Need to vent about my arsehole brother

[CupcakesandTwunting]

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I have posted reams about my brother before, some of you might remember. Brief outline for those of you who don't know about what a spectacular idiot he is... He is now 22. He dropped out of school/college basically because he is a lazy moron, he has never had a job for the same reason. He has had three serious girlfriends but has cheated on all of them in pretty poor fashion i.e arranging to meet girls from the internet for sex/trying to arrange for him and his girlfriend to have a threesome without her knowledge. He then (miraculously) got offered a place on a course at a music college in Brighton which he accepted. His dad (my ex-stepdad) funded the course for the first year and off he went. He has been sponging off mum/his dad ever since. He goes for weeks without ringing mum/answering his 'phone to her and only ever calls her when he needs bailing out with cash.

Cue today. He has been off to the Benicassim festival in Barcelona for a week. Got back today. Rang mum from London Victoria to say he was stranded in London as he had "lost" his train ticket (he has pulled this stunt before). My mum went into hysterics, thinking of her boy stuck in London on his own and she had a massive panic attack. I found this out because her counsellor rang me (she managed to get my number off mum) to say that mum was in a terrible state in her office and she could do with someone to be with her. I rushed about, got ready to go to her then got a call off my aunty to say that she was now with her and not to bother going over. My uncle had taken mum's car home as she was too upset to drive it.

I just called her to make sure she was OK and just about resisted the urge to tell her to get a grip. FFS, he has pulled this stunt so many times in the past. He reckons he bought his ticket before he went and has lost it. I reckon he did no such thing, thought he'd spend his cash on beer and mummy/daddy would get him out the shit when he returned. AIBU to want to punch my own brother squarely between the eyes? I expect I am but I am starting to hate him. I know that sounds harsh but a lot has gone on and it's been a slow build-up to this. I think I do actually hate him. He causes so much upset. When will he ever grow up?

No need to be bitter about your own competence cupcakes - you do sound like and adult. Well done - it is supposed to be like this!

Your mum and DB sound like they have a co-dependant relationship based on incompetence and arrested development..

Best to steer clear. You don't have to be enmeshed you know..

I know this is completely by the by, but I read this from your OP, Cupcakes:

trying to arrange for him and his girlfriend to have a threesome without her knowledge

• and thought, well, I'm fairly sure she'd notice at some point during the experience...

My brother is a bit like yours too Bupcakes. In fact there are days when I think I should produce a series of bingo cards to tick off in conversations with my mum.

"He hasn't phoned for x weeks"
"Where did I go wrong?"
"He was never like this before he met her" (well he was, he just hid it a bit better)
"He needs our help with..."
"You've got it all sorted, but he.."

For the love of god, he is thirty bloody five.

This is harsh, but you CAN leave your mum in a state in A&E/the counsellor's office/at work etc. They will have seen lots of people in the situation before and should have arrangements to deal with it.

Refusing to discuss your brother with her is good, but she is still sucking you into the drama. She sounds as much of a pita as your brother.

You could explain to her (at a time when she's ok) that while you're sorry she is struggling with anxiety and care about her, you will not be able to come to help if she gets an attack, because it is too difficult and disruptive for you; that she knows your views about your brother; and that she needs to seek help from other family (eg her siblings), counsellor, ex-h (brother's dad), health services and friends, not her children.

Or, if you feel you MUST help next time, maybe send your dh. He may well find it easier not to engage with the drama.

Definitely avoid Xmas and do your own thing.

You are right about CBT. Generic counselling is not much use for panic disorder. The counsellor should not have called you - and a CBT practitioner would have been able to calm her down - I second what someone said about making it clear you are not to be called again in these circumstances.

Your brother sounds like and idiot and a user. But it is your mum you have the real problem with. In a hysterical tizzy over a stupid phone call? Calling you to solve HER melodrama?
You sound fine, but need help, maybe counselling, to deal with your mother. Just ignore the brother.
And btw, if you're brother's a muso studying at BIM, you know what he could have done to solve his ticket problem? A station is the perfect location. He could BUSK until he'd made enough money.
When I was 18 I busked my way all the way from London to Paris and back. He's an idiot and will NEVER survive in such a tough profession with so little initiative. Do him a favour and point that out to him. I speak as a professional muso.

