Siblings.

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So I got a lecture from my mother about one of my other sisters the other day.

I have 2 sisters, 1 step brother. Youngest sister is autistic and my step brother is never around. So apparently my other sister (NT) feels left out all the time because she has no one to interact with and has to deal with me and my sister. I never really thought of it like that. My other sister just yells at her all day and I get extremely angry with her or ignore her.

Are any of you close to your siblings? I don't really know how to interact with her. She always walks into my room when I'm doing something and I automatically start yelling at her because she interrupted me from an interest... I can't really control that outburst. And she makes fun of me all the time for everything I do. She's 13 and I am 15. Do you have any ideas as to how I could... interact with her or do something with her to not make her feel left out? I just get so impatient with her if she doesn't know something or if she interrupts me from something I'm doing and we have nothing in common.... But I don't like her making fun of me either.

I also have 2 sisters and a brother.

My sisters (age 30 and 28 ) worry about me and want a good relationship with me, but they don't always respect me and they sometimes hurt my feelings, which they attribute to miscommunication. I know I will have to live with one of them when our parents die, but at this point I'm really not sure which one.

My brother (age 14) is the best! He and I are very close; he knows me very well and enjoys my company. I would ideally like to live with him when our parents die, but he wants to join the Marine Corps so I don't think he will be around much...

My sister is very rude and bossy. We are closer in age, so growing up we always had to share things, including a bedroom. I still have a lot of emotional scars from the way she treated me; verbally and physically abusive.
These days she has the kind of personality I hate. She doesn't think of people's feelings, is prejudice and is very rude to me, despite knowing about my AS. Sometimes we can chat and get along, but it's best I keep our time together short. I also hate how she treats her roommate. I've known her roommate since I was about 3.

So you sister yells at your autistic sister all day? That unacceptable. You need to show her how to properly care for your sister, and you should explain to her that you get hurt by her. Tell her that's it's very important that you get your personal space. My mum just walks into my room whenever and I hate it. I guess I too need to talk to both my sister and my mum.

My sister is very different to me. She has a verbal IQ in the 99 percentile and is very loud, social, street smart, rebellious and aggressive. I sometimes wonder if she has bi-polar tendencies as her mood swings are insane and she can express some pretty deluded thoughts. Regardless i like her overall. I wish i could have been a better brother to her since we are close to the same age. Its normal for girls to try brag about having a 'super cool' older brother, and i feel she is a little dissapointed she could never exactly do that. Regardless she is forcing me to go clubbing with her and her friends on her 18th. I will make an effort and hopefully she will be cool with that.

They pretty much get mad at eachother. My autistic sister loves video games and plays the same level over and over and wants my other sister to play with her the games all the time. But my sister doesn't want to constantly do that so she gets mad at her.

I've told her I like my own space. Well, my mother has anyway. She just uses that as another thing to make fun of me about. So honestly I don't really want to try to interact with her. I understand she must feel left out and probably has a lot more stress than other kids and everything but I still don't like her all too well.


Thanks for responses. =]

I guess that I have been really lucky in my relationships with my siblings. I have 3 older sisters ages 39, 38, and 36 and a younger sister who is 19. I know that I must not have been an easy child to get along with because I was so particular about everything. I had to wear certain clothes on certain days or I would cry when I was little. Or I would get really mad if one of them messed up my toy box. I had to have all of them in order. Strangely I would put all my toy cars in shoeboxes based on who made them such as Hot Wheels, Matchbox etc. Sometimes they would be mean but that is just how older sister can be. My younger sister is an entirely different story. Since I was about 13 years old I have had to take care of her almost all by myself. There is ten years difference in our ages. I had to watch her because my dad had to work and my mom was always having to take care of my grandmother. Well it is 16 years later and she feels more like my daughter than my sister. She will never have the kind of relationship with our parents that a normal child should have because she was abandoned by them for so long. Since they have all grown up got married and had lots of kids, (with the exception of the 19 year old) they really dont know what to make of their 29 year old brother who lives at home with his parents, keeps earning degree after degree but doesn't have real job to speak of and whose whole life has been based on trying to please everyone. I do have a real close relationship with my 2 oldest nephews. They are like the brothers that I never had. One is 17 and the other is 15 and I have more in common with them than anybody else.

