We’re adults, everyone else in our family passed away. My brother is high functioning autistic. You would probably just think he’s an asshole or an oddball if you met him. I’m younger by 2 years. We had a combative relationship as kids and a very distant relationship by the time highschool hit. I moved far away when I turned 18 and have mostly kept my distance since then, not just because of brother but because of dad’s mental ilness and stepmom’s emotional abuse. Dad died and brother has moved into my area in his own subsidized apartment, with the idea that it would be good for him to be near a family member who can help him ocationally.
ANYWAY I am finding it triggering to be near a family member again. I am struggling to get my own needs met while meeting his. Being near him, it’s like I get these emotional flashbacks where I feel small and helpless. I always viewed him as a bully growing up. He didn’t get diagnosed till high school, and nobody ever explained anything to me or helped us develop a positive dynamic. Honestly I was really neglected in general. My needs were never seen to because my problems were never as big as other family members.
Now I know that austic indiviuals tend to not be animated when they speak, being monotone can be symptom. I don’t have a problem with any other autistic person I’ve met, but with brother it comes across as hostile against me because that’s how it felt when we were kids. I’m always on edge around him. When he has socially inappropriate behaviors out in public, its not just a little embarrassing or annoying, its this strong feeling of shame and anxiety. I think that’s also a left over feeling from childhood. We grew up in a small town, and being the younger sibling I always entered each situation with a reputation as being his sister. His behavior always had negative social repurcutions for me in childhood. We’re in our 30s now and I don’t think I’m going to be rejected just because my brother is a bit off. I should be an adult here, not have all these childish reactions to this stuff. But I’m finding, being around him I seem to be emotionally regressing. I don’t like feeling like a kid again. I HATED childhood.
I was parentified during childhood. I was invisible during childhood. I think I had this unhealthy dynamic with my family growing up where I couldn’t have my own feelings, like we would all be in crisis together. These emotional habits and feelings have all come back again. Now being near him again, I can’t seem to be okay. His apartment is an unsanitary mess, he’s needed help getting furniture and things like that, he seems a bit lonely. I don’t know how to be okay if he’s not okay and I don’t know how to make him okay.
I feel this sense of overwhelming hopelessness. I don’t feel like I have it in me to live for two people. I’ve got adhd and chronic migraines, I feel like I’m barely managing my own life poorly as it is, and now with him around I don’t know how I’ll ever catch up. I don’t feel comfortable making decisions for another person but he often seems to need that kind of help, like choosing furniture and stuff, but it feels so uncomfortable. I don’t like being around him, it brings up all these unpleasant feelings and puts me on edge, but I feel like the worst person not wanting be around my own brother who seems to want to connect with me. I end up getting stressed and overwhelmed, then I’m short tempered and rude with him, and that’s not how I want to be. This whole situation is revealing what a horrible person I am. I really hate myself. I can’t seem to get the hang of things. I can’t seem to get a grasp on life. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t want to help a family member in need. I’m a mean person. I’m worthless and bad at life. I’m not deserving of love and kindness because I am not the sort of person who will extend this to my own family.
Comments
REMINDER: Rules regarding civility and respect are enforced on this subreddit. Hurtful, cruel, rude, disrespectful, or "trolling" comments will be removed (along with any replies to these comments) and the offending party may be banned, at the mods’ discretion, without warning. All commenters should be trying to help and any help should be given in good faith, as if you were the OP’s parent. Also, please keep in mind that requesting or offering private contact (DM, PM, etc) is absolutely not allowed for any reason at all, no exceptions.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Oh my goodness, you are being ruthless to yourself! All your emotions/feelings/reactions towards your brother make complete sense. You had a horrific childhood that directly involved him and it’s now all come flooding back. I feel overwhelmed for you just reading about how your life has flipped upside down.
Take a step back. You are not actually responsible for your brother. You’ve stated that he’s high functioning so while he may want help picking out furniture, you don’t need to feel compelled to get it done for him. It sounds cruel but make yourself less available to him for stuff like this. How did he manage to find an apartment and move to your area? Did someone help him or did he get it accomplished on his own?
You need to take care of yourself. Is therapy a possible option for you? A therapist could help you work through your childhood trauma and how it’s now consuming your life again. Are you treating your ADHD?
You are important and you need some serious care before it’s possible to take on so much for someone else. This doesn’t make you a bad person! You are human and you deserve some grace.
Ummmm… You don’t owe your brother favors.
You’re catastrophizing and feeling overwhelmed and like you can’t get a hold on life which is what I was feeling when I got diagnosed with…. Autism.
Take a break from your brother and talk this out with a therapist. You’re not a bad person for being raised in a bad environment. Always take care of your own needs first. Burnout is awful and you’re not helping him by making yourself sick with worry and negative self-talk.
