I just almost killed my brother

Your brother is the one that needs to apologize.. If he's so shocked about you trying to physically hurt him, he should soon realize his own fault here. In that way, it's a good thing you shocked him a bit and did something radically different.. You needed some way to tell him that what he's doing is just pure bullshit.

And hitting the dog w/ the phone was of course an accident, but having a temper-tantrum before throwing the phone like a little spoiled kid.... well, there's no excuse for that.

Vas, you did the right thing, and you may face some heat for a little while, but people will eventually realize that your brother needed a wake up call.

I'm not going to excuse you for attacking your flesh-and-blood, however, I do completely understand why it happened.

See here's the problem, you're a nice guy. Ever hear that saying "Watch out for the quiet ones."? You've just experienced why. Quiet people tend to be extremely passionate, protective, and flat out dangerous without even knowing it. We bottle shit up instead of venting it and all it takes is one trigger to make all that pent up shit explode.

You put up with this bullshit for 6 months and you wonder why you snapped? I can't to talk too much because I've done the same thing when trying to help someone. You don't want to give up on them because you care about them and want to see them get better, but at the same you keep wondering why you are so stupid because your generosity and kindness are being totally taken advantage of.

There has to come a time when you say enough is enough. If the boy were fifteen or so I'd say you may have to seek outside intervention, good intentions are no substitutes for professional counsel. However, this child 21 fucking years old. There is no excuse for being a fucking deadbeat at that age.

Think about this, do you think anybody in the real world would have done anywhere near as much for him as you have? Fuck no! Two months tops and he'd have been on his ass before he knew what'd happened.

He's your brother, he's your blood, but he's also an asshole. You can love an asshole, but you don't have to like them. It's time for reality to kick your brother in the balls. You do him nothing, but a disservice by letting him believe this type of shit is an effective life skill.

Let him struggle and talk to your mom to quit coddling him. He who spares the rod hates his son.

EDIT: And regarding his look of fear and confusion: Don't let this shit bother you. It's long past time for reality to intrude upon your brother's psyche. He hurt someone you care for (intentional or not). If he'd punched your girlfriend in the face would you have stood there, shaking your finger disapprovingly?

The boy needs to understand that every action has consequences, good or ill.

More importantly, DON'T let him use this as some spectre to hang over your head. If you weren't his flesh and blood he might very well BE dead right now.

I agree with Mo7. Wow, that sounded weird.

My brother is a royal fuckup and I've had to deal with his drunken friends trying to get into my room, his parties destroying my property and the consequences involving police and huge family fights. You can hate him for all the dumb shit he does, but he's still your brother. You're going to feel bad and try really hard to think of all the little things that will make him seem better and try very hard to ignore his mistakes. Don't do it. If you give him major sympathy and overlook his serious errors, he's never going to change. Unless he actually takes responsibility for the shit he does he is -never- going to get better.

My brother hit me once when he was drunk/stoned when I said I was going to call the police if he didn't get everyone out of the house during a party he had. It was not even a hit, just a little slap sort of thing, but it scared the shit out of me and I cried like hell, and it made him snap. He got everyone out of there and tried to apologize for two months before I got over it. He's also tried and failed to do college, hold actual jobs, move out of the house, etc., and never done anything with it. His entire life is a fucking joke up to this point. I just found out he's enlisting in the Marines (he backed out from the Reserves two years ago) and you know what, I'm terrified. I absolutely hate him, but he's family.

Get your family involved, as it sounds like your brother will be impossible to reason with without some neutral third party. Don't get defensive if your parents side with your brother and just try to explain what your brother has all done and how you feel. If you keep at that with and without your brother around, somebody is going to listen and your brother is going to have to sit down and not act like a child. Don't blackmail him with a bounced check and don't go on some great revenge crusade to make him seem horrible to everyone you know. Do shit that will help him get better and make him take responsibility for what he's done. If he broke anything that belonged to you, find a way to make him replace it. Get him to pay the rent, etc. If you have to involve other people to talk him into it, whatever, but it has to be done or else he's going to stick with his story of you being some threatening bastard so long he'll think it's real.

