Can an Asperger's diagnosis help someone modify unacceptable behaviour?

[dotnet]

My brother has always been difficult. As a child, I loathed and detested him for his greedy sneakiness, bullying, arrogance and a complete lack of kindness or consideration.

Many decades on, following the death of our second parent, he (retired now) took part in the sharing out of family possessions. We siblings got together and took it in turns to choose family items by rotation. It was all perfectly fair.

But on two or possibly three occasions since the sharing out, he has broken into my house and made off with family stuff which he thinks rightfully should be his! He was challenged by my neighbours once - he always makes these thieving forays when he knows I'm away. He convinced my neighbours that he was who he said he was and that he had the right to get into my house. He doesn't have a key, but is clever at making and mending and so, effectively, picked the lock assisted by a skeleton key, I suppose.

I've since had to fork out nearly £100 for the services of a locksmith to make my front door brother-proof. I am very, very angry and upset and the most recent thieving episode has brought all my negative childhood feelings about him flooding back. Over recent years I'd tried to get our relationship on a better footing, and I'd thought things had improved (though we'd never be close) - and now this.

It only dawned on me a couple of years ago that his brain doesn't seem to be wired like other people's - and Aspergers might be the reason why.

He's had a couple of brushes with the police because of not recognising normal boundaries.

As I say in the heading - might a diagnosis be helpful (to him as well as to various people he takes against?)

If so, - how can he be encouraged to get one?

There are five of us here with AS. None of us have ever shown any signs of criminal behaviour. As a researcher and part time lecturer of student doctors, teaching ASDs, I have only ever come across research that clearly demonstrates that in fact those with AS are far LESS likely to be inclined toward criminal behaviour and violent tendencies toward others.

Thanks for all the posts! It does look very much as if my homespun diagnosis may well be completely wrong. But I don't suppose I'm wrong in thinking that people with Aspergers are as varied as people without it - some lovely, some awful?
Anyhoo, I just have this hunch that he behaves unlike other people because he has some kind of condition - OK, maybe not Aspergers - someone at the beginning of the thread said, could be a personality disorder...
Sorry I can't tell you which website has the section on the autism spectrum and criminal tendencies, I didn't write its name down, but it was definitely there - said studies had shown a higher than usual percentage of prison inmates had ASD. I'll try and find it again and come back with it (but I can never remember how to do a link, so you'll still have to bring the site up yourself.)
As I say, I kind of WANT him to have 'something' - that would be 'better' than his being pure and simple a bell end! I cottoned on to Aspergers because he functions OK most (almost all) of the time, and I know Aspergers people do. He is certainly not mainstream though. He can fly off the handle easily, he's a hoarder and when it suits him, he flouts normal boundaries, hence the breaking into my house and a couple of brushes with the police in the past.

On the 'wanting' him to have 'something'... There was a R4 programme about Aspergers some time ago and a man being interviewed on it had an Aspergers diagnosis when he was in his fifties.

He said the diagnosis had been helpful to him. He'd sometimes had
problems at work in the past, and, once he had his diagnosis, he was able to say he had Aspergers and the result was, people showed more forbearance towards him than they had done before the diagnosis - 'oh, that's why you acted like that' kind of thing.

About the question as to whether I have asked my bro. why he behaves as he does? - Well, no, I haven't, recently. He IS explosive, he would shout and be defensive and I would be in the wrong for challenging him. I used to challenge him when I was a child because I hated his getting away with things... but it didn't help, except sometimes when my parents intervened.

I've just looked for the website where I'd seen something about ASD and criminality.
I found it under the heading Asperger syndrome and criminal behaviour and the sub heading was apt.rcpsych.org/content/161/37full

It's complicated though, and glancing through the article again, there are mixed conclusions. 'A study in Broadmoor estimated that 1.5% - 2.3% of the hospital's male population had Aspergers (if equivocal cases were included). This significantly exceeds the 0.36% prevalence for the general population' ...
But reading further, it does look as if no, there is no straightforward link.

Great post, bialystockandbloom.

If some of you had had the dubious privilege of living with this character for sixteen years, you would understand MUCH better where I am coming from.

I did say earlier, I've been trying to let the past stay in the past, and to build up some kind of half decent relationship. I would have dearly loved to have had a nice, normal brother, it must be just lovely.

