this - but I am going to be appearing on the 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square on September 15th, at 11pm. I'll be doing a piece on ASD and autism for my hour, not sure how it's going to turn out as i am the clumsiest person in the world(slight exhaggeration) - but I would be honoured if you guys would watch online, or even pop along if you feel up to it! There will be folk from the NAS in the square helping me out on the ground, and I will be answering all questions via a big pad and marker pen - as i'm taping my mouth up to signify the social barriers we face(it borders on the pretentious, but a little pretention never hurt anyone haha) as part of the piece. Thanks for your time, and hope you enjoy my performance www.oneandother.co.uk i like bunnehs...

since she and her friends started making fun of me publicly, i have stayed away completely and my life is a lot less stressful! i've already taken your advice and am surrounding myself with people who are becoming an amazing support network(thanks mum adam and ryan) - i've found that while it's not been easy, i've become a lot more at ease with who i am now. thanks for the hug! have a bunneh! i like bunnehs

i will be starting a open university course in october, so i think that might be a way to meet new people - to be honest though i just can't be bothered. i do still have some close friends, so the situation isn't completely hopeless, i think this has damaged my confidence more than anything else - i even resorted to trying to convince my mum that i was telling the truth(she of course told me to stop 'being so ###### stupid' and said it wasn't ever a question of doubt for her - bless) - i've decided never to let anyone make me doubt myself like that again. I'm paranoid enough as it is! i like rabbits...

i think i may just have to walk away this time - if they were my friends, they would actually ask me about it instead of calling me names and believing someone who is making sweeping accusations without actually knowing what she is talking about. i guess i am so torn because it is a ten year friendship i have to walk away from - i guess i knew this but didn't want to admit it. thanks for all your advice and support i like bunnies...

bit of an update - the person who has accused me of lying, has now told mutual aquaintances - and i am starting to get messages on facebook etc saying what a dispicable person i am. i don't know how to react.

if you wiki it - there is quite a list of asd musicians that might give you an idea of what way you want to channel your talent

it's a good idea to show her the report to at least to prove myself - but i don't think i will be continuing the friendship at least the way it is. the fact she felt she had to question me and try to trick me out has really hurt me. She's been my best friend for years, and i think that she's more angry at the fact i didn't share what i was going through, and that (as petty as this sounds) i am getting a lot of attention at the moment because of it. i have been lucky enough to find a boyfriend this past year, and i've started to get my life into order(not because of the boyfriend), with money and getting a good support system in place - her life is very chaotic compared to mine and because of that we have been steadily growing apart - so every so often she tries to do things like this to get some sort of upper hand - but this time i think she has gone too far. i'm not very good at keeping friends so i value the ones i have - i just can't take having to explain myself to her when she should be supporting me.

i will indeed - thanks

i think because i don't fit into her preconception of a typical person with asd, she automatically assumes i am lying or exhaggerating what is happening to me - if i was really doing that i wouldn't fake a pdd to get sympathy. i've decided to stay away for a while, so that gives us both time to calm down. and hopefully she will actually speak to people other than her friends who are touting themselves as experts on aspergers and autism and perhaps get some perspective. then maybe we can sit down and actually talk about it instead of what happened last night. ironically i am going up there to try and raise awareness of aspergers and autism! i'm on there on the 15th of September at 11pm if you want to watch online

i got diagnosed 3 months ago, i'm not as far into the spectrum as some people are, but i've had the DISCO and the Gillberg scale methods used as part of my diagnosis, and i am definitely on there. tonight my best friend just accused me of lying, because all of her friends dont think i have it. she even went so far as to try and catch me out with the terminology. she says it's because i announced it all of a sudden 3 months ago, and when i explained this was something i needed to get done on my own so that is why i kept it to myself until i knew for sure, she said she had talked to a 'dr laura' who was looking to study female autistics and i sounded like i definitely didn't have it having not met me. i'm going to be on the plinth for an hour in london next month, and she said if i really had it i wouldn't be able to go up there - she doesn;t realise what i am going through just to work up the courage to do it - she just sees another bit of proof that i am lying. she doesn't understand there are different ranges of severity, and that's why it's a spectrum - she thinks everyone is severe and that is that. then after playing all these horrible tricks and getting me upset and confused she says she just needed proof because she is sick of defending me to all of her friends. now she has me doubting myself to the point i am starting to think i need to get re-tested, and that was horrible enough the first time. i am genuinely at a loss what to do.

it's great to know there are so many people out there who want to say hi!