i cant do this anymore :(

[ThatVikRinA22]

Ds is 20 and has aspergers, dyspraxia and dyslexia, and is still burying his head in the financial sand and i just dont think i can do anything more for him.

He is rubbish with money, he has stolen from me, taken huge interest pay day loans, secretly got and spent to the limit on a credit card and run up 2 bank accounts to their maximum overdrafts.

i thought we had finally sorted it but this month he has come to me in a panic wanting money. I have asked why and to sit with him to see what has gone wrong again, (i have had his bank card so i thought he couldnt spend) but he is refusing to show me what the money has gone on.

i am refusing to help unless he does.
so stalemate

i am worried that he is taking out debt and using our home address to get credit that he cannot pay.

he has gone for a walk and im here feeling shit. Yesterday i spend the entire day at uni with him for his DSA assessment and sorting out his accommodation.

today, i feel like i have no choice but to ask him to leave.
help.

I see the problem ... and it makes me angry for the families as well as for the young people involved

This may sound mad - but I issue a challenge to your DS, Vicar. To play Freecell so well that you always get it to come out. This is possible, I have done it, and so has an ex-colleague.

This is the method in my madness: Thought it might fill some of the gap that DS might feel when he stops gambling.

i will tell him pink - but i think he also does the online gambling for money - sometimes he wins - he thinks he has all these "systems" and can win. (i have found that he has been selling websites with gambling tips on....no idea where this ends....i realise i have no idea what he is up to half the time)

maryz - i will accept your shedloads of sympathy and send you shedloads back - they are just in a world of their own so much of the time. Its impossilbe to help someone who is hell bent on not accepting it. Just thinking about what DS said at lunch time - he reckoned he would be out of debt by June.....now im no maths whizz, but even i have worked out thats just not going to happen, but i need to stay calm or he will just walk again.

i would feel so much better if he ever learnt from any of this - but of course he doesnt, we just go round and round.

Sgt says i can have the day off tomorrow if i want it - but im wondering how much i will have to pay for it when i go back....dont think inspector will be too happy.

i think half of my stress comes from DS, a quarter from DH/DD and the rest from work....

He is working as a programmer, yes? What is his working pattern? And he's going to uni to study something techie? Is it somewhere local, is he scared of going, is he bad at maths and good at logic, and can anyone in your house use Excel?

I ask all these questions to compare and contrast his strategies with mine. I have very very high intelligence, and am a massive under-achiever. What is he planning to do after uni? to be self-employed? we people with AS can struggle in ordinary employment.

He's been selling websites with tips on? Can you pm me a link?

Glad he came home to talk it through.

Fingers crossed he sticks to what he has agreed.

yep pink he works part time from home flexible hours (min of 15)

no real pattern - just min of 15 hours. He often works through the night as he is completely nocturnal, though he tends to choose to go into the offices for at least a day per week.

at the min he studies Mon and Tues only for his foundation degree. In Sept he is going to uni full time as a residential student - its a good 70 min drive from home.

He is good at maths. A levels in it, (and physics,) but crap at logic. I dont think he is scared of going, but i think he will get something of a reality check. (he is a slob, lives in filth if i allow it, and isnt great on the personal care front)
After uni his boss has said there will be a job for him if he wants it.

DH found the websites he has been selling - or at least evidence of it - but he uses another name online - dh googled him - not sure where the link is without DH.

He does a bit of freelance work programming using sites that tender work out, but im not sure to what extent. I dont think he has time to do much what with uni and work.
it worries me that he will not manage his time well when in full time uni. his organisational skills and time management are terrible, but the disability team at uni are aware of that, and he will have 3 hours per week with a study skills tutor.

....and thanks 5 - i hope so too.

This is very hopeful vicar as I have a similar working pattern. In my late 20s I worked as a programmer on the very earliest pc's - PETs and Apple II's. No graphics, tiny memories by today's standards, but you could take them home so I could mess about learning stuff and playing adventure games in the middle of the night.

Flexibility and the ability to sprint for a deadline have always been valuable to the programming industry, and now it is very easy to work from home, as your DS has found. You should be very proud of him earning his own money at his age in these difficult times, just as I was proud of my DC for working in the hospitality industry at the same age

What did you do about giving him pocket money when he was younger, if you don't mind me asking. Thank you for answering my questions (And does anyone in your house know spreadsheets?)

