Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
My Brother: From WoW addiction to inertial life
Posts
He is going to continue leeching off your parents until they either die or are no longer capable of supporting him.
Guess who he's going to turn to then.
You definitely have a stake in getting this shit sorted out before that happens.
Seriously, just email your parents a link to this damn thread. Maybe that will get their heads out of their asses.
He is an adult and breaking the law by vandalism or destruction of property will cause him to face the consequences of those actions.
This. The man needs help and it may take an event like this for him to realize it. You and your parents should be supportive but more importantly they need to BE FIRM in not helping him continue this lifestyle and take responsibility for his actions.
Also, you really shouldn't feel obligated to your brother at this point. I can't imagine your relationship could get a whole hell of a lot more estranged than it is already, anyway. If he does eventually straighten his act up he'll have the humility to realize that you all were doing the right thing. And, honestly, if that's the kind of person he is and he doesn't straighten his act up, then you're probably better off not thinking about him at all. It sounds cruel, but it's not nearly as cruel as what he's doing.
No, really. What the fucking shit? You just don't do that kind of shit.
Secondly, people have a point. If this does continue on, hell forbid, what happens when your parents pass on, run out of money, or whatever. "Hey younger/older sister, mind if I crash at your place for a while? I've got no other place to go..."
And then every time you try to do something about it, you'll start feeling guilty like you are now.
Fuck that.
Tell them to drop his ass, either right away to teach him a harsh lesson in life, or give him a small grace period before the said dropping of his ass to the curb. Either way, best solution is to let him the hell go. Sure, sounds harsh but guess what, if he's acting like the douchebag that he's being described as well too bad.
Your parents appear to be completely incapable of dealing with the raging asshole that is their son. Unless you want to get saddled with their baggage when they're gone I'd just walk away, change my phone number and never, ever speak to him again. All that shit I said about emotional support? That was when I thought he was just suffering from some classic untreated depression. Your brother is a classic sociopath.
Edit: The profile of the sociopath as lifted from a random guy's website on google, which is of course the best way to diagnose serious physical and mental health problems.
# Glibness and Superficial Charm
# Manipulative and Conning
# Grandiose Sense of Self
# Pathological Lying
# Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
# Shallow Emotions
# Incapacity for Love
# Need for Stimulation
# Callousness/Lack of Empathy
# Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
# Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
# Irresponsibility/Unreliability
# Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
# Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
# Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
Edit edit:
Your brother might not actually be an honest-to-god diagnosable sociopath, but he's still fucked up and you don't want to carry that bucket of crazy around all your life.
Your brother definitely sounds like he needs a qualified psychiatrist / psychologist / therapist. For behavioral issue like these, therapies usually only work when the patient wants them to. I don't think your brother is going to have any motivation to get help as long as your parents keep enabling these behaviors. Personally, I think Endomatic had it right, your brother needs to hit bottom and he's never going to get there as long as your parents keep pulling his weight for him.
So I hate to say this, but to put it bluntly your parents are absolutely part of the problem here. They seem like they want to fix this but just don't know how. They keep asking you to talk to your brother in the hopes that you know how to fix this, but obviously this isn't something within your power to fix (nor should you have to!). You should suggest that they see a counselor to get advice on this issue. Someone with a family practice preferably, someone who's experienced in dealing with the kinds of interpersonal dynamics that come up in family situations. If the change can't or won't start with your brother, maybe it can start with your parents.
This is the truth. Starving helps people get motivated.
Your parents need to stop enabling his lifestyle. This will involve a painful period where they stop paying all of his bills.
Honestly, if this guy is 27 and has been living more or less like a parasite for at least a decade nothing is going to work except drastic, nasty action. He's been in this mindset for so long that the very concept of getting a job and, you know, actually working for a living is so foreign that it will never be a voluntary change.
Turn off the electric/gas. Lock him out of the house until he begins paying rent. Do not offer a place to stay or money to get by.
