Published on 12, July, 2020
sorry if im making this post wrong. i dont know how to navigate the site very well. im also sorry if any of this comes off as insensitive, please correct me if it is. i just don't know what to do.
my brother and i are twins, older than 20, our parents are nearing their 60s and i'm terrified that they'll slip in his pee and end up seriously hurt.
he's not interested in learning to communicate, to wear clothes on his own, etc. the only piece of sign language he's cared about is "more," which he only uses when asked if he's hungry.
he pees on the bathroom floor, on his bedroom floor, on his bed, on our parents bed, on their bedroom floor, in the hallway, in the kitchen floor, on piles of his clothes, towels, everyone's laundry. the only reason he doesnt pee in my room is because its locked all the time. there's no pattern except that he pees. everywhere. on our beautiful hardwood, on carpet, etc.
he knows to poo in the toilet, thank god, and does actually make an effort to pee there too when my parents take his devices away for peeing on the floor. but when he gets his things back he just goes and does it again. theyve given him buckets to pee in too and even that doesnt help. they remind him to go in the potty every 30 minutes.
(it may be important to add that when he pees, he doesnt know to just pee. he has to, uh, self pleasure before he can. i have to wonder if peeing everywhere has become pleasurable by way of association? like hes pavlovd himself into being that way?)
it doesnt matter what we tell him, it doesnt change. the floors are rotting out. the stress over it is rotting our relationships. i'm trying to convince my parents that he needs to go stay in some kind of residential facility or something, but i don't think they'll listen. what on earth could we possibly do to get him to stop?!?
Sounds like you do need to draft in some expert help from somewhere.
It's difficult to tell how much of this might be voluntary for him. I gather he is non-speaking from what you have said. Does he also have intellectual impairments?
Adult or child autistic toilet problems can originate in many things. Some aspects of the sensory differences are a big player. To begin with; is he able to tell when he needs to go? Knowing when we need the loo is part of our interoception. This is difficult to interpret for some autistic people and getting a handle on when to go can be genuinely hard. If that's the case, punishment and reward won't help much and may make it worse.
Then there are all sort of other bathroom sensitivities which can either help or hinder the process; anything from the sound of the flush to the feel of the seat or having to remove clothes etc. Some autistic kiddies develop a real 'phobia' of the loo.
Then there's the social. It may be that he just doesn't get why it isn't socially acceptable to go just anywhere or to errr engage in other activities when not alone. Just telling him to use the loo or a potty may not be enough. If the social is more the problem, then conversely reward might be effective. He may not get why, but he will get the 'positive consequence'. Routines could also help.
I would talk to your GP as a family to see how you can access some help. Your parents won't be around to mop up for ever and there will reach a point where this is not good for their health and safety. It sounds like a specialist occupational therapist needs to work with him to find out which aspects of his particular profile are causing the issue and work out a systematic approach to fixing it.
Alternatively, or as an interim, could he be persuaded to wear incontinence pants, if they don't cause him sensory issues.