Need some serious advice
 

In the past I have come on this forum and expressed serious issues with my life. Some I regret, most I didn't. Right now I am facing an issue I am seriously seeking some advice from you guys, yet ironically enough it my confiding in you about this issue that is part of the "problem" I seek advice in.

I'm currently 23, going on 24 by this May. I live with my parents and my 18 year old brother who has been drinking and has outright assaulted my very way of life. To be honest about who I am, you must know I am still heavily into cartoons, anime, and spend a great deal of time surfing the web and talking to people.

I don't have a multitude of friends but I have one very close one and others at another school, though even though he is singular, he has become one of my most kindred spirits in the way of friendships. I'm graduating from college this may with my bachelor's degree in liberal arts for psychology and going on for my masters.

My brother feels I am an outcast, that I am hiding behind my parents and that his life is normal and mine is not. To him, I'm farther back on the evolutionary chain because of my lifestyle despite me being older then him. His rants have met with me standing up for myself, and times when I chose not to.

He believes I am doing "Jack S**T" wasting my life on anime and going on the computer. I admit i spend lots of time online and not out as much as I like to. But I don't believe in his way of life in going out with people to bars and getting drunk. That it is not me, it is not my life and I'd rather die a lonely old man then turn into the lifestyle person he has been pushing me to become.

I admit, I must sound ironically pathetic to ask online friends for counseling. But considering this late hour in which this fight is erupting and the fact my last late night friend that I talk to has just turned off her phone, I find myself with no one to speak to of this matter and I wanted to do it while it was fresh in my mind.

I hate fighting with my brother like this, and sometimes I feel he's right and my life is some sort of babyized fantasy I live in simply because of my loneliness. As I said I have few people to talk to at this very moment, so I hope you'll forgive my boldness and don't mind me expressing this and possibly helping me on this subject. Believe me, I know how sad I must sound in RL.

I do not want you guys to automatically invoke sympathy or pity on me on my words alone. I ask you take a good long read at what I said and respond honestly and truthfully, no matter how harsh it may sound. I apologize at this rather boldness and thank you guys for your time and any words you may offer.

So what? So am I. Your 18-year-old brother is telling you how to live your own life? You shouldn't let him do that to you. You're actually in college trying to better yourself in life. What is HE doing? Does he have any ambitions on his own? If the answer is no, then YOU should be the one to say something to him about his life. Just because you spend time online a lot and and watching cartoons doesn't mean you're nothing. Getting drunk and going to the bars doesn't make one any better than others. I don't find that kind of activity any fun to me.

Your brother is an idiot. Hanging around bars and getting drunk is a far greater waste of time than watching cartoons or spending time online. If these are things that make you happy and bring pleasure and/or meaning to your life, then who is he to judge? My younger brother doesn't understand my interests in such things either and I'm sure he disapproves to some extent, although at least he has the decency to keep his mouth shut about it.

It is unfortunate that your brother's lifestyle is the more common and more "socially acceptable" lifestyle. A man goes out drinking and wenching and we give him a high-five and say, "Alright, dude, good for you!", whereas someone who opts to watch animation or chat online and socialize with people with whom he has a common interest gets a raised eyebrow. I think that says something about society in general, and it doesn't say much.

I'm not sure what else to say at the moment. As you noted the hour is late and in truth my mind is starting to fog over for want of sleep. But believe me when I tell you that I know exactly where you're coming from.

ORD and Cassini hit the nail on the head, Mr.M. Your brother's still just a kid who gets drunk. Who is he to tell you you're wasting your life?

You're the one in college, bettering your life and perfecting your skills. What is your brother doing? Drinking and going to bars all the time? And he tells you you're the loser? He's a hypocrite.

And focusing on something you're really interested in is far better than focusing on something that's "socially acceptable" and life destructing.

That and he should just learn to mind his own business.

your brother is insane. pretty much like everyone else has said, you are doing something much better than he is. and even though he is your brother, you shouldnt listen to what he says. dont let people control you, be yourself, and enjoy life.

there is my two cents. :D

Thanks guys, you've really been a big help. Sad to say though things have escalated and gone into more seriously bad issues. Turns out my brother's main issue with my lifestyle was he felt I was some baby clinging to his parents and not going out and meeting more people or doing more stuff like he did.

