Hi everyone.
This is likely to be long, but I will try to get the context in so appropriate advice can be offered.
I have a younger brother who got into a relationship around a year ago. They are both in their mid 20s. There were some red flags that cropped up pretty quickly which caused arguments between me and him, because I felt the influence of his new girlfriend was impacting him very negatively - think things like him suddenly blaming others for his problems, only going to work very intermittently. This culminated in a big row with him and I didn’t really involve myself after that.
Fast forward to now, my brother has been going through a huge decline in mental health - we re talking panic attacks, daily vomiting, I think some thoughts of suicide. His ability to work has dwindled to virtually nil. My mum has been supporting him as best she can, and he has tried a couple of different antidepressants which don’t appear to have made a great deal of difference. He has also just been assessed for autism for which we are waiting the report.
Hearing this from afar, I started to wonder if it was some sort of potentially autistic burnout he was experiencing, and finally got to talk to him in person yesterday to try and offer some support and strategies to help him.
The conversation didn’t go how I expected, and he started to disclose all kinds of things about his partner such as:
- when he speaks about feeling overwhelmed or too tired this is dismissed and he is made to feel like he’s being pathetic.
- despite not working herself, she leaves “jobs” for him to do when he comes back from work and will become argumentative if he doesn’t do these immediately on his return, despite having been at work with an hours commute each way.
- when he became upset and began crying - told him he was “fake crying” and it wouldn’t work on her.
- when he is feeling low she will become aggressive and argumentative about why - if he can’t immediately say why then obviously there’s nothing wrong and he’s causing drama
- she doesn’t drive, and relies on him to take her everywhere, even places that are less than 10 minutes walk
- she often wants to go out clubbing, but dismisses him when he says he’s tired and is overstimulated by the noise and won’t go home until 3 or 4 in the morning.
- as his ASC diagnosis is pending, she dismisses all his struggles as not real, or as inconsequential compared to hers. (She is diagnosed with BPD)
These are just some examples that came out after three hours of conversation yesterday, but the ongoing theme appears to be that he is constantly put down, made to feel less than, that his opinion doesn’t matter and that he basically exists as a general dogsbody to make her life easier. He is not entitled to any time to relax or engage in his interests, and even coming to speak to me yesterday culminated in a huge argument between them because she said it has cut into “their time”.
I feel so upset that this is the treatment he is accepting from her. I know he has his faults as well, but I’ve never seen him look so ill as he did yesterday.
I was quite careful with what I said about her yesterday, focusing rather on questions like “why do you think she did that?” “How did you feel when that happened?” “Do you think that that was okay?”
He was of the opinion that often the behaviour was purposeful and designed to upset him, but then in the next breath she makes him happy and he can’t imagine being without her.
I’m very aware she has been trying to isolate him from his family - policing phone calls and reading text messages as well, so it’s really difficult to know where to go from here to help him.
Thank you if you got this far, any and all advice would be really appreciated.