Adult child of Aspie who is retired

Post Reply New Topic

Hello!

This is my first time posting on this forum. Please forgive me if I am in the wrong area.

I need some help dealing with my Father. He is 66 years old, diagnosed with Asperger's about 15 years ago. My father has always been difficult to deal with, but since "retiring" about 10 months ago, he is just going from bad to worse. I understand that he doesn't think and/or feel like everyone else, but he used to do a better job of faking it.

I am a mother of twins who are 11 now, just starting 6th grade. I work full time at my 9 to 5 job, plus freelance work to try to keep my family afloat. My husband has an autoimmune disorder which has caused him to deteriorate faster than anyone would have thought. His illness has left him unable to work at the age of 37. Needless to say, my family keeps me very busy.

Since his "retirement", my father has become much, much more needy. He does not understand that I don't have endless time to chat about his obsessions (especially when I am at work). I barely have time to get a decent night's sleep! The effort to co-ordinate all of my husband's health issues, doctors appointments, treatments and medications is almost a (third) job for me. My dad's response to this is to try to embelish his medical issues to make them out to be worse than my husband's in what feels like a bid for attention.

One particular incident this summer comes to mind. He went for a bike ride (pretty good for 66, right?). While on the bike ride, he hit a rock and fell, skinning his knee. He called me telling me that his leg was "hamburger" and that I needed to come right away and take him to the hospital. We had just spoken earlier that morning, and I had told him that I needed to spend the day looking for the parts for and sewing a costume for each of the twins for a school project due on Monday. Of course, hearing the extent of his injuries, I abandonded my shopping and flew the 35 minutes to his house. When I got there, he was standing on the front porch with hydrogen peroxide in one hand and a band-aid in the other, arms up in the air like he had just won a gold medal. There was a single trickle of blood down his leg, and a scrape about the size of a quarter! He could have easily cleaned himself up!

I know my dad will be needing more help as the years go on, in particular because of his Asperberger's. I just don't understand how he went from being a genius to acting like a 4-year-old in so short a time.

What can I do with him? I cannot be his full-time caretaker. How do I get him to see that he needs to stand on his own 2 feet as much as he can because I am tapped out? He has no other kids, he's been divorced twice, and all but one of his siblings won't even talk to him except for holidays (if that). What do I do?

Any ideas, support, or encouragement would be a big help!

One minor point: The spelling is Asperger's. There is no 'b' in it.

My guess would be it stems from no longer having that structured influence of work.

I would try to find him a group or something to provide structure. Work provides structure and a trellis for holding up the social skills.

The lack of a structured routine is probably the biggest problem.

When my AS husband and I moved he no longer had his set routine and he almost turned into a walking depressed zombie. He early retired so I understand a little about your situation.

What I did was help him get into a routine. We built one with - getting a subscription to the paper to start the morning, a gym membership and exercise plan, I also got him a day planner to map out the day on paper. I came up with a bunch of things to do around the house for him to put on the day planner. We planned "movie day", lunch out day, beach day, etc.... each person needs to come up with their own things, but the main point is for them to be able to mentally frame it as a ROUTINE they can follow.

If your dad is obsessed with his ailments, try and see if he can get obsessed with the gym which would surely benefit him. 66 is not that old. Would he like going to a local gym?

Can he find forums on the internet to discuss his obsessions?

Also keep in mind Aspies understand RULES, thus they can be made to understand that boundaries are like rules. Create some boundaries with him so he knows it's not acceptable for him to be taking up so much of your time, that others get some too. That is the RULE. That way he won't see it as a brush off, but rather a logical rule that needs to be followed. In fact it might work better to schedule his time with you, so it is part of his routine, but not the entire routine. Does that make sense?

Hope that helps....