I definitely need help with my mother, onmythird, you're right about that. I realised this as I almost cried with frustration as we had a stand-up row in a shop yesterday, as she told DS that he could have the toy car I had told him that he couldn't and she used the "I'm in a fragile place, don't be mean to me" face. I realised what a manipulative person she is. :(

I think that the posters who've advised that I don't take the calls are right; it is just spreading the melodrama when it really needs to be cut off at the supply...

I agree that your mum is the one enabling and to an extent controlling all this behaviour of your stepbrothers.
Anxiety can be much improved by CBT but I do know several anxious people who do seem to enjoy the melodrama they create out of nothing whilst moaning about it, and who do use their anxiety and panic attacks to control other people, usually family members in the way your mother did at xmas.
Unfortunately they often have few hobbies, and tend to drive sensible people who would be their friends away by their behaviour so are left with other drama queen friends and are overly relient on their family for support, and can be reluctant to get effective treatment for their anxiety or to carry out the treatment as then their family won't feel obliged to stay around them and they have nothing to replace the dramas in their lives with.
Your mum's counsellor sounds rubbish, she should have been trying to persuade your mum this was a fuss about nothing not insisting your mum has a babysitter.

Oh my goodness, Rebecca. You have just hit so many nails on the head.

I know that she won't look into getting CBT because that means actively doing something about her anxiety. Without her anxiety, she cannot manipulate people.

She has very few hobbies, despite me and her counsellor both suggesting that taking up new interests might help. I have asked her to come to Slimming World with me as she is always moaning about her weight. I have met a new circle of people there and we do waking/aerobics together. She won't come as she is "so tired because of the stress" Her friends all feed off drama. They do. She attracts these people like ants round a jam jar. She loves them because they tell her the shit she wants to hear i.e poor you.

I have tried to gently tell her that her counsellor is not helping and that she needs see a therapist who will actively help her with her issues, instead of someone who sits nodding and agreeing with her, but no. She insists that this woman is fabulous and that it is doing her the world of good. However she couldn't answer me when I asked her why in twelve months has her stress not improved if she is so brilliant.

Can you report the counsellor?

As said, I would have thought feeding into your mum´s panic attack was absolutely not what she should have done.

It really does sound as if she doesn´t want to be helped, doesn´t it?

I did wonder bout reporting the counsellor but I don't know on what grounds as my mum gave her permission to 'phone me.

She absolutely does not want to be helped. I (and others) have suggested that she probably needs anti-depressants. I take them, they don't blot out my senses, just keep me on an even-keel. She doesn't want to take them, I suspect, because she likes being a stress-head. She likes being the victim. I will never understand this mentality.

This is exactly right - and this sort of relationship takes 2 people in order to mal function.

The relationship b/w my dad and brother is similar to that you describe - my brother is a 36 year old 'teenager'. I was furious with my bro for many years for what he put my parents through but these days I am mostly angry with them (chiefly my dad, it must be said) for what they have helped make him. They don't call it 'spoiling' for nothing...

Honestly OP YANBU but please don't kid yourself that it is only your brother who is creating this situation. Your mum is also getting something out of it (however perverse that sounds). For your own sanity I suggest you gently refuse to be drawn in.

I think you need to get a bit tougher with your Mum. You say you have tried to tell her gently that the counsellor is not working but maybe you need to spell it out more firmly. You could use this latest incident to say- your approach to your anxiety isn't working - look at the state you were in over nothing. Tell her unless she gets proper medical help that you are not going to pick up the pieces. At the same time you could tell your waste of space brother exactly what has happened and let him know how disgusted you are with him and from now on he will be obliged to deal with any dramas he causes. You then should bow out gracefully - she will never get better if she carries on like this. It's not your problem. Tell her the situation is stressing you out - that your anxiety is being made worse and that you have to step away from the drama. You know all this really but you just need to find the courage to do it.
I know all about manipulative, selfish siblings. After my Dad died my sister and Mother both behaved atrociously- I eventually confronted them both head on (after a few years of dealing with the dramas) and said I wasn't having it anymore - it was a huge relief. They still wind me up but I refuse to get involved. Good luck.

Oh I am under no illusions that mum isn't complicit in this sorry little state. I have tried explaining to her how enabling behaviour works and she just glazes over, like she always does when she doesn't like what she hears.

FFS, I think I need a thread about my mum, really... :(

it's crap, isn't it?