Getting a job is going to suck and will be mighty difficult, but Wal-Mart is almost always hiring. Big Box Retail is probably the best bet. I worked for Toys 'R Us for a summer and I swear the majority of those I worked with had the mental capacity of a chicken (apologies to anyone who works for Toys 'R Us, this was in boonies upstate New York.)
Have a conversation with your parents. Print out this thread and give it to them.
There's nothing you can do that will not cause a shit-storm. Force the issue, as this is the only way to actually change behavior patterns that have been in place for 10+ years. There will never be voluntary cooperation from your brother.
Honestly, if he's a lout as you say he can get a job to cover small rent + expenses. I don't think it's realistic to expect him to become self-sufficient. I think it's important to note that your parents are not going to be able to just "cut it off" and expect your brother to be fine. He will require supplementary support. If he gets a job, allow him some disposable income, but ensure that he's eating and paying bills. He has has a Credit Card, let him deal with unpaid balances. If your parents want to pay for some food, give him gift cards on the first of each month and no more. If he needs to eat he can share meals with his parents, not simply have the money thrown at him. When all is said and done, your brother's life won't change much. He'll still be able to be a loaf and download anime and play video games. I can't imagine he'll be able to secure more than 20-35 hours a week of employment with his history.
Honestly, I'll repeat: Have a conversation with your parents. Print out and show them this thread. You're in for an explosion regardless, so make it count. Your family is going to pissed that you posted their business on the internet, but getting people mad and worked up over the situation is how you're going to effect change, as passive measures have failed miserably.
1,000 screaming forumers can't be wrong.
The fact of the matter is that he's pathetic and if he's happy living a pathetic lifestyle you need to make it clear you're not willing to support someone like that.
spawn camper?
Your brother is a SPOILED BRAT. A long time ago he decided he didn't need to do anything because your family would just carry him all the way through... and it doesn't seem like anybody has done anything to firmly let him know otherwise. The really sad thing is, cutting him off now... won't do anything. The best they can probably do is sell the house and make it the police's problem if they live elsewhere now, but they don't sound inclined to do so.
At this rate, he will keep living until he dies. He will continue to suck down food, oxygen, and money until he expires. I think you know that.
My personal opinion is that you should probably gently make clear your stance on the matter to your parents, informing them that every time they ask you to fix it it will be another month (cumulative, so the first offense is one month, the second offense is two months, etc.) before they hear from you again, because honestly you can't do anything while they're spoiling him rotten anyway.
At the same time sending the bum money to buy food, paying his bills, and not charging him rent is inexcusable. You don't need to kick him out but you do need to give him reason to work. Get your parents to stop sending him money for food, like others said, is a good start. If you can get that small victory and work from there, that would be good. This isn't an 18 year old kid who just doesn't have his shit together and needs a swift kick in the ass. This is a grown man who probably has some serious psychological problems due to the way he's lived his life so far. Throwing him out on his ass won't have the same affect it would on some lazy 18 year old, he might not be able to deal with it and suck it up.
If you're going to do it, you have to do it all at once.
Baby steps are going to pitch a fight at the wrong time. "You canceled my broadband!" will turn into the parents backing down and saying "okay, honey, we'll keep sustaining your pitiful existence..."
If you're going to do anything, go for the gold. Cut it all off at once. At this point you can't be nice and friendly about it. "I'm cutting your internet down to dial-up" is just going to provoke a fight. "I'm shutting off electricity until you pay rent of $___" will force him to either get a job or be really uncomfortable.
Small-measures won't solve anything. Of this I'm certain. Remember that this guy has been living like this for almost a decade. For reference: I've been working in one capacity or another for over a decade, if you told me "Hey, you can't work anymore!" I'd be at a complete loss for my time and efforts and would probably get wicked bored. The point is that it would force a massive change, whereas "easing" him into a change is going to promote both a fight and little to no actual change. If you're going to fight, make it worthwhile.
This is pretty much the situation with the house, yes, and I'm not sure that they can sell the house with the market as it is.