You are not a horrible person for feeling overcome with this responsibility. You are not mean, you tried to remove yourself and he has followed you. Don’t be hard on yourself. You cannot pour from an empty cup. As someone who tried to take care of everyone in my family and always played peace maker, I can tell you this is not selfishness. It is self preservation. I wish I had been able to say no long ago. If he gets benefits, try to find out if he can get help from Medicaid with a caregiver who could help with cleaning and caring for himself, even if only weekly. I know there are programs to help the disabled, and he might qualify. Talk to someone. Speak kindly to yourself. Sending you big hugs and hope for the future.
I’m also the sister of an autistic brother and feel this so hard. I actually work in special education and love my students but I do find being around my own brother to be quite triggering because of basically all the reasons you mentioned, the parentification, “bring your brother with you”, parents focused on him and his behaviours while ignoring the rest of us. Looking back I know that everyone was doing the best they could in a kind of crappy situation, we were a blended family of 4 kids, my dad has his own mental health issues, and it wasn’t a great dynamic which made my brothers symptoms worse but yep everything you said. I’ve basically cut ties with that entire side including brother because it’s just not a healthy relationship and I’m focused on my own life and family.
Please don’t hate yourself. Ultimately you have to come first, you can and should love others but love yourself more. It’s cliche, but you can’t pour from an empty cup. There’s a ton of good you can do for the world but if you are constantly stressed and dealing with an unhealthy dynamic none of it will come to fruition so please, love yourself first.
I hate this for you. I think he’s a user. Don’t speak to him.
I have a disabled brother, not autistic but he was born with a tumor in his brain that prevented development. My brother was super mean to me growing up, verbally and physically. He caused constant strife and chaos in my home.
I’m 40f now and I keep my distance from my brother. I empathize with his disability and I know there’s only so much he could control. However, that doesn’t change the fact that it was extremely difficult to grow up in a home with him. I still carry emotional scars from my childhood, and I always will.
You are not short tempered or a bad person. You are interacting with someone who caused you pain when you were a child, and that’s hard. That will always be hard. That’s normal. There’s nothing strange or wrong about how you are reacting to this situation.
I don’t know what state you are in, but your brother might qualify for some services to help him, including cleaning services for his nasty apartment and people to come spend time with him to help with the loneliness. Have you explored what services are offered in your state?
If I were you, I would sit down and think about what you can give your brother without hurting yourself. Can you hiring a cleaning service to come sometimes (assuming he doesn’t qualify for the aforementioned services)? Can you take him to dinner once a month? Can you take him to timebound events to socialize him, like maybe he likes playing games and there’s a local gameshop that hosts gaming sessions?
What are things you can do that don’t hurt you?
Also give yourself permission to not think about him other times. Like "I’ll visit with him 2x per month on these dates, and the other days I’m free to do what I want"
First, I am sorry that you are struggling with such bad feelings and thoughts about yourself. You clearly are not a mean or selfish person and care about your brother. You’re also a traumatized person.
As I read your post, I was reminded of myself some time ago…still holding all this old childhood neglect and dismissal inside, still judging myself like my dad did. What helped me tremendously with that part was EMDR therapy and I encourage you to look into that for yourself.
You are getting good advice here about helping your brother get the care he needs. It really is not up to you to provide that for him, especially now when you are feeling vulnerable. Put on your own oxygen mask, get help with processing your trauma and your relationship with your brother. On the other side, you may find you can be around him, help him, and not get triggered and emotionally regress.
Change your phone number and protect your peace. He can use a social worker for his needs.
If you are in the US, call 211 to request resources. He is high functioning, yes, but that means there are deficits that still need to be met. 211 will schedule a social worker to come out and go over how to fill the gap between what he needs and what he can do. He may need some OT to come up with a plan for cleaning/shopping/laundry/maintaining his living space. They can get him set up with transit accommodations, either direct or bus system. They will teach him how to access it and get from point A to B. The more independence he has, the less either family or government needs to step in, so there are programs to help. Its good to have this in place in case anything happens to you in the future, he already will have backup.
Please also get yourself some assistance. The 211 can refer you to some free support groups. It is hard losing your childhood to care for a sibling. You have carer burnout at a much higher rate bc you started at such a young age it is almost PTSD/triggering. This is recognized now where it wasnt as widely acknowledged prior. I hope you can resolve the childhood issues so you can put those to bed and not have them float to the surface every time there is a current issue. It has to be dealt with, especially now that you are in that role again.
Please take good care of yourself. You are awesome to help him, but never forget to put the Oxygen on yourself first.
Your brother needs developmental supports and autism affirming counselling.
You need trauma counselling. Be kind to yourself. You are allowed to say no to your brother. You are allowed to say yes and you are allowed to say no.