He argued with my parents, screaming at them and at times at me until like 2 am and it got so bad he actually left the house and we had to call the cops to make sure he made it to a friends house safe and sound. Today, he's still in a mood and my parents are making all kinds of precautions to keep him out.

They feel he really needs to cool off and we feel he's gonna try and stay at his friends place for days and I really hate to see this. My brother and I can get into seriously ugly ass arguments but I don't want him to be like this. My dependency on my parents isn't part of some weakness where I can't live on my own.

Unlike my brother, I have a very good relationship with my parents and they talk to me and support me instead of how my brother thinks I am like stapling myself to them and leeching off them. My parents have done more for me then I ever thought a parent could do and for that, I share everything with them.

Either way, I hate seeing my brother like this and I seriously honest to god, pray on a stack of bibles that he gets a reality check and comes back and ends this stupid crap. He hurt me but I don't want to lose him either.

I'm with everyone else on this. Your brother's being a jerk by forcing you to have a more active lifestyle. His idea of fun is going out to bars and getting drunk? Uh, no. That's just horrible.

And he's your younger bro? Don't let him take over what you like, Mr. M! Who knows? Maybe you'll meet your Mrs. M one day without your bro's advice! Be yourself! ;)

how is he getting into bars at 18?

anyway, i'll assume he's got a job to pay for his beer. If he has a job and you don't, that could be the source of resentment, provided you don't pay rent to your parents i guess it could seem like he's out in the workforce while you're chillin' at home going to school.

So thats more than a few assumptions, but maybe thats why he gets angry?

hope y'all work it out :(

Dude, I'm the same as you. I'm 20, 21 in April and I spend my life watching anime/cartoons playing video games and hanging out online. In fact my life is "sadder" then yours! I'm a high school drop out, I've had a phobia of school since I was little, when I got into grade 9 I couldn't handle it anymore and dropped out legally. I'm on... alot of meds... I have NO friends irl anymore and get nervous around my own peer group, and am unemployed.

I do however go out around town alot... With my parents, I have no interest in driving myself and have never tried to get a license.

Your lifestyle is FINE! Just tell your brother to shut up and stop being a jerk >_>

My brother actually just recently lost his job. I do have a job, same one for about 4 years now, part time only though because I am still going to school. My brother doesn't get into bars but he feels I SHOULD because I'm already past 21 and he does like booze.

And yes he has had drinks in our house despite the fact he's not 18, he'll get booze one way or another if he can't get anything here.

huh.

well, smack him around a bit and tell him to back off.

I have to say, I don't understand just WHY your life upsets your brother so much. What bad thing exactly will happen to him if you don't change the way you live?

Ugh, no offence, man, but sounds like your brother didn't get spanked enough as a child. Isn't it ironic that big "macho man" types are usually incapable of knowing when THEY'RE the ones acting like a baby? I'd say getting in a violent tizzy on a regular basis over his older brother's lifestyle is pretty immature. I, at least, was brought up with the belief that I should respect my older brother, even if I disagree with him.

However, your brother's 18. He's chomping at the bit to leave home and become independant. Once he does, he'll probably settle down a bit and realise how important family is, I know it worked that way for MY older brother, who acted similarly. I think the guy needs some space between you and him.

Finally, if you have SOME contact with other human beings, that means you aren't socially inept. You post enough here, and I assume other places, to constitute that. The guy is just very close-minded, and can't understand that virtual conversation can be just as stimulating as the regular kind.

So, my advice is to tough it out for the next year or so, and wait for the guy to graduate and move out. Avoid him as much as possible. This may sound callous, but there's not a lot you can do for him now, hopefully in a few years he'll have come to his senses.

Because he feels I need to be "saved" from this life, that it is so pathetic and horribly socially closed off that I need to be yanked out of it and because he feels my parents baby me too much, he thinks no one's ever gonna make me "toughen up".

Which is redundant when his life has gone from anything BUT normal. Truth be told, I'd normally not be this scared or worried about it but after seeing all the measures my parents have gone to to keep him out to ensure he mellows out and relaxes and the fact my dad LITERALLY called the cops on him.

That concerns me. I always felt of all the families in the world, not to sound arrogant, but I always felt happy knowing we never needed to call the police on each other. Not that people who do that are monsters but, its like you know, never thought that would happen to my family, you know?

