My housemate
pmw_hewitt
Posts: 1,193 Forum Member
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I'm a second year student and I'm now living in student housing with three others. I'm not trying to be bitchy here, but I'm genuinely somewhat concerned.
When I shared halls with this particular person last year, I held a brief conversation with his mother on the first day, in which she told me that he has Asperger's Syndrome and sometimes struggles with others. I was fine with that, as I too am an (albeit mild) AS sufferer. Indeed, he did come across as somewhat eccentric and socially awkward, but this was to be expected and I didn't judge him for it, I also defended him around the others (without telling them explicitly what his issue is - not my business to tell people).
Anyway, fast forward a year and he's now living with us properly. Now we're sharing a house together and not just a kitchen, we're starting to become rather concerned. From about 10am he starts to hold very loud conversations with himself in his room. We'd occasionally hear him if we went past his bedroom last year, but we all assumed he was online gaming and/or Skyping. Thing is, this started in the new house before we even had the internet set up. He'll be almost shouting at himself for hours on end. He's actually doing it right now, and has been doing so non-stop since I got home from lectures at about 6:30pm. Sometimes, he's actually holding full-on conversations as two people. The "characters" he voices appear from my room next door to be an angry, threatening man and a meek, frightened woman. These are LOUD and can be heard throughout the house at all hours, which means that he either has no idea that he's doing it, or doesn't care.
At first I assumed it was just simply a considerably worse case of AS than that of my own. Growing up, I always had the need to "flap" when I was in the privacy of my room. I'd often not realise quite how much I was doing it until afterwards. But these flaps were quite handy, as they would remove any stress and anxiety from my system for a while and I'd be able to immediately go downstairs and "be normal". So I assumed he just had a more vocal equivalent, but other more recent examples, such as marching around talking to himself outside, or last week when I went past him on the bus, and he was quite angrily shouting at a rather scared looking group of people from a distance.
Look, I'm not here to just complain about him, when I see him downstairs he's friendly and chatty and I bear him no ill will at all, but another housemate has become convinced that Alex's problems are possibly considerably worse than what we've been told, and he's now being rather paranoid after he says he was awoken in the early hours a few days ago with coins being thrown at his door. Our other housemate was away at the time and it certainly wasn't me.
I actually feel quite guilty writing this, but what do you recommend we do in this situation? Let him off as just a guy with some issues? Keep an eye on him? I really don't know, to be honest. The cruellest thing I can say is that his shouting is very off-putting if I'm trying to study, or indeed have friends round.
When I shared halls with this particular person last year, I held a brief conversation with his mother on the first day, in which she told me that he has Asperger's Syndrome and sometimes struggles with others. I was fine with that, as I too am an (albeit mild) AS sufferer. Indeed, he did come across as somewhat eccentric and socially awkward, but this was to be expected and I didn't judge him for it, I also defended him around the others (without telling them explicitly what his issue is - not my business to tell people).
Anyway, fast forward a year and he's now living with us properly. Now we're sharing a house together and not just a kitchen, we're starting to become rather concerned. From about 10am he starts to hold very loud conversations with himself in his room. We'd occasionally hear him if we went past his bedroom last year, but we all assumed he was online gaming and/or Skyping. Thing is, this started in the new house before we even had the internet set up. He'll be almost shouting at himself for hours on end. He's actually doing it right now, and has been doing so non-stop since I got home from lectures at about 6:30pm. Sometimes, he's actually holding full-on conversations as two people. The "characters" he voices appear from my room next door to be an angry, threatening man and a meek, frightened woman. These are LOUD and can be heard throughout the house at all hours, which means that he either has no idea that he's doing it, or doesn't care.
At first I assumed it was just simply a considerably worse case of AS than that of my own. Growing up, I always had the need to "flap" when I was in the privacy of my room. I'd often not realise quite how much I was doing it until afterwards. But these flaps were quite handy, as they would remove any stress and anxiety from my system for a while and I'd be able to immediately go downstairs and "be normal". So I assumed he just had a more vocal equivalent, but other more recent examples, such as marching around talking to himself outside, or last week when I went past him on the bus, and he was quite angrily shouting at a rather scared looking group of people from a distance.
Look, I'm not here to just complain about him, when I see him downstairs he's friendly and chatty and I bear him no ill will at all, but another housemate has become convinced that Alex's problems are possibly considerably worse than what we've been told, and he's now being rather paranoid after he says he was awoken in the early hours a few days ago with coins being thrown at his door. Our other housemate was away at the time and it certainly wasn't me.
I actually feel quite guilty writing this, but what do you recommend we do in this situation? Let him off as just a guy with some issues? Keep an eye on him? I really don't know, to be honest. The cruellest thing I can say is that his shouting is very off-putting if I'm trying to study, or indeed have friends round.