Moving near you probably wasn’t easy to do on Section 8 housing or whatever he has. Did you not say anything and let him go all through that and only now going to tell him to leave you alone? He probably at least knew people where he was. It was at least familiar. I’m not sure what you’re planning to do, but if you’re going to ditch him, you should at least move him back where he was and find him a social worker and some assistance.
You are NOT his parent nor his guardian. Nothing about him is your responsibility. NOTHING. You are not at fault for the cards life gave you. Nor the suffering pushed up on you by these people. Yes you need therapy. But that doesn’t mean you need to go back to the old way of life by surrounding yourself with these people. Get the hell away asap.
Being autistic is not an excuse for being an ass. Go no contact if you want to.
Being Autistic is no excuse for being a bully. Take care of yourself.
This is such a hard situation, and it sounds like you’re doing a pretty great job of navigating Hard Mode. The fact that you are noticing these feelings and seeing these patterns instead of avoiding them, or lashing out (except at yourself a bit here but that’s normal when you’re working through trauma, and you can shift how you talk to and about yourself) is actually pretty healthy. So like, take a moment and be proud of yourself. You are a good person, who wants to help people. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t feel like this, you’d just ghost, as some of these comments are suggesting. (There’s nothing at all wrong with taking space, but it sounds like you’d find that pretty hard, to go no-contact, and this seems like a situation that can be transformed, instead of cut off.)
For context, I’m autistic. Only recently diagnosed formally, cuz I was also parentified AF, and conditioned to not say no, or bother other people with my problems. (Every autistic person is different but FYI I consistently have the experience where people apologize for getting short with me and I nod and say no problem because actually it wasn’t a problem, sometimes I was even thinking "well this is relaxing" because everything was clear with no extra things, or mixed messages, to figure out how to respond to.)
The best thing you can do for yourself (most important) and for him (positive side effect) is to learn to establish, and maintain, boundaries. That having boundaries doesn’t diminish you, or your capacity to love and help people, it increases that capacity. Boundaries are an act of love. You can’t make him OK. That’s not how being OK works.
You also need to expand your team. I understand, deeply, your anxious feelings about therapy. You had a bunch of stuff packed away, and now it’s everywhere, and that’s overwhelming. In my journey, things started to come together when I got a counseling psychologist, who was also a social worker – this worked for me because they were very practical, excellent with boundaries but also compassionate, and helped me find what did work, rather than what should work – it really helped my confidence, and how I saw + spoke to myself. They helped me get connected with resources, and some therapy groups for peer support as well.
Maybe they will be your therapist for awhile, maybe they are the person who helps you navigate this moment of Overwhelm, so you can stop drowning and start swimming, and they’ll help you find someone else to work on trauma or whatever, long term. Take it one step at a time. Let them worry about the sense of connection, false or otherwise, that’s their job. Most therapists will do free consults to see if you vibe. Use that! You deserve it. It helps them do their job, if you’re honest about what’s working for you, or not. It’s normal to have a connection with your therapist – that there are boundaries around it, or that you’re compensating them for their work, doesn’t make it false. Connections based on sacrifice + no limits, are not more real, or stronger. (You will learn to believe this, evidence will prove it, as you practice having boundaries.)
Depending on where you live, your brother may be able to access a social worker +/or a personal support worker, to help with things like keeping his place clean, or building strategies to communicate more warmly with you. (And strategies he can offer you, as a gift – ie "if my communication feels hostile, can you let me know like this" – I struggle with managing tone, if I’m getting too harsh with my partner they go get me a glass of water, which is an established code I worked out with my therapist, and asked them to participate in.) There might even be some level of caregiver support for you as well. If there is an autism society for your city or state, I would start there.
Routine will probably help both of you. Maybe you see each other once a week, on Sunday afternoon. Maybe you help him meal prep, then watch a movie. It would be great if the main thing you were helping with was loneliness, and accountability to other goals. If going out in public is stressful right now, then don’t. Think of what seems possible for you to give, while still having enough for yourself. Try not to think about forever, just think about the next few months, as a place to start.
Ok I typed way more than I planned so I will get out of here with a reminder that what you’re feeling is very real and needs healing – you deserve space and time to address it. Taking space and time for your own needs is part of loving and caring for other people. I would be happy and proud and grateful and motivated, if you were my sibling, and you shared this part of your growth with me, even if it was hard to hear at first, even if it meant I didn’t see you as much, or had to challenge myself more often.
Many blessings and good luck to you both.
Holy hell. Reading this was so traumatic, it felt like getting hit by a bus. For your own happiness, and well being, and peace of mind… consider walking away from this person, forever. Family member or not, Is dealing with them REALLY worth making your life into a personal living hell or destroying your sanity?
