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I Can't Stand My Brother But My Family Enables Him

Pls_Help
Community Member

I am currently 18, and my older brother is 21 and we both live at home with our parents.

My brother has never had a job and has only recently gone back to studying (he quit his TAFE course after 6 months then spent 2 years doing nothing) whereas I have been working since I was 14 and am studying full time at Uni.

I know he has ASD or something similar but my parents don't talk about it when I'm around so I'm not 100% sure of what's wrong with him.

He takes his anger out on me mostly e.g. if someone calls him out for being defensive he says things like "well X (me) is always attacking me so I have to be defensive". Which is a lie- I avoid him at all costs because I know he'll take it out on me and what's worse is my parents allow him to get away with this behaviour!

He is also quite selfish- he gets paid by my parents to clean the house as a form of income but doesn't make any attempt to do a good job and often nags my parents for more money despite his terrible effort. And then he spends the money on stupid, unnecessary things.

No matter what I say he takes it as a personal attack and lashes out at me. I have tried ignoring him to see if thT would help but it did absolutely nothing- he still blamed me for things happening to him. He also carries on about me never doing anything nice for him ever (thus verbatim not an exaggeration) despite me constantly lending him money knowing he won't pay me back and doing jobs for him and inviting him to things with a mutual friend, etc.

Anyway I'm getting real sick of him blaming me for things that have happened as a result of his por behaviour not mine. Any suggestions on how to deal with this situation?

2 Replies 2

startingnew
Community Member

hello and welcome to the forums

thats quite a situation to be in

it might sound silly but have your tried talking to your mother about how this is making you feel and how its affecting you?

Pls_Help
Community Member

Yes Startingnew I have spoken with both of my parents on how I'm feeling but my parents tell me things like "It's not his fault" and "He can't help it" and things like that. Basically just not acknowledging that he does have some blame for the way his life is turning out. And if that doesn't happen then they insinuate that I am to blame fore his actions e.g. "If you were nicer to him he wouldn't be like this". I don't blame my parents I know they don't intend to blame me or make me feel this way but I am feeling very overwhelmed and, often, very lonely because of his actions towards me.