Maybe I'm really deluding myself, a lot of you have said that my brother is an asshole but I don't feel like that's true. It seems to me more like he doesn't know how to help himself, is constantly having it reinforced by my parents that he's a failure, and has sunk into a state of "why bother trying because I'm going to fail anyways".
I'll try talking to my parents about this again but I think it'd be a good idea to try to lay out exactly what I'm going to say and suggest because otherwise I know I'll get off track when it turns into an emotional and painful mess. So to summarize everyone's suggestions and make sure I have this right:
- Bring up my brother and ask about their future plans with him?
- Tell them that right now they're enabling his behavior and it needs to stop. Possibly bring up similarities between his behavior and other people with addictions and point them towards literature about creating a bottom for him?
- Ask what therapy and medication he was on specifically? I'm not sure on this one because I'm not sure of whether or not it's any of my business. I just know that he was going for quite a while because I was around several times when my mother asked him if he took his medication, and that later I was around when she asked him if he thought it was helping and he said no. Shortly after that I stopped seeing notations on their calendar that he had appointments to a shrink.
- Suggest: A) Not sending him money or not paying for his food anymore, possibly with a cut off time, B) Selling the house, C) Try again to get them to move him out to his own apartment, D) Suggest to them some kind of bribe if he gets a job like a supermarket gift card at the beginning of the month, E) Cutting off the internet to the house and/or switching the services and paring everything going into the house to the bare minimum. Did I miss anything? Other than calling the police, I'm pretty positive that there's no way I'm going to convince them to essentially get him arrested.
- Last: Tell them that this is it, these are my suggestions and my input and if they aren't going to follow any of it then it's their decision but if they don't then they need to stop asking me to talk to him or to somehow fix this.
Before I talk to them I'll print this out so let me know if I missed anything -- this conversation is going to over about as well as...it's going to suck. Should I call my brother first and try to...poke him into doing something first?
Another question: Since he's unskilled labor, is he even going to be able to find a job in this economy? I could easily see my parents giving him a cut off date, him telling them that he's applied but that the economy sucks, and them feeling like they have to give him slack. They aren't going to be able to call every place he supposedly applied to up to harass the manager about whether or not he actually turned in an application.
Lastly, I can't help but feel like part of the reason they let him do this is because of their cultural values. They come from a culture where the first male is the important one and girls aren't worth anything. Since we're their only two kids and he's the only guy, I wonder sometimes if a lot of this mess stems from not wanting to alienate him because he's supposed to be the guy who carries on the family line. Maybe if I ended up having a kid (male) and gave him our last name then they'd be more willing to kick him out? Not that I'm planning on doing that, it'd be a crappy plan, har har.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Don't give him any kind of "reward" for doing the shit he should have been doing on his own for the past 10 years. You don't want him to do this to please the family, you want to do this because he realizes he is fucked if he doesn't. Like bowen said, he needs to realize that he likes to eat and he needs to do something to allow himself to eat.
I like the lime part. The ball is in your parents' court. They are the only ones with the ability to do anything about this other than nag. It's nice that you're helping but they should be the ones solving this.
And it's never exactly a great time for a 27 year old unskilled person to be looking for a job, so the economy should not be an excuse. Don't fall in to the "its too hard now, maybe in a year or so" trap because you might never get out.
McDonald's is always hiring.
Honestly, base minimum substistance will work. $100 grocery card, $20 gas card and paid bills on the first of each month. Downgrade internet to dial-up.
Now the goal is to leave him with exactly $0 disposable income.
So if he wants better internet or a new game or whatnot, he has to make the money to purchase it. Really, if he's working at all he's on the right track. Encourage this with hard love. Don't let him starve, but limit his activities to "really boring" unless he's going to pony up and work like the rest of us.
And jobs can be found. Especially for unskilled labor. Supermarkets, Big Ticket retail, Fast Food etc. are always looking. The people having trouble getting work are those who have specialized skills or higher education, as that market has actually shrunk.