One of my friends has autism and she qualifies for help from a home health aid who takes her out grocery shopping and just doing other random stuff, going out and doing fun things. She also gets I think some type of public transportation stipend or something. Maybe this could help you if you have someone else to be there for your brother in addition to you. You said he’s high functioning, does he have a job, or is he receiving disability/subsidized housing? Either way he may qualify for a variety of programs to help him adjust to these life changes. And also, don’t feel bad for needing to say no sometimes to non critical requests.
OP, you’re both adults and you’re not responsible for your brother’s wellbeing. It sounds like you’d have to overstep your own needs to attend his and that is simply not normal – he has got support if he has a subsidised apartment m, after all.
Putting your own needs first does not make you a horrible person. You are not required to be around someone who makes you fundamentally uncomfortable, no matter who they are. You are allowed to choose who you help and spend time with, and how that looks. People may have opinions (especially in small towns), but the reality is that you get to decide what you do and how you do it.
Please be kind to yourself and put your needs above whatever expectations you might believe/ or actually are placed on your shoulders. I’m sorry you are carrying such a heavy burden from your utter past, I hope that you can find some support for processing your own experiences and trauma.
If you live in the states you should probably contact a social worker. He needs professional help to live on his own. You are not responsible for his wellbeing. Just because he is your brother doesn’t mean that you have to be responsible for him
If you found the right therapist, it would absolutely help. But I get where you’re coming from, I’ve been to a lot of therapists that talked down to me.
So you were neglected by your family and emotionally abused by your late diagnosed brother. I grew up surrounded by neurodivergency and it can absolutely have the same effect on you, your emotions, your mental state, as abuse. There’s a name for what you’re going through, look up CPTSD.
It’s hard, because you know intellectually that it’s not his intention to be hurtful, but you can still experience hurt from his words and actions. Your feelings are VALID. I get the feeling you haven’t been validated in your lifetime so I’ll say it again: your feelings are valid.
You’re torn and that seems normal to me. I think you should put up some boundaries. Set rules. "I will help you pick out a table, but will only go to this furniture store, so before we go you need to look at their website and find your top 3." Then you don’t go if he doesn’t do his part.
"I won’t come to your apartment because it’s unsanitary" is not mean and it’s not your job to make a clean environment for him. There may be some social services help he can get but you are not his maid.
Boundaries are healthy, I would do a Google to learn more. You’re not worthless and mean, you need to heal from a lifetime of not having your needs met. Start allowing yourself to occupy space. There are so many things you can do to start healing on your own. Find out what makes you feel peaceful. Meditation? Music? Nature? Animals? Do that. Try writing things out. I hate doing that, but it helps some people. I am a person who needs quiet time to consider all the things. So you find what works for you.
You are a strong person who has made it this far without people who supported you. Well done! This Internet stranger is proud of you. I’m not old enough to be your parent but I definitely could have been your babysitter so all the care and support I can send over the Internet, I am sending.
Is there anyway your brother can get connected to a county social worker and find services for himself? These services may include day activities with a group of other DD adults, or a group home living situation or a part time job?
The social services can help him figure these things out. It does take time, but can work.
If you’re approached by the social services to give your brother more assistance, be sure to be firm that you cannot be involved. Tell them you are not his guardian and do not want to be. You don’t need to give them any other information.
You are doing so much. Now it’s time to get in appropriate services. Call APS or 211 and get information on getting your brother a caseworker. There are nonprofits that can help. In my area, there is Signature Health. I have a friend who works there as a caseworker. The CW finds housing as well as free furnishings for clients. Getting client housekeeping services or classes. CW takes them to doctor appointments, court appearances, entertainment (lunch, etc) as well as shopping. I know I’m just scratching the surface, the support is wide-ranging. There are also group homes.
This would definitely take a lot of the pressure off while you work on facing the horrors you suffered in childhood. I am so sorry. Perhaps with the appropriate services in place, you can go back to texting.
Question, Would telling your brother exactly how you feel using the exact words you wrote here be something you would consider? I think you might be surprised by his response. I could also be dead wrong, you would know better than I. You will have to talk to him about getting services. That would be nonnegotiable, if it were me. He has to at least try. You can’t provide the care he needs.
You are perfect. You acted out of love even if that love is born out of bad memories. You went above and beyond. Now it’s time for services to step in and you can step back. Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm. An oft used trope common on Reddit that really helped me the first time I read it.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. Just to add make sure the facility he stays at does not have you listed as an alternative keeper for him. Let them know that you do not make any decisions regarding his healthcare, finances, or living accommodations. I wonder if something goes wrong at that place if they will expect you to come pick him up. You need to let them know you are not the point of contact.
So basically move away and cut him off. Don’t look back and live for yourself only.