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Comments
You need to speak to him, not from the POV of trying to assess the severity of his AS or whether his behaviours are expressions of that, or because you´re concerned whether his AS behaviours are getting worse, as there´s nothing more likely to get people´s back up than someone sticking their nose into your business just because you have a "label" and they feel they need to be concerned about everything (I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in my teens and there was nothing worse than people constantly being "concerned" and watching my behaviour if I said I was having a bad day as thought they were waiting for me to down a bottle of pills just because I wasn´t feeling like jumping around waving pompoms). You need to speak to your housemate from the point of view of his behaviours being disruptive to other people, which isn´t fair or acceptable from anyone.
I don´t see how you can´t speak to him to let him know his behaviour being disruptive/annoying etc for the rest of you, and could he be more mindful of his volume ... that then means you have told him that he´s disturbing you (so he is definitely aware of his actions being disruptive) and he can then choose to act on that information or not. The behaviours may be stemming from his AS but that doesn´t give him carte blanche to disturb everyone else - he either needs to find a way to live in the house without disturbing everyone with his behaviours or find other accommodation if this is going to continue being a disturbance.
If he acts on it, problem solved, if he doesn´t then perhaps it might be time to get someone in "authority" ie landlord/lettings company get involved. Or even go to your Student Union/Uni support centre (or your equivalent) because I know that at my uni, if you were having any problems with housemates etc for whatever reason they could either help as an advocate between the two parties or give you contact details/make arrangements with people who *could* help.
I have no experience of autism at all and I could be talking rubbish but is it possible to speak to his mum? Just to find out if this is normal for him or is he experiencing worsening of his symptoms if you know what I mean. For all you know university life could be taking its toll on him and he needs help.
As I said though I could be talking rubbish and I hope I havent offended anyone.
take care xx
Try to get a contact for his mother...she needs informed.Maybe he is neglecting meds and this really needs addressed. His mum has admitted to his AS ,but maybe it is something else and she is using AS to excuse anything you might be concerned about If you have no contact for the mum(and I can't see why you would have tbh), then contact whoever is responsible for sorting out student safety and issues and explain your concerns.They can contact the mother .
Not wishing to frighten you but I really hope you have a secure lock on your door . No harm to the guy, but he sounds really unstable.
I'll stress again, I DEF would not speak to HIM about it.If he is in a bad place mentally you will only provoke him.Or if it genuinely is AS then he will be terribly embarrassed at having drawn attention to himself in a negative way.
This!
Speak to the people responsible for student safety.
Maybe it might be best to speak to them then the mother as they will know what's the right thing to do for all your safety. The mother will be looking out for her child and night overlook your actual safety. Sounds harsh but it's true.
Please tell when everything is sorted OP.
I disagree, having friends and family who are on the autistic spectrum, some of them would be very upset if they felt people were going behind their back to talk to other people without once speaking to them first. My cousin is high functioning AS and as he likes to say when people seem to think it´s better to talk to other people about him/his behaviour instead of him directly "I have my quirks and issues, but being deaf is not one of them"
Yes, having autism/AS means that you have to make some accommodations for their behaviour, but if they are capable of living independently and attending university, they should be treated like other young adults in the same situation and given the opportunity to adjust their behaviours before having anyone else involved.
It may be that he´s just not aware of how loud/distracting his behaviours are and generally speaking, many autistic people aren’t interested in hints/comments etc – they want to know two things directly: 1) What do you want me to do? and 2) Why should I?
I am another who would say get in contact with his mother somehow and not approach him directly..
I'd be uncomfortable living there based on what you've said so would be contacting somebody in an official capacity within the university to express concern with, or if I had his mothers details I would be straight on the phone to her.
I don't have a huge amount of experience with schizophrenia but my cousin had it and also had conversations with himself and voiced other characters - he turned violent before he was on medication - might not be this but definitely worth finding out about.
I disagree with you. I have two friends who had AS and when I spoke to them directly about what had concerned me they got very upset no matter how nice I put it. And it made them even more upset.
Speaking to the person may have worse affects. Speaking to the mother may not actually help the OP and other flat mates. Speaking with the safety people will help as try are trained for stuff like this and don't have to tell the person who I what was said. There is confidentiality and the person may not even need to know others have brought this to the safety peoples attention.
The problem now is that my other housemates aren't convinced about talking to someone. They feel it's perhaps unduly harsh and may cause him bother, and one of them is concerned he may work out it was us which will cause friction. I really don't know what to do about it...
Any chance of recording this? He might not even know he is doing it.
Other issues have also arisen - naturally we don't have money to throw around, and he mentioned in passing that he doesn't turn his electricity off, which is causing us all some concern. Not only this, but although the talking has decreased for the most part, the sound levels on his electronic devices has become crazy - I could hear the dialogue word for word in my room across the hall, by 6am I found a pair of earplugs, and upon waking at 10am it was still going on.