It's easy to say play hardball and crack down on him, force him into a certain position or hit him with the cold hard truth, but frankly taking such an aggressive or confrontational path may well just make things harder and he may have the opposite reaction to what you hoping to get.
Look, chances are he's more than aware of how poor his prospects are. I'd happily wager he spends more time thinking about and dwelling on this than you'd expect. If he's been out of work for any length of time then his self confidence is shot to hell and he's probably got doubts about his ability to even do what most would consider menial work. Forget the bravado or tough front, being out of work for a long time is a killer for your self-confidence and the self doubt just snowballs until any job seems out of reach.
Your parents are always on at him, they're constantly getting at you to get on him and the general attitude coming his way from others is that he is a waste, a loser and a bum. More damage to the self esteem, minus yet more self-confidence and add a touch of "fuck it, they already think I'm worse than sh!t".
What I'm trying to get at is that, maybe, rather than giving him ultimatums, you should be trying to help him find reasons to do it. Chances are he already feels like shit that that he's up against a wall, even if he doesn't show it, so throwing an ultimatum at him will just do more harm and he'll feel like he has no other choice than to react against it. Honestly, it's very likely that he wants more but lacks the self-confidence and self-esteem to take a shot at getting it - get round those problems and he'll fix the problem for you, or at least get on a path to doing so.
Headlock incident aside, the guy's an easy target for a bit of hatin' and the easy answer is to go in with ultimatums and the so-called "tough-love". Personally, I think it's the wrong anwer and he'll most likely just react against it - to him you may just seem to be putting him between a rock and a hard place. No matter what you put against him, if he feels powerless against his circumstances he's always going to choose to react against you because that's something he knows he can do.
Ignore his living circumstances (home, bill and food paid for by parents) and he's in a pretty crappy situation which is going to be DAMN hard for him to get out of. Forget about how he got there, it's all too easy to grumble about what he did and didn't do right (or at all) and look at his situation as it is now. He's in a hole and needs help getting out of it, not someone filling it in on top of him.
/end devils advocate
I think everyone can appreciate your stance and compassion, but the fact of the matter is that for 6 years the "soft" approach has yielded no results. Reasons and help have been coming for the better part of a decade. "Self-confidence" arguments only perpetuate this cycle.
Know what's best for self-esteem in this situation? Getting a job.
Give him an ultimatum and he freaks out? Yeah, he's 27. My pity pretty much ends here.
That act alone, where he physically assaults his mother, is despicable. Whatever pity or compassion I had for him at the beginning of the thread is gone. Kick his deadbeat ass out of the house and don't let him back into your life until he's made an honest and heartfelt attempt to get better.
And if he doesn't try? Fuck him, he's dead anyways.
Regarding your guilt for your brother: I dealt with the exact same shit. My entire family told me that, because I got good grades, I made my brother get bad grades. He "felt he couldn't do as well and just gave up". I got a job and went to college, which, according to them, stopped him from doing anything except WOW because he knew he couldn't match up. They also asked me to talk with him. He didn't care what I said and still doesn't. I tried being nice just like you. It doesn't work because it doesn't make any sense. Why should he listen to you? Fuck that shit. They just want to shift the blame because they cant deal with their own mistakes.
Refusing to discuss the brother is the best way to help them realize the ridiculousness of the situation. I cut off communication with my parents for 2 years once in order to get them to listen to me. It worked. The level of bullshit is near zero nowadays. Just tell them you wont talk to them about him, unless they want to talk about his or their therapy/improvement. If they ask you to help 'fix' him, hang up. You should not share the guilt of having fucked up your brother.
If they do cut him off: A sibling who leaches off your parents will most definitely come to you when they are cut off. I am still paying down debt that is not mine, storing/selling things that were left at my apartment that aren't mine, and am owed thousands of dollars that I will never see all because of a leach-sibling. DO NOT LET THIS PERSON LIVE WITH YOU, EVER.
