Er_Bear19's advice column

i'm erin. extremely fidgety at times. i have a very passive aggressive personality and i'm determined to get the things i want. helicopters give me the creeps. weather is my true love. lightning makes me happy. penguins are kind of awesome. very OCD. i don't like odd numbers. i very rarely type in capital letters, unless i'm answering a question. everything must end with a period. and that's about it. :)

peace. love. penguins. ♥

TALK TO ME KIDDOS. :]

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advice

i'm a little upset right now. when my little sister had speech problems/delay, we knew something might be wrong with her brain development or functioning of the brain, or whatever. we thought she had autism. but we found out recently it wasn't autism, she has aspergers. she's 14 now, turning 15 in november, but i'm really worried about her future. she's really bright and is the absolute nicest person in the world, she'd never do anything wrong or hurt anyone on purpose. she's very sensitive and cries easily. at school she has friends, but she's homeschooled and goes to school only on fridays. she has no friends in the neighborhood. in her free time, she sits on the computer and watches shows and videos on youtube or paces around in her room. she NEVER LEAVES THE HOUSE unless its for school or church. and everyone at her school knows something is wrong with her, but they all think shes just weird, they dont know whats going on with her mind. basically, the best i can explain it, she has the mind of a 5-7 year old. you can hear it in the way she talks and walks and her body language, she's very different. it upsets me like no other when someone tells me that my sister is weird or she acts "strange" or that she's stalking some boy because she thinks he's cute. she doesnt realize that when she has a crush, she cant make it very obvious, so shes never had a boyfriend and from what i can tell, shes not going to get one anytime soon.

so after all this inside information on my sister, can anyone tell me if they know that her brain will eventually catch up to her, or if she's going to be like this for the rest of her life? she wants to get married and have children, but our whole family can't ever see her moving out on her own since she thrives on family and security. what can i do?

Sorry, I know this isn't really advice, but I do agree with everything dearcandore said. It's a very tricky diagnosis and since it was only detected in the early 90's (meaning very few studies), there isn't a whole lot of information about it.

However, I also want to let you know that my older brother (now 24) has it. He HAS matured over the years a great deal, but he will most likely never act his real age. He used to never be able to hold down a job for more than a week, but his last 2 jobs he had for many months at a time. As far as relationships, he doesn't want one, so quite different than your sister. So there
are also variations between people with the disease, which makes it even more difficult to predict how their futures may end up.

Anyway, I just want to let you know that if you'd like to talk further (gotta run to class at the moment), please feel free to e-mail me anytime. I know how it is, because I've lived with him all my life, and I KNOW it's not easy.

Best of luck and hope to hear from you soon. :)