Help please! Cannot deal with possible AS in roommate...

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Hey there. I could really use some help. My mom and I have lived with the same roommate for years now, an old friend of my mom who is...a little odd. Almost scary even. He's in his mid 50's, and shows signs of asperger's and it's having a horrible effect on everyone in our home.

He is obsessed with football. No not like normal, like it's the only interest he has. My mother and I have no interest in sports at all but he'll go on and on and ON for hours about it to us and we have trouble stopping him without him getting upset with us. He doesn't seem to catch on that we're uninterested, or if he does he doesn't care. He also is very prone to anger issues, even if he's the one causing problems he has trouble admitting when he's been insensitive to someone else.

This morning was my "last straw" of sorts. He is beginning to scare me. Last night, I could not sleep at all. I was sick as all hell to my stomach, was nauseous and was kept up all night. He was aware of this. So I finally managed to get to sleep by around 10 this morning, but just 3 hours later he's watching a football game and starts screaming at the TV, waking me up, infuriating me. I try to ignore it and curl up and go to sleep but then I guess a commercial came up. He came out to the living room (I was trying to sleep on the couch out there) and starts loudly bickering about the game to my mother.

My mom tried to signal him to be quiet but he didn't seem to understand. So I finally gave up and sat up, and tried to tell him to be quiet and that I was trying to sleep and he flew into a rage, screaming "FINE I just won't watch any more games ever, I have nothing else anyway so I'll just have nothing at all? Everything is my fault!" then repeated that in about 5 different wordings before he stormed out and sat in his room talking to himself.

He has awful anger issues, and the smallest of aggravations can send him into a white hot rage where he screams and yells and I don't know what to do about it. If even one small thing in his "routine" is thrown off he just goes ballistic. It's one thing when it's a child, but it's another when it's a grown man in his mid 50's...

This is particularly hard for me and my mother to deal with lately. She's showing signs of early onset dementia and does't have the capacity to deal with him right now, and I'm recovering from some anxiety issues and trying to get my life back on track. Please help. how do you deal with a fully grown adult who is like this? His parents never seemed to ever correct or help him with his issues in any way, so he's never learned any way of doing things other than how he already does them, but I cannot deal with it. Is there anyone who can give me suggestions on how to better deal with this?

This reminds me very much of my sister, she used to behave in this way all the time,
very self-centered and angry.
From what I've read on this forum so far, sometimes people with AS ,who cannot cope
with their condition can develop BPD (borderline personality disorder) as well.
That's when they start thinking in black and white and everybody who doesn't put up with
their unacceptable behavior is seen as evil.
Unfortunately I never managed to find a way to successfully coexist with my sisters disorder.
Now she has refused to talk to me for the past 5 years, and we live at opposite ends of the world anyway.
She lives with our mother, which is very difficult for mom. Especially the aggression issues.
But she say's it has been much better since my sister was put on anti-depressants.
If you can't get away from this situation, maybe he could be encouraged to try some
medication that makes him feel less angry?

the situation sounds annoying, but not dangerous. keep kindly but firmly stating your case. "i was up sick all night. i need some quiet to sleep."

why didn't your mom move the discussion to another room?

when he goes on and on about football, listen for a few minutes to be polite, then excuse yourself because you have to ______.

Is it necessary to have him as a roommate? If your mom has dementia, you guys need to seriously reconsider your living arrangements. As your mom's condition gets stronger, the stress of her issues on top of his might become overwhelming.

This might sound harsh but you two may need to get rid of the roommate. You shouldn't tolerate any meanness or bad behavior from him just because he has AS. If you have tried communicating with him like telling him to not be so loud when you sleep and telling him you don't feel well or telling him you are not into sports so you don't like to hear it all the time and he still does it, time to evict him. You don't need to tolerate it. It's about treating you with respect. Honestly if I was in that situation, I would be doing the same thing back to him and say "Well you do ______ so why am I not allowed to do ________" because that is what I do to people who do not listen and care so why should I be respectful to them? It's giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Does your mom not have better living options? Neither of you should be forced to accomodate a grown adult, especially if it is affecting your health. If she absolutely has to live with him because of financial difficulties or something, you absolutely cannot reward any bad behavior. It's not unusual for someone with AS to get a little dramatic when upset, but that doesn't mean you have to give in and let him do whatever he wants. There has to be some sort of compromise that doesn't leave anyone feeling cheated.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

We are trying to save money to move away on our own, but it might be a bit before we are financially stable enough to do so. The last time we moved away from him we trusted him to send us our stuff bit by bit. We packed up boxes that he was to send to us, but he then has his mom/brother show up and open them all and go through them, and they stole a bunch of stuff from us. We still don't know what all they took but...yeah. I'm gonna have my mom move away first and I personally will be sending our stuff to her...

To answer an earlier question, she didn't take it to another room because there aren't any other rooms, we live in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment. :< Our situation is pretty grim right now.

Our living options are limited, I recently moved back in with them from another state because my mom was doing so poorly. But it turned out to be in the middle of nowhere with no work options for me so money is very tight right now. I'm mostly just looking for a way to cope until the time where we can leave is here.

MimiBear, this is a terrible situation. I really hope that you guys can part from this person and his family. Will your mom be getting any financial help from disability because of her dementia? Do you have other family that can help you?

By the way, welcome to WP. I hope that we can at least be an encouragement to you here.

Hey mimi,

I would firstly suggest you check out Captain Awkward (just google the name). It's an advice blog that deals with questions like yours (and more) all the time. You might not have time (or you might) to send a question, but if you search through the tags you'll almost certainly find some advice about roommates, setting boundaries and even strategies for dealing with potentially dangerous living situations.

Secondly, your fear is totally valid. Don't let other people talk you into dismissing it.

Does your house have rules, and have you thought of having a house meeting? If you phrase it as "just clarifying everyone's responsibilities" kinda thing, you can set certain expectations and rules up as things that everyone should abide by without it looking like you're singling him out. So long as you're not unreasonable and are willing to bend on some issues (because otherwise he will assume you're picking on him).

But it does sound like a situation you need to get out of ASAP, especially if he can't control his anger.