However, maybe it's impossible to improve things with someone who deems it OK to break into your house and help himself.

I haven't even accused him of the latest thefts. I've referred in emails to having been burgled and - guess what? No response at all. Not 'I'm sorry to hear that'; not 'Are you accusing me?' - just, nothing.

My guess about Aspergers has upset a lot of people, and I'm no psychiatrist or psychologist, maybe it's some completely different condition he's got, what with his narrow interests, his at times deeply anti social behaviour and his explosiveness. It'd be good if there were someone out there with a bit of expertise in odd behaviours, who perhaps recognises a pattern - ?

I've been told many times that my assumptions are offensive! The penny HAS dropped! No need to add to the list, I think, I get the message!

I've already said, I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist, and it may well be that I made a wildly inaccurate guess. I'm human, I make mistakes. I made a guess. This isn't leading anywhere.

DOES anyone out there see anything identifiable in the behaviours I've been talking about - or is he maybe, as someone on page 1 suggested, just a bell end?

If you want to google, there are personality disorder quizzes.

Another who thinks Asperger's is unlikely. Ime people with AS are brutally truthful and very black and white about rules.

If not then someone needs to tell my DS he's doing it all wrong!

See, OP, it's things like DOES anyone out there see anything identifiable in the behaviours I've been talking about - or is he maybe, as someone on page 1 suggested, just a bell end? which is infuriating people here. It's the continued equation with Aspergers = bell end which is just so wrong!

Have AS does not mean you are more likely to be a bell-end or more likely to be a criminal! The article you linked to just basically said that the incidence of those in prison with ASD needs to be examined, not that having ASD means you're more likely to be a criminal.

It might explain what you see as 'anti-social' behaviour, as of course the core impairments in the autistic spectrum are basically impairments in social interaction and social communication.

But as I said before, if you really are concerned that your brother may be on the autistic spectrum the important thing is to read up about the condition and then modify your behaviour to him accordingly, with some understanding of the condition and how it affects people. The NAS has some easy to digest info here

The issues you have wrt to the recent breaking-in, and all the other history (sounds like there's a lot of baggage there) is a separate issue, but does seem to be really bothering you though, and I'd address this separately.

Thanks lynette

Well said zzzz extremely well put about the difference of being anti social and have social communication difficulties.

As the rest have said, nothing in your description screams Aspergers at me. As the mother of an aspie, I am clenching slightly, but I will take AS out of the post and think of it as you asking if your brother being diagnosed with "A condition" (whatever that may be) will help modify his behaviour.

The answer is no. Even if you are diagnosed with having a condition, be it a personality disorder, ASD or whatever else, you have to want to change and be willing to modify your behaviour, and I suspect that he wouldn't.

The internet can't diagnose, but to be honest from your description, I'd be looking at anti-social PD. In which case, I stand by my No.

Why on earth didn't you call the Police and report the break in and theft??

If you brother is not called to account for his actions he will continue to believe he has a right to do such things!

Thanks Xmas. After the first person who responded suggested it could be a personality disorder, I looked that up as well, and the nearest I can find is Antisocial personality disorder. So maybe it's that, which is what you think is a possibility, as well.

To be honest I didn't think it massively likely that his getting a diagnosis of something or other would be likely to help him mend his ways, but I thought it just conceivable that it might.

Fifty... yes, BIG temptation to call the police, because I do think it quite possible his fingerprints would be on other things adjacent to the things which have gone missing.

But, as I said earlier, I'm trying to improve our relationship - very, very difficult. But he is my brother. If he'd broken into a neighbour's house (but he wouldn't do that, I'm certain of that) - then I WOULD report him. As it is, I've decided not to involve the police, and am instead pouring out my bile on Mumsnet, and to various people I know (and who know him.)

I'll mostly get over this eventually, and I do try to tell myself that he did what he did because of something in his makeup which makes him shall we say, 'challenging.'

Maybe that should be the end of this conversation, peeps. It does look as if I probably got it very wrong about the Aspergers thing.

Thanks for all the posts.

Anti-social personality disorder would be the one and only possibility seeing as none of the others have any more to do with criminal behaviour than Aspergers .