Who'd have brothers?

... in particular, autistic ones.

As far as I'm concerned my brother's autism is just an excuse for him to be a lazy, stubborn layabout little git who does his utmost to make life difficult for my Mum.

For the last two years he's been boarding at a house Mon-Fri while he's been at college. The idea was to teach him to look after himself and gain confidence and make friends and everyone has said how brilliantly it had worked - Simon has learned to cook for himself (with supervision otherwise he grates his fingers off apparently and ends up covered in blue plasters). But it got him into a routine - the sort that "normal people" do. Set an alarm early in the morning, showered everyday (haha, you'll be lucky if he showers once a week at home, it's disgusting, he's 18 years old!). In the evenings he'd to go the cinema or to the pub with his friends. And for two weeks he did work experience which meant getting a bus to work and back everyday. So in short he is perfectly capable of doing everything for himself.

However at home he turns into some kinda vegetable - all holiday he has sat in my room or his room and watched TV, literally just that. Whenever my Mum asks him to do something, simple things like get himself breakfast or get dressed, he grunts like it's a massive inconvenience and he has better things to be doing. Heaven forbid that we actually ask him to leave the house. Although once he's out he's fine - he was quite happy at our grandparents Monday and shopping yesterday - it's getting him there that's the issue.

Prime example was today. Mum wanted to get him to do something and yesterday he told us he wanted to go see "Mr Popper's Penguins"  at the cinema. So this was something he'd suggested which was encouraging but when Mum told him this morning that I (reluctantly) was going to take him to see it, he went into silent mode.

Half hour before the film was due to start Mum managed to get him downstairs into the hallway and I attempted to show enthusiasm and grabbed my keys and made Jake do a dance and actually got in the car. Simon didn't get as far as the front door before having a strop. Mum tried to get out of him about why he didn't want to go was "It's too long." The film is too long? What a pile of bullshit. And it upsets my Mum, I mean she has a go at him and tries to get him to explain what the problem is but he won't say a word he just stares at the floor and refuses to make eye contact. Seriously frustrating.

So we gave up, Mum unplugged the TV upstairs so he couldn't go back up there again so he shut himself in his room and "cried" while I took Jake for a walk - I get more conversation out of him anyway and he's a dog ... and deaf. When I came back half hour later I could hear Simon's "wailing" from the driveway.

He's such a little bastard. He's perfectly capable of looking after himself but he reverts to being a right twat when he gets home. I'm not saying a lot of his problems aren't down to his autism and I can understand it when it is but right now it's purely down to his shit attitude.

I hope Mum starves him tonight. He never tells her what he wants anyway, he just expects to be brought food in the evening at some point and when he doesn't get it drags himself downstairs and asks why he hasn't had dinner. 

Rant over. Going now.

Cock

xxx