My suggestion to the OP is to either get your parents on board, or put some distance between yourself and your family because you will get dragged down.
This guy deserves nothing, not from you or anyone else.
He's not your brother, not anymore, and from the sound of it? He hasn't been for awhile. Cut him off, don't answer his calls, or do anything in the way of communication.
Go visit your parents for a week when they do this.
And if he goes to make a stink about it? Give him a piece of your mind. When your done? Tell him it was for your mom. He doesn't even sound like he regrets doing it. He's a parasite. And we generally don't suffer parasites any longer than it takes to toss them in the trash can.
[EDIT] If I sound vindictive, it's because I am. I lost my mother a couple years ago, so this kind of crap -REALLY- ticks me off.
Not just playing hardball, and while cutting off all utilities would be a 'bad' idea, even cutting off the internet with the tradeoff of going to a psychologist in return for it back. Assaulting your own mother over trading cards, and everything else listed here - there's more going on than what's been said so far.
I think everyone agrees with you about mental illness, though there are varying degrees of response as to the correct way to deal with this. Don't say, "if you go to a psychiatrist we'll go back to enabling you to do nothing with your life." Psychiatric help isn't a magic cure all that will fix everything if the brother doesn't WANT to be helped. I think they should still play hardball, they should reduce his ability to be an unproductive mooch and enjoy fun things without contributing anything to his lifestyle.
The parents should offer to pay for any psych help he wants, sure. That stuff can be expensive and is not within the reach of someone pulling in minimum wage. They could consider paying his minimum life costs. Let him stay in the house, pay for electricity and water. Do not pay for internet. Order grocery delivery. Give him a gas card. Pay medical and psych bills. Provide him with absolutely nothing else. He can continue having an empty existence doing nothing, or he can get a job to supplement his living expenses with money to let him have fun.
Obviously you couldn't force him into something like that, but it's an option if your parents do end up kicking him out. You can let him know that once he actually wants to (as he hopefully would if he were out on the street), there's programs that can help him. He doesn't have to sleep on a park bench and starve to death if he can't find a job immediately.
No matter what, it's going to suck for him. After years of sitting around doing nothing, he'll probably hate actually having to work, and he'll be miserable. So, it might be good for him to work in an all-encompassing rehab program because they'd be understanding of that in addition to providing other support.
Do they let you into rehab programs if you don't need treatment for any of the addictions they specialize in?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
When I was 18/19ish I worked for one, and it pretty much consisted of getting a call from the job agency saying "We have an opening a SoAnSo Company, you would be doing This, it pays $Blah per hour and you'll be working ThisMany hours a day for SoManyDays."
Sometimes the jobs I'd get only would last a day or two, some jobs hired on for a few weeks. For someone with only basic highschool it wasn't all that bad, and got me enough money until I moved onto better things.
My sister, although not *usually* violent (although it's not unheard of when she doesn't get her way) was always MUCH like Hypatia's brother, if not in her exact vices, then in the fact that she always behaved as though my parents should just give her whatever she wants or pay for whatever she wants or let her do whatever she wants because she is entitled to it. They owe her. She can be very sweet to non-family, but to us.. well.. she's a bitch.
Anyway, after years of watching my mother cow to this behavior because frankly my sister can out-tantrum just about everyone I know, I have no patience. She's said some of the worst things to my mother.. things that are unrepeatable (this is a 20-something, not a teenager), and my mother is probably one of the sweetest people. I think if my mother had cut her off years before she finally did, everyone probably would have been a lot happier a lot earlier.
My sister also does not react particularly well (mentally) to therapy or (physically) to medication. She has many problems with anxiety and compulsion. She has finally moved out, changed her diet, she now goes to school and also works two jobs, and the funny thing is, I think I've never heard of her being happier or more functional. My speculation is that this 18-20 hour per day schedule she's on right now doesn't leave her any time to worry about anything else.
This is all completely anecdotal, of course.. just sort of throwing my story into the pot.