My asshole brother is back and causing chaos

[Gricmy]

My DD and I live next door to my parents in an adjoining property that belongs to them. I know that this will make me sound like a sponge but I really appreciate this as a single mom and they have always been such a great support, so I feel bad bitching now. I know that I'm really lucky to have them and they love DD and she effectively has a "real family" to grow up with.

My brother has now shattered this in his usual fashion. Moved in with our parents because his wife kicked him out and everything has been turned on its head. I honestly wouldn't mind if he was a good person but he is absolutely awful to be around and always has been. He was diagnosed with bipolar and narcissism years ago but never accepted this, but I think it will be enough to paint a picture how dreadful it is to live with him.

Since he has arrived he has taken over the whole place as his own. Boundaries are out of the window and everything revolves around him. I don't want my DD to be around him, and I also don't want to see my parents being taken such advantage of. I totally appreciate that I have benefitted from their kindness for a long time now, but I honestly have been trying to pay them back in kind and I have also not been renting rent free.
I think I'd be ok with any person living there apart from my brother in fact. I know that he will erode everything until there is nothing left for him to take and then move on.

Sorry. I know that this was a full blown rant and that the only reasonable thing for me to do is look into moving elsewhere. But I'm so fucking pissed at him and at the way that he treats our parents and everyone around him. And at the way he gets treated like the tragic victim of circumstances all the time.

Rant over. Sorry for venting 😡

personality disorders are mental disorders and listed in the DSM - 5 so for all intents and purposes they are mental illnesses. There is a very small grey area, but in effect they are illnesses.

Which doesn't mean that we shoudl all feel sorry for them and stretch the boundaries of decent behaviour.

Nasty.

Did you miss the bit where he regularly walks around the garden naked directly in order to upset people, has a conviction for GBH and there is the possibility of DV? Plus ofc stealing a lot of money from her parents.

Not incorrect, look it up.
And probably because if she told them and gave them a key, she'd risk her brother having access, hence why she's changing them in the first place.

Given the number of gratuitously nasty posts on this thread, people might want to consider Reporting the really nasty ones to Mumsnet. Three little blue buttons at the top of each post, dropdown menu, Report.

Please find somewhere else to live. This could go on for years.

I have done, they're hopefully just being a bit slow and not letting the abuse stand.
What the hell is wrong with some people?

Did you miss the bit where he regularly walks around the garden naked

I would definitely consider this a symptom of MH disorder.

OP's brother has two official psychiatric diagnoses. It sounds really strange to deny he has MH disorders. He was assessed and diagnosed by qualified professionals.

And yes, it's very hard to live around people with MH disorders.

I would insist he gets a private health consultation (sounds like your parents can afford it) then gets whatever meds, therapy he needs off the back of that.

My half brother had a mental health condition which ended up with him being hospitalised and he’s now I think on medication. And married and working.

My best friend’s brother was a complete nightmare when younger, always being arrested, in prison, GBH and worse, he calmed down when he got older thank god, the last straw was when over Covid 19 he stormed to her house and kicked off, after their mum died, and upset that my best friend had been treated more favourably in their mum’s will (because she’d looked after her mum and had her to live with her in final years).

I was a disability support worker for many years and l can tell you unequivocally that l saw those with mental health issues wreak absolute havoc in their own families. Families are always the ones who suffer most because they are inevitably first hand witnesses and victims of the resulting behaviours.

Guilt and self blame from parents plays a huge part and I’ve seen families coerced by parents into providing ‘support’ for terrible behaviours, including manipulation, coercive control and very often financial abuse because there is debt or a drug habit to support.

The common thread is the persons’ refusal to accept treatment or even admit that they are unwell. If OP’s brother has a diagnosed mental health condition then at the very least he should be engaging with treatment in return for his parents providing him with a home. They know there is a diagnosed mental health problem, they know he isn’t in treatment, he’s turning their lives upside down as a consequence, and they’re enabling it. His soon to be ex wife has probably spent their marriage in a similar vein until she’s clearly had enough, realised nothing will ever change, and has ended it.

The hashtag bekind posters telling OP to essentially put up and shut up clearly have no experience of the chaos a family member with mental health issues can inflict on those around them. Which is probably why OP comes across as wholly unsympathetic to her brother - she’s had this chaotic scenario on repeat throughout her life and now she has it playing out yet again next door to her. I don’t agree with her take on things - that there is nothing wrong with him, because quite clearly there is. But her attitude doesn’t surprise me having seen it before in those who are quite simply exhausted by their experience and beyond caring.