My siblings? Gee, well I have an older brother who I got on fine with. When I was a baby, we would play sonic on his megadrive. We have similar music tastes, used to play 360 together on occasions and we even liked eachothers friends (One of my best friends and one of his best friends were brothers). My younger sister is kinda loud and annoying.

So when the family moves to Australia, my bro stays in England and I'm stuck with the annoying one. What's worse is while I have yet to make any real friends here, she befriends half the neighborhood. Her friends are always bloody round, and I have to get away from them and hide under my bed (erm... I don't actually hide under my bed). I don't even think either of my siblings know of my AS...?

I found that being an only child was a very formidable part of why I was not dragged to a professional for my behaviour and social interaction... or lack thereof. But then, the equally huge drawback is that I have the impression siblings give you the opportunity to learn more abilities in various parts of life when you're still quite young.

So... in my life, I went back and forth from wanting a sibling and not wanting a sibling. I think I have settled for being a very happy only child now.

Did you ever sit down, talk to your sister, said that you 'worry about her feeling left out' and then proposed to do something fun together outside (not in the house in which there are so many arguments)?

You could do a trip to the cinema in the afternoon and have a (non-alcoholic) drink at an awesome place for young people afterwards? Or a trip to a amusement activity. Not necessarily an amusement park. Swimming in summer? Walking a dog from a shelter if you both like pets or riding horses for an afternoon if you both like horses?

There are lots of things to do you both would like but haven't yet tried.

You should decide upon an agreement to not freak out at each other during that trip too.

i have 3 sisters. i have no interest in them. i am adopted so they are not genetiically related to me.
my youngest sister is 11 years older than me and the next sister is 13 years older and the last sister is 15 years older. my mother had an hysterectomy after her youngest daughter was born and my father wanted a boy so they adopted a boy eventually after many years. i was 2 weeks old. they got a dud.

my youngest sister was 15 when she gave birth to my nephew. she had moved out by then. all my sisters were gone by the time i was 5.
i was like an only child.
but i do not belong in my family, because they expected to adopt an NT boy.

i do not know my sisters any better than i know any person on the street.

^Sounds awful.

Are you able to lock your bedroom door to prevent your sister from barging in while you are involved in your special interest?

I always had my bedroom door locked... that is, until my mom removed the doorknob.

I got her to play Scrabble with me last night after much asking. I think she liked playing though once she did.

And yes, I do have a lock on my door. That doesn't prevent her from knocking and yelling through the door and make me, which is even worse, get up and unlock it but by that point I'm usually yelling at her.

As to going somewhere and doing something... none of my family ever leaves the house except for the necessary places.... Between the autistic sister not willing to leave the house and my other sister getting extremely carsick. And everyone else in my family has anxiety problems, so basically any kind of outing makes everyone in a worse mood which just stresses me out.

There are therapists who actually recommend that families spend time together as a routine, once a week plus meals, when their kids end up in therapy, e.g. Mary Pipher's In the Shelter of Each Other. So I was going to suggest the entire family going for a walk together once a week as a family ritual, but if you're all uncomfortable going outside then that won't work.

A weekly Scrabble game as a routine might work, though, and having breakfast and dinner together and chatting with each other then as well. We always had dinner together (exept my father, who often worked late). And that was our opportunity to spend time together. We all had to go to church, too, but started going at different times when we got older. Mom was always careful to make sure we had family routines. Otherwise it's just a bunch of people under the same roof and that can be stressful on people.

Oh, and your sister definitely needs to stay out of your room. Figuring that out is just a part of growing up.