Problem is, we're all pretty scared to approach him, even knowing we may not even be able to afford the bills, simply because he seems to be improving in other ways, and we have a genuine fear that confronting him may see things get much worse.
A friend suggested we just have a house meeting and come up with a few simple rules, but to make pains that they are general rules and not aimed specifically at him. He didn't turn up to the meeting but when we showed him what we'd come up with he was fine and he said they were perfectly reasonable. Alas, he followed them for all of about two days.
I have to have a very occasional meeting with the disability advisors because of my own AS, and that should take place this coming week. As the advisor is presumably knowledgeable in this field, do you think I should use this meeting to ask her for advice? Or to gauge if this kind of behaviour is indeed seen in some AS cases? I'm worried I'll come across as insensitive, but preferably I'd just like to find a way to be able to deal with him and the rather scary bill situation without upsetting him or doing anything rash.
You definitely should speak to your advisor. It sounds like he is getting worse, not better. The electrical noise in particular, some use that as they think it masks their thoughts etc so I honestly would say something.
He could just snap, you need advise from an expert on next steps. I really believe he also has something else, and is likely not taking his medication for it.
If I was in your situation I would, as others have said, contact the relevant officials who can help your flatmate and contact his family, if possible, as they will need to know, and take action, if his condition has worsened.
I'd definitely talk with your own disability advisor. One way to think of it is that if it's a problem affecting you you're quite right to talk about it with him/her.
He left in early-December for the Christmas break and is due to return tonight or tomorrow, I believe. He and another housemate had a minor "to do" about the bills that were due, and during their argument, he revealed he has had an "emotional/mental breakdown" and felt unable to leave his bedroom for "nine weeks". Not only this but he mentioned how he has done barely any work and has spent the Christmas break working non-stop just so he "stands a chance" of passing.
This makes this trickier. He has confirmed the concerns that he wasn't coping - his more recent issues were not washing clothes and he has gained a fair amount of weight in a very short period of time - but what can we do? Personally, I feel the best thing for him would be to defer the rest of the year, restart his second year in September (this has worked for a friend of mine who was diagnosed with depression) and possibly apply for an exemption to remain in halls for the remainder of his degree, but of course it's not my business. That said, I can't help but feel his parents are letting him down by sending him back here in the first place, when it's clearly doing him no good at all.
I really think the best thing you can do to help is to raise your concerns with the student support worker person.
All of about ten minutes later, he angrily bangs on my door, pretty much shaking with rage, lip quivering, raging about it being rude. I admitted it may have been a mistake in hindsight (I've been getting so pee'd off about the noise now that I wrote the letter because I felt that if I spoke face-to-face I'd have ended up shouting at him, and didn't want to do that), but that the point still stands. The sound levels aren't acceptable.
He crumpled the letter and threw it, threateningly grabbed a bottle and proceeded to throw that down the stairs. Not good at all. He admitted about the breakdown and I suggested we talk about it properly tomorrow, to which he stormed off.
Not good at all, and now I'm scared I've made things much worse. Fact is, he has worsened yet more. He talks to himself practically non-stop, anywhere in the house, even when I went past him on the bus yesterday and he was talking to himself quite visibly on campus. The problem is, I made an appointment with student counselling to discuss his issues, and just like with disability services the crux of their advice seems to be "just talk to him". I'm being palmed off with someone who is very ill and potentially dangerous, and I'm desperately unqualified. I still don't feel that I'm able to just get him removed from the house though. He needs help, and there isn't much difference between him not getting any help here and not getting any away from me.
And yes, I'm starting to get a bit worried for myself as well as him now.
People with AS don't grasp that their actions may annoy others its a crutch and some DO talk to themselves and have odd one sided conversations with themselves.
Are you both registered with the same GP service at your Uni do you know?
I wonder if going and talking to them about your concerns regarding his mental health would be worth it. The difficulty with the counselling service and a GP is the issue of confidentiality and they will likely suggest that he approaches them himself for help.
Hope that the situation resolves as it doesn't seem healthy for anyone in the house at the moment
But your last post suggests that something really needs to be done. At the end of the day, you have got to look after number one and if you genuinely feel concerned for your own safety then you've got to take steps to either get him out of your house, or for you to leave. Is moving out any sort of option for you?
Sadly, I don't know exactly what steps those are. Have you actually phoned his parents and talked to them directly about it? (Sorry if you've already said that you have and I missed it)
You sound like a lovely person, but his well being is not your main concern - your own is.
Hope you get it sorted.
ETA. And as someone who had to endure blaring crappy "drum n bass" music at all hours of the night for the whole of my first year of university whilst in halls of residence, I sympathise a great deal with you over the issues of noise. People who haven't been on the receiving end of repeated noise have no idea how maddening it can be.