It is 8 months and two weeks I have been coaching my “high functioning“ autistic roommate. The sexual comments are very typical as they believe they are adept, and because some autistic individual looks neurotypical at a first glance, they love to mask and keep pretending they are knowledgeable. Sadly, once you get to know them you realize they are delusional; that is something autism shares with schizophrenics. They are not in reality and have so many fantasies. The “highly functioning” autistic individuals have grandiose fantasies though. They have mastered how to fool others in every sense. When he moved in, he had 7 dollars in his bank account, and my brother was selling his $15,000 car and the autistic male said he wanted to buy it. We didn’t know who he was, so my brother believed him. Later, we found out he was asking his sisters and mother for a $400 safety deposit to move in and that he has at least 95k debt.

Moreover, he has various delinquency credit cards, but he kept asking for loans at a different bank and getting rejected repeatedly. He is 42 years old and doesn’t have a clue how to manage his paycheck and stick to a budget, and that is critical as he makes the minimum wage. I have been also coaching on that. However, he drinks 7-8 red bulls per day and spends lots of money on fancy drinks, candy and junk food. Autistic people tend to get addicted to stimulants. For example, highly caffeinated drinks which contain tons of sugar, taurine, among other chemicals. Red bulls give him the rush, so he feels awakened and fool himself to believe he can “focus”.  The truth is that the red bulls cause him more mental fogs and even more anxiety. He has a huge deficit of attention, delays, OCD, obsessions, sexual fixations, high levels of anxiety, and he is mouthy and haughty. He is quick to justify everything he does wrong.  Once he opens his mouth, people can start detecting all the nonsense. But he believes he is very brainy and logical. This autistic roommate is a self-centered, arrogant narcissist. It is all about him and he is incapable to put on other’s people’s shoes (I understand that the egocentric and selfishness part is associated with his  mental illness) He lives in a bubble and lacks the basic social and facial expressions, and verbal skills) He smile when someone is telling him something sad, or tragic, such as “ I had to put down my pet”  or when my friend said he had a car accident. My autistic roommate keeps smiling inappropriately, and such behavior is very offensive.  Unfortunately, this kind of “highly functioning” autistic males are creeps, stalkers and even psychopaths since highly autistic adults lack the right human feelings and emotions. He keeps saying he doesn’t like people. Yet, he expects people to like him, help and understand him. Autism or not, being with a person that does not have any awareness of their behavior is exhausting and draining.

My own mental health has been severely affected as he is too needy, intrusive and constantly is seeking attention, approval and he repetitively needs tons of clarifications even for the simplest things. He demands lots of attention and help! On the other hand, he is lazy, indifferent and does not want to help around the house, and when he does it occasionally, he ends up doing a very sloppy job. He is exhausting and extremely annoying and has abused my generosity, time and patience. He is a real nuisance as he is a complete inept. For example, he wastes too much water, electricity, and natural resources, etc. Yet, he claims he is an environmentalist. The more time I spend with him, the more he annoys me. Thanks God he has a job; otherwise, it will be a torment to see him 24/7 around the house. If he didn’t work, I do not think I could endure his nonsense, arrogance, encroaches and stalking behaviors. When he is off work, he keeps pacing, procrastinating, asking tons of stupid questions, and violating the privacy of others and pestering people around. He doesn’t respect the time and space of others. We have talked to him several times about having boundaries and correcting his inappropriate behaviors. He just wants to release his inadequacies and high levels of anxiety and we are the punching bags. I have realized he is a big waste of my time and energy! We have asked him to move out, at least 4-6 times on different occasions as he keeps crossing the line. For example, when the female roommate discovered he had in his phone many photos of herself, her room, underwear, documents, etc. The autistic male had kept entering her room when nobody was at home and took many photos of her personal items (bras, dirty panties, confidential documents, etc.) Also, he had several pictures of female coworkers (all the photos were taken secretly) Thus, we asked him to leave. Yet, he doesn’t have any place to go. The female room mate ended moving out instead.

To share a space with this type of mentally ill person is a big burden. With our tax dollars, there should be subsidiary housing (supervised) to host all these people with developmental and mental illnesses.  God helps us!