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Old May 20, 2010, 05:27 AM
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amandalouise amandalouise is offline
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Member Since: Mar 2009
Location: 8CS / NYS / USA
Posts: 9,171
Quote:
Originally Posted by brotherbear View Post
Hello everyone,

My little brother, age 17 is going to college next year. I'm very proud he manage to get into UC Berkeley however I extremely worried about his social life. He has always been forgetful in petty things, like groceries, chores and everyday instructions yet he at his best when coming to test or studying. He seems always lost in his own world, almost oblivious of his surroundings, he doesn't notice much about the outside world (here, I mean out of his school). He doesn't have much friends and when he talks, it doesn't really get to the point. He can write essays perfectly fine but has a lot of trouble in talking normally. What's even more troubling is that he does know a lot from reading news and surfing the net but when it comes to communication, he completely fails.

This could really cause him trouble at college, especially a big public one. I'm worried since being so ignorant, he might get paranoid from trying drugs or even get someone pregnant by accident.

This situation has been carried on for years, ever since he was a young boy. Our family told him to take more notice of what's happening inside the family because he doesn't even know the name of our relatives despite all the family gatherings in his life. He has trouble in most basic and instinct human characteristic: simply to care for others or to be proactive.

I know that deep inside him, he wants to become more socially active and take care of the family. But sometime, he just got stuck into his own little world again and become almost deaf when we talk to him. Or he just simply forgot. Plus, he has a hard time to think out of the box - we can order him around and he would follow the EXACT directions no more or no less. For example, we sent him to buy some oranges. The oranges were bad and out of season yet he bought them anyway, without a second thought.

One more thing, we already have him medically check and he has no symptoms of brain damage or whatsoever.

In overall, does my description fit to any mental disorder?
If so, are there any treatments?

If not, are there any advice for him to be more proactive? or simply to be more open?

Thanks
if you google these symptoms you wrote about you will find that these things could be any mental disorder or no mental disorder depending on any other symptoms or problems he may have.

the only thing I can tell you for sure is that if "he" thinks he has a problem he can contact the colleges nurse and mental health office and they can refer him to a psychiatrist for diagnostic testing. we cant diagnose him here and he is an adult so you cant drag him off to be tested. Also it may be better not to try and self diagnose him with any mental disorder as you may end up self diagnosing him with the wrong things, when nothing may be wrong with him or something other than what you find on line is wrong with him. new diagnoses are being recognized every day and not all of them are found on line or through on line support groups.

if you thin he has a problem you can kindly suggest to him the problem areas you see and ask him if he would like to get tested but other than that, thats all you can do,