I'm glad you realise about your mum. It took me 15 years to realise that my parents weren't just unwilling victims in the drama of our family/my brother and it really helped me accept/disengage from it all.

I printed off some info on enabling from the internet and gave it to my dad, just so he wouldn't think it was some crazy thing I'd made up. It made no difference at all.

How does your mother react when it is pointed out to her that her behaviour is making it very difficult for her son to grow up and become a proper adult, as she is rewarding him for being irresponsible? Or has it never been pointed out to her bluntly enough for her to not ignore it?

WHereYouLeftIt She nods, glazes over and says "I knoooow"

ANYWAY, it just gets worse....

I got a call from my uncle (mum's brother) about two hours ago. We were having a bit of general chit-chat when we get onto the saga with mum/brother when he says "I can't believe the way he spoke to her about not getting him a train ticket after she gave him £120 to go to Spain."

So she gave him money to go to the festival with and she didn't tell me that on monday he called her every name under the sun when she wouldn't give him more to get home. I am gobsmacked, though I don't know why.

I said to my uncle that I wanted to step away from the situation and that I would not be a shoulder to cry on for her over this anymore. Then HE starts guilt-tripping me, saying "you can't blame this on your mum" WTF? I bloody can and I will! Then he says "so you're turning your back on her?"

Do I have the most TOXIC set of arseholes for relatives or what? I am so frustrated I am just about holding it together and not crying with rage. I feel like banging my head off a wall.

Listen, IMO your uncle is covering his arse - HE doesn't want to deal with his sister, so he plays the manipulative blame game with you, to hook you into the meleé.

Just step away cupcakes, and be gentle on yourself.

Think of yourself as your very best friend and just do whatever you would advise your best friend to do - soon this nurturing of yourself will become habit.

Look for the pattern and name it, and disengage, and then you're free.

You deserve to be free and happy - good luck!

I have deleted my brother from my Facebook (the only contact I have with him is on FB and is minimal at that) I sent him a message saying that I was deleting him and wanted out of the bullshit relationship he has with my mum. I also said that he wasn't welcome in my home any more as the situation is making me angry. I might have said that if he swears/namecalls at my mum again, I will re-arrange his face. Not my finest hour, I admit

He's told mum and she's just rang me shrieking like a banshee at me. "I don't need this I don't neeeeeeeeeeed this the day before he comes back" I calmly told her that she needed to direct her anger somewhere else and that I was going to hang up and call her later when she is calmer.

I am disengaging from this now. I want no further contact with brother and I want no further conversation with mum about him. He is coming back tomorrow for six weeks (coinciding with having run out of money) and I fear that if he shows his mug at my door, I'll end up in a cell. I really hope that they respect my wishes and keep him away from me.

Thank you Dorje :)

Why hasn't her counsellor told her that she's enabling his behaviour and needs to stop?

I have no idea. Her counsellor seems pre-occupied with drilling it into her that the way her anxiety manifests itself is rooted in things that happened in her childhood. Well, aren't most issues we have stemming from childhood? I could tell her that. She needs some behavioural therapy rather than someone spoonfeeding her sympathy, ergo spoonfeeding the attention-seeky cycle she is riding on now.

Of course, I suggest this and get shouted down.

Yep, she's definitely getting "secondary gain" from the anxiety.

You are doing the right thing by disengaging.

Well done Cupcakes!! Totally the right approach - you need to take yourself out of this situation. I have read threads before about your brother and obviously he hasn't changed at all. If this behaviour from your mum carries on he will be exactly the same 10 years on, still lazy and scrounging. She is not doing him any favours by allowing him to develop in this way.

Agree that she needs a new counsellor - what kind of professional therapist cannot cope with their client having a bit of a meltdown?! Surely that's exactly her job to deal with.

He sounds ridiculous. As other people have pointed out he could get home with a tenner which I have no doubt he could have found. If not...it's a long walk home sunshine, I hope you're wearing comfy shoes.

Good luck and make sure you stick to your resolve, you are doing the best thing for your mum and brother in the long run.

This really is the time that I mean it about disengaging. I did it last year for six months, got guilt-tripped at christmas and relented. I've just told mum that I won't be manipulated again.

And just t make sure of it, I am now looking at christmas breaks for me, FH and DS so that I can remove myself from this bollocks situation completely. :)