Family Enraged After Roommate Refuses To Be A Caretaker For Their Perfectly Capable Autistic Daughter
Having a roommate can be both a fun and horrible experience, depending on what kind of person that roommate is. Some people make lifelong friendships with people who live with them. Yet, not everyone is so lucky — some get such flawed roommates that they want to run away from them as quickly as possible.
Like today’s OP, who got an autistic roommate. The autism wasn’t the problem, but her using it as an excuse to not do chores she used to do very successfully before was. And so, the unwillingness to be a caretaker for someone else quickly drove the woman out of the room.
More info: Reddit
While some people end up with amazing roommates who end up being lifelong friends, others aren’t that lucky
Image credits: Zen Chung (not the actual photo)
A woman’s autistic roommate was babied by people at the college, which resulted in her not taking care of herself and justifying it with the fact that she’s on the spectrum
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
The roommate expected the woman to do all the chores for her, like picking up her clothes, cooking, and cleaning
Image credits: Ketut Subiyanto (not the actual photo)
But she, knowing the girl used to do it all herself before everyone started coddling her, refused to do so
Image credits: u/fishnile
This resulted in her being viewed as an uncompassionate jerk by various people in her life
Today’s OP is a college student who lived in a room with an autistic roommate, dubbed Sarah in the story. Autism is a lifelong neurological and developmental disorder that typically affects how people communicate, learn, and behave. It is known to be a spectrum, as there are many variations of symptoms people can experience.
Since Sarah is on the spectrum, many people in college, including professors, gave her special treatment. Also, they expected her roommate to be the caregiver.
The problem for the woman arose when Sarah started acting like she needed a caretaker as well. She started leaving clothes everywhere and asked the OP to cook for her and clean up after her. Anytime the OP confronted her about it, she used autism as an excuse.
As we emphasized before, this disorder is a spectrum, which means that some autistic individuals need help in their daily lives nearly all the time, but some just need occasional help, and others can live fully independently.
The help that an autistic person needs also varies. Some need help with chores or studying, while others might struggle with communication. So, for example, learning how to communicate on their terms can be a form of help. It includes stuff like trying to talk in a literal and concise way, taking time to listen to what they have to say, and not talking to them like they’re a baby who doesn’t understand anything.
Patience and compassion can also be needed when interacting with an autistic individual. Some of them might struggle with identifying certain social norms, which can result in some unconventional situations. So, being compassionate and guiding them through life, which is already hard enough for a neurotypical person who doesn’t have a disorder, is something everyone should strive to do.
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
Yet, the problem the author had in helping her autistic roommate was she knew that she used to be able to take care of herself. This incompetence only started when everyone started babying her. So, since the woman didn’t want to be another person coddling an autistic roomie with low support needs, she stopped her caregiving “service.”
This resulted in backlash from many people in her life. So, the woman turned to Reddit to ask the good old question: “Am I the jerk?” And the majority of people there answered that she was not. They understood where the author was coming from and didn’t blame her for refusing to be a caretaker for a person she was assigned to live with.
Instead, they blamed others for babying Sarah, thus giving her the idea that she could get out of certain responsibilities. Some netizens even suggested the OP talk to the college’s administration about the possibility of getting another room.
A bit later, in the edit of the post, the original poster revealed that she, in fact, got another room. Ironically, of all the people who yapped about how the author should be helping Sarah, none of them wanted to be her replacement roommate. This just shows how simple it is to tell people what to do when you don’t have to do it yourself, doesn’t it?
Well, let’s just hope that they ended up finding someone who was willing to live with her. And, of course, that OP found a roommate that she liked and didn’t have to take care of against her will. Or, at least, that this situation worked as a lesson for everyone, especially those babying a grown woman.
Yet people online didn’t agree with this sentiment and dubbed everyone else in the story jerks
I'm not autistic but I am disabled.,my opinion here is it's not your job or responsibility to cater to anyone. You paid good money to go to school and for housing. It's expensive too. It's not your responsibility and you know that you're not compatible as roommates or comfortable living in that environment either. Switch rooms, ignore all the ppl giving you a hard time and if they try to continue to make you care for the roommate, report them and tell them it's interfering with your time and education. She should be living elsewhere with an aide. You're not qualified and should have the right to an education and an end to the harassment.
OP is paying good money for accommodation and to be able to study, she is being absolutely used by any administration that expects her to take on care duties to another student. This is affecting her own capacity to study and learn and the money being paid by her entitles her to the best opportunity to do both those things, not anything else for a potentially disabled room mate. She is well within her rights to threaten to sue the school for interfering with her right to study and receive an education by having all this harassment thrown her way.
This is assuming the administration knows about the problem. If OP hasn't reached out to an RA or someone in housing, how exactly are they supposed to know this is even happening? I work with college students and it's astonishing what they'll put up with before the reach out for help.
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Im pretty sure partying all day and refusing to look after urself when ur clearly able to do so as u did so before is NOT a symptom of autism...
The autism is definitely just being used as an excuse here
Load More Replies... I'm not autistic but I am disabled.,my opinion here is it's not your job or responsibility to cater to anyone. You paid good money to go to school and for housing. It's expensive too. It's not your responsibility and you know that you're not compatible as roommates or comfortable living in that environment either. Switch rooms, ignore all the ppl giving you a hard time and if they try to continue to make you care for the roommate, report them and tell them it's interfering with your time and education. She should be living elsewhere with an aide. You're not qualified and should have the right to an education and an end to the harassment.
OP is paying good money for accommodation and to be able to study, she is being absolutely used by any administration that expects her to take on care duties to another student. This is affecting her own capacity to study and learn and the money being paid by her entitles her to the best opportunity to do both those things, not anything else for a potentially disabled room mate. She is well within her rights to threaten to sue the school for interfering with her right to study and receive an education by having all this harassment thrown her way.
This is assuming the administration knows about the problem. If OP hasn't reached out to an RA or someone in housing, how exactly are they supposed to know this is even happening? I work with college students and it's astonishing what they'll put up with before the reach out for help.
Load More Replies... Im pretty sure partying all day and refusing to look after urself when ur clearly able to do so as u did so before is NOT a symptom of autism...
The autism is definitely just being used as an excuse here
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