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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think I am making a mess of this

81 replies

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 16:25

I would hugely appreciate any advice on dealing with this situation.

I have a brother who is 37 this winter. He has always been 'difficult'; he has, I suspect, undiagnosed ASD. In addition to this, he's had serious mental health problems including one voluntary admission to a psychiatric ward 4 years ago.

To be honest, I find my brother difficult to like, most of the time. He has little by way of a sense of humour and the things he does find funny are bizarre, mostly involving someone else's misfortune or discomfort in some way. I guess because of this he has hardly any friends. He hasn't worked much either. He has a professional qualification but received a conditions of practice from the associations professional body 6 years ago due to his health. This was finally lifted 2 years ago and he got a job, but it didn't work out. Then he got another job, but the inevitable happened. So he's 'used' his qualification for two and a half years in total.

He is quite whingey and prone to theatrics. He fell down when we were skiing and made such a huge, embarrassing fuss - bellowing in 'agony' and moaning and whining. He falls 'ill' with alarming regularity - one of the points made to him when he had a conditions of practice made against him working was the size of his medical file and the fact that there was suspected Munchausins syndrome, something he hotly denies. I can't explain the number of times he's ill - so ill he can't possibly get out of bed, yet clearly he can because he goes to the doctor.

He constantly wants to 'come round', I suspect as I'm the only form of human contact he has, yet when you try to suggest stuff he could do he just says 'yeah, what a GREAT idea!' then doesn't do it. He brings up inappropriate topics of conversation up - talking about a cocaine addicted, prostutute using friend of his at an 18th birthday party - everyone knew this friend. Pointed out his mate might not want a load of young girls knowing this fact but he was just spluttering and giggling away to himself. Doesn't see this is the reason he has no friends at all.

He's never had a girlfriend, he desperately wants one but ... Always looks scruffy. Always wearing stained, too big clothes.

I want out. I want to stop being associated with him. I want to be non contact.

But how the HELL do you do this, in practice?! Do I just say 'I can't fucking stand you? Leave me the hell alone and stop coming round here all the time!' We have property we jointly own (our parents are dead and left us an inheritance.) So how to go about this?

Also I don't like him, but ... I'm all he's got. And I know he can't help being who and what he is but I'm so tired and ground down by it.

Help!

OP posts:

MonstrousRatbag · 09/06/2015 18:03

That's the point though, isn't it Lavender?

He will never get better. He is probably incapable of change. If anything it will get more entrneched. OP can't cope with the present let alone accepting decades of this kind of contact.

I'm not saying what she should do. But 'suffer someone else because it is the moral thing to do' is glibly said to women far too often I think.

OP, can you be as blunt as he is? Allow visits once every 2 months for no more than X time, declare what you can and can't do for him, set up a plan to financially separate in the next 18 months etc?

MonstrousRatbag · 09/06/2015 18:03

Sorry, entrenched.

Lavenderice · 09/06/2015 18:03

Are you suggesting that ASD and depression are self-inflicted?

Original poster

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 18:04

Thank you. I am crying here because of the relief I feel that some 'get it.'

He's had counselling, psychotherapy, CBT, anti depressants - you just feel 'what the fuck else can we DO'

OP posts:

Original poster

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 18:05

No, Lavender because ASD isn't an illness for the second time

Depression isn't self inflicted either, but then that wasn't the illness I was referring to.

OP posts:

DuchessofNorks · 09/06/2015 18:06

Maybe an ultimatum is the place to start OP. Tell him to get help or get lost. If you have exhausted every other approach then maybe the threat of losing his only line of support, his only human contact, it will kick him into doing something about it.

Original poster

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 18:07

I think I'll have to, but I know that he won't.

OP posts:

BoyFromTheBigBadCity · 09/06/2015 18:09

OP can you do a period of absolute no contact, to chill out a bit, then start again with (trying) to insist on diagnosis?

I went completely NC with my sister for a bit and it gave me space. Things aren't great yet but it did allow me to breathe easy for a bit.

ScaryMummy · 09/06/2015 18:11

I do really feel for you. Do you have support at home - do you have a partner? If you wanted to really break away, then the way to do it would be to move job and home and employ a solicitor to deal with the joint financial matters - but that would be a hell of a step to take. And it sounds like you have days when you sigh and put up with him - so you would have to steel yourself to never waver.

Rack's suggestion is good - sitting him down with a third party (hence the question about the partner).

Lavender - on the thread about the poster whose brother was racist, you were ok about severing links. This is the same type of offensive behaviour - the only difference is that Mango has been trying to find a reason why the behaviour happens, rather than just saying it's intolerable.