Phew. Thats quite the impressive projection there. Might you want to take a step back from this thread, for your own mental health? 🙂

Edited to remove mispost

Yep.

Sorry to say this, but have you and your parents considered the consequences of your dd telling the nursery/ school teacher that her uncle was showing her his willy in the garden?

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. From experience l can guarantee you that OP has seen this same scenario many times throughout her childhood and beyond. Untreated bipolar disorder is very hard to live with. I can’t see anything in OP’s posts to say he’s ever been treated so at this point the parents are enablers more than anything else.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11604240/

The thing is that your parents are doubling down on their previous parenting style and making his narcissistic tendencies worse. If he does have NPD then there is a clear link between permissive parenting and that PD (also overly authoritarian parenting but that doesn’t apply here). It also links to individual characteristics, which is why not all children with this parenting experience will have the condition, but they are more than likely responsible for his nature in part. Their lack of laying down boundaries mean that he is excessively attached to praise while lacks the ability to empathise or care for others.

It makes it extremely unlikely that they will start laying boundaries now. So you have to make your own boundaries which may mean leaving your parents’ house. It’s a terrible shame they’re causing this with their passivity but as PP have said it’s unlikely to change now.

Unfortunately people like this can make other people’s lives miserable even if they’re not in a relationship with them and your brother seems to enjoy the impact he has on others.

Yep. This too. Those with untreated/poorly controlled mental health conditions inevitably cause chaos for everyone around them.

I have some sympathy for OP because she’s clearly lived with this behaviour throughout her childhood, seen her parents repeatedly enabling it at significant cost to her, and now she’s likely to have to deal with the safeguarding issues it presents to her own child.

I agree. OP doesn't have duty of care either as she's not his parent or guardian. Their parents, on the other hand, clearly feel responsibility for his life, even though they're not legally required to provide care. It's just moral duty of a parent to support an offspring with MH disorder, and their parents are obviously supportive to both children.

OP has been traumatised by living in a household with a MH patient, but her denial that this is the actual, diagnosed MH disorder is probably not helpful, for her first of all, not for him or their parents.

It's very very hard to get people with NPD to accept treatment for comorbid conditions like bipolar, and there is no treatment for NPD itself.

Honestly just find somewhere else to live. You had no choice but to live with his behaviour growing up, but you do now. Remove yourself and your dd so she doesn't have to have the same experience.

Your brother and parents are emeshed in a very toxic way that will help none of them. Nothing you can do about this but you can protect your dd by getting her away.

I was in a very similar position years ago and I had to stop contact between my brother and my children (which really upset my parents btw - don't trust them to put their grandchildren above their need to pretend everything is fine and he's not that bad ). I did eventually have to concern myself with the relationship between my brother and my parents - it tipped over into financial and physical abuse when my father got dementia - and it got very painful and ugly and stressful indeed. If your parents have capacity I strongly suggest you stay well out of it - they won't thank you for pointing our what they don't want to accept.

Some people's mental illness make them both impossible to help and utterly toxic to be around. Outsiders can judge but they've not experienced it at first hand.

Absolutely 100% this. I also work in this space and it is absolutely easy for those of us who can shut our door and not have to deal with the chaos these situations cause.

You either didn't read the article or didn't understand it.
There is nothing clear about NPD and its links.

If he is running about garden naked id be tempted to make an anonymous complaint to the police if neighbours can see the garden - indecent exposure

What a twatty post! OP's brother has previously stolen a large amount of money from their parents and deliberately runs around naked in the shared garden where OP's daughter can see him. He has done this all his life.

My mum and my brother had bipolar with psychotic episodes. When they had treatment and were medicated, they were perfectly decent people. OP's brother has a mental illness but he is also an arsehole who enjoys tormenting his family.

Someone needs to call the police on a naked man running around with a child in the home.

Why can't the OP speak to the ex wife it might help her case.

I'm on your side here OP. Had a BP parent who never accepted treatment and made our lives chaotic and hellish for decades. You're actually allowed to feel the way you do. Sadly it may mean your moving away which would be a shame and difficult in all areas I know but may be your only option.