I second pretty much what everyone else said. Siblings can be difficult. It's one thing when you're kids, but when you're grown it can become a totally new issue. It can be really tough, and since you know eachother so well and are all too aware of what's going on and the discomfort and awkwardness involved, sometimes it's much easier for everyone to just let them make their mistakes and hope for the best. It's sad, and it's hard. But most of us have gone through a similar stage at one time or other, for some of us it wasn't bad and for other's it was very severe. After some time, he'll get it together again and will likely turn out fine.

There is certainly nothing wrong with what you're doing with your life. You've got it together- about to get your degree, got a job in which you've kept for four years showing you're responsible. So what if you live with your parents? It's not like you mooch off them entirely. I've also read not one but three or four articles within the last year about how kids are staying with their parents longer now days, so you're normal. And if I may say so myself, I think it's smart to stick around until you're done with college. You'll likely have more confidence (and money) when you're ready to move out on your own, so you'll start out with solid footing. And so what about watching animated shows and spending a lot of time on the computer? This is the 21st century after all. What should really matter is that you've got friends (even if you've never met some of them in person, they're still real people), and you're doing what you enjoy.

As with your brother, I'm wondering if he's trying to maybe impress someone, maybe a friend, or just someone he hopes to associate with in the future, possibly even himself. He might be embarrassed of his own life, admires what you're doing, and in feeling that it's just "not fair", is lashing out. And he's putting you down to help himself feel better. It's human nature. It might be a very frustrating situation for him. And the more frustrated and confused he gets, the uglier his attitude gets. So just try to be patient with him, and be careful in getting involved yourself. And take what he tells you with a grain of salt until he straitens out.

Yes, I know. It's like your reputation has been ruined forever. It's depressing. It's embarrassing. Some of the closest and most reputable families have had to come to that. That doesn't change how close or reputable they are, though. It's just due to the personality of the person in question, as of course we're all different. I know a close, "happy" family going through this very thing right now too, it doesn't make sense that they're going through this. But I believe they'll be alright. Just know you're not alone. ;)

I don't necessarily see anything wrong with your lifestyle. I'm into anime and cartoons and the like though, I must admit, not as much as you from what I can garner from talking to you. In a lot of ways, I'd describe how deep you are into your preferred anime and cartoons as a form of extreme escapism, at least from what I can tell from the discussions we have. Escapism, in and of itself, isn't dangerous, though it can be if it gets out of hand, which is the problem I see with spending a great deal of time online and with these escapes of anime and cartoons.

One thing you mention is that you don't have many friends, and to that, I have to ask, why? While having some multitude of friends certainly doesn't constitute being a necessity, the way you state this makes me think you don't believe yourself to have as many friends as you believe yourself to have. Is it because you're not outgoing, or because of your own personality, as, no offense M, but you tend to have INCREDIBLY extremist views and take a vitriolic attitude towards anyone who disagrees with them. What I'm getting at is this: that while a good deal of your decision to stick to being alone and sticking with anime, cartoons, and internet time is probably because you truly enjoy it, I'm wondering if some of it also isn't because you're afraid of genuinely socializing in the outside world. I ask this because I'm the same way, to a degree.

Also, the whole thing about you living with your parents 23-24, that does eventually need to change. I don't think it says anything about you as a person that you're still living with your parents. However, you will have to move on eventually anyway. While you say later on that you're not still there simply because you're UNABLE to move, why is it you haven't? If you are capable, then you probably should. This is, of course, my own personal opinion, as I'm an incredibly cynical man, as well as my feelings once you have the power to be capable of doing something, you should do it and, when I get the money to, I intend to make sure my parents don't have the millstone of having to support me around their neck. But that's just me.

I think your brother is overreacting, but I also think that's normal for that age and given the situation. My sister, who is also eighteen, blew up at me that I still live with my parents at 20, going on 21. Her main point was that she didn't want me as part of her life, a hatred that she's had for me since she became a teen. It's not that that hatred honestly bothers me, as I expect outright hatred to be anyone's natural reaction. But I digress.

I don't believe there's anything necessarily wrong with your lifestyle. I don't feel your doing jack s**t with your life in that you have a job and are graduating from college (as little as I genuinely consider college meaning anything), which is at least showing your on track to starting a genuine career and becoming a productive member of society.

