is bad hygiene a sign of a deeper issue?

[Anonymous]

hey guys. i posted awhile back and am still dealing with the same problem. maybe someone who has gone through something similar can offer some good advice? i would sure appreciate it.

my parents sent me away to behaviour mod (PCS) when i was fifteen, and on top of still dealing with that (i'm 23 now) i'm also dealing with a younger brother who is now 15, going through the same shit i was.

we recently went on vacation to europe together, and had a ball, but being 1-on-1 for a week showed me how little he takes care of his health.

for his hygiene, he rarely brushes his teeth and his breath is awful, i mean putrid, and you can see stuff between his teeth. he has been wearing the same "lucky cap" everyday for years. which is fine, only he washes his hair and puts it on (hair still wet) and as it dries and he sweats during the day you can actually smell it  from 4-5 feet away. we went to a couple fancy restaurants and he =refused= to take off his stinky NY Yankees cap.  he also wore the same dirty clothes & socks over and over again. even in a country where many choose not to wear deoderant, people were visually taking a step back when my brother spoke to them.

i know this is normal for boys to be stinky and not care, but also while we were there, he bought some hard liquor over there because of the drinking age, and all i ever saw him drink was that and coca-cola, hardly any water. and what most concerns me, is he only went to the bathroom once a day! he absolutley refused to use a public bathroom even after 20+ hours of traveling between planes and waiting in airports.

i posted before that he got in trouble a while back using mushrooms, he either had a bad batch or took too many, i dont know, but he ended up in the emergency room after getting lost and going up to some strangers house. he had lost his backpack and shoes. the stranger called the cops and two cops took him to the ER and lectured him for 2 hours. THEN, when we were in europe, he wanted to try to score mushrooms!!! i literally grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him and said "no f-ing way!"

i'm really really afraid that he's giving up on himself. he doesn't seem to care about his body/ his health at all. he's never mentioned sucide or being depressed, and he comes off as happy-go-lucky, but i know deep down he's struggling. and i'm not his parent, just an older sister, who is losing sleep with worry about this kid. help!

[Anonymous]

Obviously he doesn't have a girlfriend. When he eventually meets a girl he really wants to impress and hook up with, his problem with hygiene will most likely mysteriously disappear.

Issues of health, not taking care of nutrition etc. will eventually get more serious as he gets older. But most people grow out of that "I'm indestructible" teenage attitude before it's too late.

[Anonymous]

Obviously he doesn't have a girlfriend. When he eventually meets a girl he really wants to impress and hook up with, his problem with hygiene will most likely mysteriously disappear.

Issues of health, not taking care of nutrition etc. will eventually get more serious as he gets older. But most people grow out of that "I'm indestructible" teenage attitude before it's too late.

BUT -- "Mr Indestructible" has a more creative "sister".  the original post is one of the more creative, tho not terribly credible.  great parents who tolerate the non-hygiene issue and still travel together too - very patient.  one wouldn't be surprised to have heard of a real sister or brother having instilled some sense into the idiot.

[Anonymous]

i'm not really sure what you mean by "not terribly credible"? if that means you think i'm bogus or you think i'm not handling the situation correctly? anyway that's why i posted here for advice! i've tried tried tried to "instill sense into the idiot", as you said, but all i ever get back is him yelling, "don't tell me what to do!" i've tried yelling at him, which only gets that response, whacking him upside the head, to which he responds "don't touch me!" and refusing to go out with him, to which he responds "fine" and he goes off on his own. i've tried talking to him like an adult and explaining the benefits of good hygiene and how i find his odor offensive. i can't physically restrain him, i was responsible for him on our trip, and i feel awful and guilty like i didn't do a good job, but what could i do? i'm scared because he just doesn't seem to care about anything, his future, his health, like he's giving up completely. i'm torn because i've always been a proponent of free-will and faith in people to make the right decisions. i really have no controll over him so maybe i shouldn't do anything and just let him learn for himself? my fear is that he's going to get his license soon, and i'm worried that with his carelessness and drug/alcohol-taking something terrible will happen to him. i wouldn't have a problem with him indulging every now and then if i thought him more responsible. i told our mom, not everything, but just that i was worried about him and i know he had liquor, just incase she found it she would be prepared and wouldn't go ballistic. but i'm afraid if i tell our parents the extent of his lifestyle, our dad may send him away like he did to me, even though our mom promised she'd never let that happen again. our parents are divorced, so my dad could still do it during his term of taking my brother. =sigh= sorry to ramble, but i just have to get this all off my chest.

[Anonymous]

cm, don't beat yourself up for what you did or didn't do. You can't be responsible for his actions or lack of actions. You obviously care about his well being and that's more than a lot of kids have these days.

There's no magic set of answers for how to persuade someone to care about themselves or to find a purpose in life and in their future. He will have to find it himself somehow and hopefully he doesn't have to learn every lesson the hard way.

[Deborah]

Based on his responses to you, "don't tell me what to do!", "leave me alone".... I'd say his way of expressing rebellion.
Accept him for where he is. It's also frequently a way that they test people to see who really cares about them.
There is a fine line between "caring" and "controlling".
If stinking and poor nutrition aren't a problem for him, where's the motivation to change? And surely you learned in your own experience that preaching and lecturing is useless.
If he has a serious problem with alcohol you might suggest an Interlock device which won't allow his car to start if blood alcohol concentration exceeds as pre-set limit.
http://www.smartstartinc.com/
There's a nominal fee for monitoring, but it's cheaper and 'less restrictive' than a program. I don't think it will detect shrooms though....
Then there's always the risk of him crashing while operating the device. As I understand, you have to blow into it every so many minutes and the car will die if alcohol is detected.

[Anonymous]

i remember driving on shrooms as a kid... i didnt want to but my friend was freaking out saying he had to get home and get back to the woods and in naure and all that shit....  driving a pontiac firebird at the time i bought after working fast food for a couple years at seventeen it was a nice car and silver with nice wheels and wide tires... dont remember much but what i do remember is just loving the view of the trees as we drove under them... and all the other cars looked like space ships... hell we were in a space ship too so it was all good... its cool because soon we wont even need wheels our cars will hover and look pretty cool if i do say so myself.. .

as far as the kid... my bro was like that and it always bothere me... i  have always been kinda ocd and very neat and clean and i always looked down at him.. but he grew out of it... like someone else said mostly when girls come around... some people are just slobs... i can tell you that ridicule will not remedy anything thats for sure...hope your parents dont send him away.. but if they do give him the up and up so he will have an easier time.. mmkay? take it easy and hope it turns out well for both yall...