Original poster

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 18:11

It's largely the practicalities. I was NC with him for a while after he physically assaulted me but at present it would be so, so hard due to the flat!

OP posts:

Lavenderice · 09/06/2015 18:11

Ok, remove the word 'illness' and use the word 'disorder'. My point remains the same.

Original poster

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 18:11

Sometimes, I feel so angry with my parents for dying and leaving him with me.

I know that doesn't reflect well on me.

OP posts:

Original poster

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 18:12

Can you not understand it isn't the disorder but the behaviour that stems from it?

OP posts:

Lavenderice · 09/06/2015 18:13

I do think however it is probably best for you not to go NC with him. It doesn't sound like you have much of a relationship with him and the resentment you are feeling will only poison your relationship further.

BoyFromTheBigBadCity · 09/06/2015 18:14

Is the flat worth it?

Remember your own mental health and life are important. If he's is damaging your mental health, then you need to do something about it. He's a grown man who can presumably feed and wash himself. He's already assaulted you once. That is not ok. You absolutely do not have to put up with it just because you happen to be related.

Original poster

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 18:18

No, I agree it isn't, although it wasn't typical.

I had been on a course in the area (I used to live some distance away) and because the course finished at 6, I asked my dad if it was OK to stay at his house - he of course said it was. So I got in at 630 and brother started mithering to go out for 'a bite to eat.' I fucking HATE eating out with brother as he just pesters the waiters 'when will it be ready, is it nearly here' and he eats like a pig in a sty - so I said no. It turned into an argument that concluded with me being dragged across the room by my hair.

I'm just not sure what would happen to the property.

OP posts:

Lavenderice · 09/06/2015 18:18

ScaryMummy the difference there was that this behaviour stems from a disorder which the brother cannot help having. On these boards we hear South about making allowances for children with similar issues I feel we should extend that to adults also.

Lavenderice · 09/06/2015 18:19

*we hear so much

MonstrousRatbag · 09/06/2015 18:20

At what cost to the OP though?

When is it bad enough for the OP to be 'allowed' to bow out?

I thank that is essentially what she is asking.

BoyFromTheBigBadCity · 09/06/2015 18:22

OP I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. Is it possible that part of your problem that you worry things could escalate again? Constant dread/low level worry like that is exhausting.

Could you contact the solicitors who dealt with your parents' will to find out your options wrt the flat?

confusedandemployed · 09/06/2015 18:25

Lavender are you missing the part where OP's brother is refusing to get help?
ASD is not an illness, people with ASD do sometimes need additional support to function though and this guy is refusing to do that. He is an adult, who is not unwell, who is refusing to get help /advice for a possibly undiagnosed condition.

Why should OP put up with such awful behaviour? I truly don't understand why you're making so many allowances for him.

ScaryMummy · 09/06/2015 18:25

Well, Lavender, I think there is a difference between making allowances and letting someone make you deeply miserable. And as OP says, this is not diagnosed and it is her suspicion that he has a disorder.

Mango, how long is it since your dad died? I am wondering if there is a bit of grief mixed up in all of this.

Original poster

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 18:26

I have made allowances, Lavender. Can you not see how many allowances I have made and continue to make?

Allowances as a child - being dragged around, hurt, stood on (!), called names endlessly because that's his humour, endless days out and trips ruined because of his whining. He would expect the entire world to change before he changed something. Then my mum dies and hey, somebody has to be the strong one and it isn't going to be my dad as he lost his wife and my brother is my brother so it had better be me, hadn't it? Never mind the fact I'm a teenage girl who's mother has died.

And then the years of drama, of hospital admissions and out again and back in, of sitting waiting in A & E until midnight and then having to go to work the next day, then dad dies and again, I'm not allowed to grieve because there's a funeral to get together, and I can do that! I can cope with and carry me. But not him too.

OP posts:

pictish · 09/06/2015 18:35

Op I really feel for you...please try not to get too upset at what Lavender is saying...she isn't living your life with his constant intrusion so it's easy for her to be idealistic.

I relate to you enormously...my brother is a hive of issues and was absolutely abysmal to me growing up.
Our mum died 10 years ago leaving me to look out for him.
Fortunately he lives 50 miles away so can't bother me too much. I keep an eye on him from afar.

You have my every sympathy in this situation. I don't know what you can realistically do to get some peace from him other than move house.

Original poster

Mangolimes · 09/06/2015 18:37

I could move, but honestly, he would still be there!

One of the issues with a brother like mine, who doesn't work, is they have time - and suddenly spring on you from 200 miles away, stay an hour, then vanish

OP posts:

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