Physics, Pure Maths, and Applied Maths A Levels (1970) here, btw. DF and I used to annoy DM by talking physics at meal times - we are both AS I'm pretty sure.

it is hopeful, i just want him to be ok. i love him to bits, and have worked my socks off to help him, feels likea smack in the teeth when he throws it back at me.

he can use excel. i cant but he can.

we gave him pocket money from him being fairly little, but it always burnt a hole in his money box - same as DD - she now has an allowance but im a soft touch and i always topped it up if they needed something extra. my bad. i know that now. i should stop doing this with DD now before it bites me on the arse.

He put his money in his money box? The money box wasn't just for saving?

All children ime start off by spending it all on sweets the day they get it. This lasts a while especially as at the beginning their mothers parents are a soft touch for a magazine, or a cuddly rabbit, or whatever!

He may be a good mathematician, but can he do arithmetic? The two don't necessarily go together. And re the maths, did he study probability as part of his A level?

Unis are quite good places for people with AS/strange sleeping patterns to study and think. That's where a lot of us used to end up, I imagine this is still true, what's he studying? (btw I was one of 3 females in first year physics (1970-71) out of about 40 or so)

he is studying computer science. i think he will really enjoy uni ( i know i would!) and yep - he keeps some very odd hours.

BTW sadly for the parents 20 seems to be a horribly selfish age, NT, AS or whatever! I guess it is genetically programmed. It's also an age where it hasn't properly dawned that the Bank of Mum and Dad does not offer unlimited credit.

Ooh does it last? Maybe I'm only about to hit 55? [also hopeful]

i share you theory Maryz - reckon they are 2/3rd of their chronological age. DS at 20 is less mature than his 14 yr old sister. i live in hope that he matures and i remind myself often that this is a developmental condition - they do develop and mature - its just at a slower pace than others their age.

i tell myself this to stop the insanity that would prevail otherwise....

hey dont worry vivian...i know that feeling.

and its true. banks, loan companies, none of them give a shit. i once had a woman risk her own job to stop a contract he had started with some internet company he signed up for to get a free laptop - course it wasnt free at all - and she heard him crying in the back ground and she stopped the contract even though she wasnt meant to do it. lovely woman. she just said her conscience wouldnt let her do anything else.

we need more like her. and less greedy bloody unscrupulous money grabbing bastards.

Vicar - I dont know what to say :(
My ds is 10 and its my frequent worry that he will experience many of the problems your ds is (and therefore I may be in your position in 10 years time)

My ds is convinced that as an adult he is going to own a mansion............

Sympathies

Vicar he doesn't have a strategy for managing money, he can learn one (I am helping a DF's autistic son, becomes teenager this year, get to grips with money. Come what may, he is going to need it.

More worrying is his seeming ignorance of the laws of probability especially as related to card games. I am throwing down another solitaire challenge: can he win an accumulated $300 playing Solitaire on Vegus rules (where you pay $52 for the pack, and win $5 for each card stacked in the suit piles, so if it comes out first time you are $208 ahead)

if he had $52 i would show him but for the next few months his budget is going to be so tight i darent relay your challenge just yet! unless he breaks his own rules....he says he has blocked himself for 60 days (if he is telling me the truth)

if he has spending money of £20 per week its going to take months to get him out of debt.

he earns 350 per month
has outgoings of 90
needs 80 for transport etc to uni
will have 80 to spend

will leave 100 per month, but wants to put 20 per month away for emergencies so this is going to take a while as he is 700 overdrawn. thats not including next months bank charges which could be terrible.....unauthorised overdraft, plus a tenner a day, plus interest, plus overdraft fee, so for the forseeable, poker is out. (if he sticks to it that is.....ive heard it all before)

not too hopeful on the social services front now either - they rang today and say they cannot offer what we need. They have apparently never supported anyone going to uni before.
great.

No, the dollars are virtual I play it all the time a lot. It's the standard Microsoft Solitaire (Klondike I think is one of its names) and it used to come as standard with earlier Windows. Vegas rules are one of the scoring options, based on a bet that some British Duke or someone used to offer - he would sell the pack of cards fo £52, and pay £5 for each card put in the suite stack thingies. You can download the same game for free all over the net, but its not the same to me unless it's the original program

I once made $1000, then enjoyed myself losing it all again.

My DGM thought me many different patiences way back when, and gave me a lovely little set of proper patience cards.

Thanks for posting the details re money. Will have a think.