At the same time, I don't see anything necessarily wrong with your brother's lifestyle, though I'm distressed to hear he's drinking fairly commonly at only 18. You have your way, and he has his. The problem, really, is only that he believes his to simply be superior to yours.

Do as thou wilt, and that shall be the whole of the law.

You assume that socializing on the internet is somehow a "lesser" form of socializing, an idea popularized by a lot of people. While I have to admit that I don't think socializing on the internet possess all the subtleties and interactions real life socializing does, I think that the boundaries between the two are becoming less and less distinct quicker and quicker. I don't think it's babyish at all to necessarily live the way you do. There are some things I think you could improve on, but hey, don't we all?

I have the same problem with my sister, though my sister isn't exactly doing that badly with my parents. I think it's a common younger sibling thing, in all honesty, as I think younger siblings can tend to have a form of jealousy for the older sibling, and seeing you still at home probably drives him crazy and, thus, he accuses you of leeching because of his own jealousy.

As for his current state....let him cool off for a bit. I know that may sound somewhat detached and cold, but confronting him at this current point in time will, in my experience, only make things worse.

No offense Cassini, but you're doing exactly what M's brother is doing in supposing one lifestyle to necessarily be better than the other. You're free to your opinion, of course, but I just think it's wrong to make such a judgment.

No offense taken. However, given the health effects of alchohol abuse and it's cost to society, I cannot judge it as anything other than inferior. I won't bore you with medical statistics or DWI stories; they're easy enough to find online. If we were talking about social drinking that would be another matter entirely and I have no problem with that, but based on Mr. M.'s description his brother's behaviour seems to have gone well beyond that.

Well, as a younger sibling myself, I wouldn't say that I think that's entirely true. I think it's probably a case of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence. My older brother and I do get on reasonably well overall, but there is an extent to which he still bullies me now, when we're both in our 20s, much as he did when we were kids growing up. He's certainly not as hard on my lifestyle as Mr. M's younger brother is on his, but nonetheless his need to criticise me over the tiniest little things can get mighty tiresome after a while. I find it plausible that many older siblings would harbour a form of resentment for their youngers, since some of them never appear to get over the younger sibling's arrival and consequent diversion of parental attentions, but I reckon that we're getting a bit off topic here. So I'll simply repeat, the grass is always greener.

In your case, Mr. M, there doesn't really sound like there's an awful lot for you to be jealous about. I'm about the same age as you, and I have absolutely no interest in hanging out at bars, drinking intoxicating substances which have no appeal to me. I'm much rather curl up with a good book or cartoon. I think the best advice I could give would be to stop giving a monkey's about what other people think and to get on with what feels right to you. Admittedly, I'm not always brilliant at following it (as Niles Crane once said, "It's one thing to give advice, it's another thing to take it"), but I do think that it's quite a solid little tip nonetheless.

Not to turn this into a debate but I do have to clear up a few things. First off, I never said i was not outgoing I simply said most of my time is on the computer or going to the movies etc. Secondly, my so called extremist views you refer to have mostly stemmed from our conversations involving anime and stuff like that.

You don't really know my views on religion, beliefs, morals, politics etc. I don't tell people my views to change their minds, I tell them my views so they can see what my mind sees. I don't expect anyone to believe what I say just as long as they listen to it which most people don't do, they tend to miss that.

They assume I'm in a never ending battle to be "right" which is one of the things my brother strongly hates about me (I have done it but not as much as he makes it sound), I don't want to be right all the time I just want my brother and others to understand my views and why I feel this way/that way.

Thirdly and most importantly and not to sound aggressive over this but I NEVER EVER said I wanted to be alone. It is not a decision its a state of being, at least for me it is. I don't want to be alone I HATE being alone and I HAVE tried socializing and I still do I just still end up spending a lot of the time at home either way.

Nothing about my solitude has anything to do with choosing it, I don't want to be alone and I do want to socialize and I have been so I just want to make that clear. I'm not afraid to socialize what i am afraid is having to change my lifestyle to my brother's in order to further socialize because to me, that's not living.

He's not a druggie or a super burnt out addict but I have some moral standards that exceed any worries about being alone. There are some things and some ways of life I would rather die alone then live under.