Good luck, seriously. It fucking sucks having shitheads in the family that you care about too much to kick to the curb, but that's what a lot of us get stuck with. My brother has caused -so- many problems in our family and my dad still doesn't even have the heart to tell him to move out. Hard to deal with people you care about.

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Originally Posted by Vasteel

I did sort of a shin/foot stomp to knock him off balance (he's a good bit bigger than me) and went for a punch, but he tried to double leg me. I just kind of backed up and grabbed the back of his head, he kinda wrestled me around (still had ahold of my leg) and went to punch me in the nuts, I got his wrist, flipped his chin up, took him down with my knees in his solar plexus and an elbow across the throat. I was about to hit his throat when my girlfriend stopped me. I still held him there for a minute.

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It sounds to me like you put him in his place without really hurting him.

I'd say get over it. He probably needed it.

It also sounds like you are more afraid of what you could have done, not what you did.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by IronPlant

I also have to wonder if you aren't telling us something about his mental health. Your brother sounds like someone with serious depression issues.

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Yeah, I did leave this part out. The dude has some serious manic depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Seen this situation happen before, judging by the some of the stories told around here sounds like alot of people here have.

He's deeply depressed, in a rut, can't really help what he's doing.

That doesn't make it right or okay. He deserved to be shoved around a bit if he's telling you to fuck off in your own home, ripping you off and throwing your things at your pets. He still bears responsiblity for how he deals with his situation.

Basically, don't feel bad for him. He's stuck in a world of his own self pity, and trying to get you to buy into it - that's why he's trying to send all these guilt waves at you. He feels helpless to change, so he thinks that somehow frees him of responsibility - like it's not his fault he ended up like this because he couldn't do anything about it. If you let him off the hook, you're enabling him to stay in it. He's so lost he's willing to essentially steal from his own brother and lie about threats, because deep down he doesn't feel capable of facing the things he needs to do in life.

He's still your brother, so burning any bridges won't do any good, but he needs help, and probably not from you.

If it still somehow falls to you, take his freaking computer away, let him stop masturbating long enough to grow some balls and living in WoW fantasy land long enough to face reality.

But basically, he needs to be grounded in reality - a job will give him some self repsect back, though obviously it's not easy to get him to go down that road. A girlfriend will give him some energy and self esteem, but then if that was easy for him he wouldn't be in this situation.

But just because it's hard doesn't mean it doesn't have to be done. That, along with physical activity, is the road out of his situation. Try getting him to go to a doctor - maybe there's a physicial ailment contributing to his situation that he's unaware of - sleep apnea, fibro-myalgia, chronic fatigue. Or maybe he's just unhappy.

Either way, he doesn't have the right to make you miserable just because he can't figure his life out. Stand up for yourself, tell him where to go, and then, very, very politely, tell your mom where to go as well. Remind him that he's still your brother, that you still care about him, but that you're not going to be used like a doormat either. That just creates a feedback loop of both of you being unhappy.

Damn, when I started reading Vasteel's first post and saw that it was serious, I thought he really almost killed his brother.

I'm glad you didnt,man. Sounds like you just beat the shit out of him a little bit, and that's probably what he needed.Everyone here has given honest and thoughtful advice so I have nothing else to add except that any one of us here would definitely have done the same if not worse in your situation.

I cant believe that the rest of your family wouldnt sympathize with you on a situation like this though. It sounds like you and your girlfriend went out of your way to make a home for your brother and give him a new chance at life, and he just squandered it. If anything that hurt look he gave you was him realizing this.

Dont apologize to him at all either, I think you and your gf deserve his apologies if anything...

He's stuck in a self fulfilling prophecy that he's never going to have a happy life, and he's certainly not going to let his older brother help him. He's playing you as the villain to get sympathy from Mom, who will then let him mooch rent free and play videogames all day. He's either going to wake up one day and be like "I'm ashamed that I'm this old and doing nothing, I want a real life", wake up one day and be like "I'm 30 and have no life, time to shoot some heroin", or get tough love now and not have to learn the hard way.

He should get nothing he doesn't pay for. No internet access, videogames, nothing other than food and water. He'll get a retail job out of boredom so he can buy fun stuff, realize how much retail sucks cock, and go back to school so he can do something with his life.

Don't be upset with yourself about the dog thing. I'd have done the same thing if anyone, family or not, threw a phone at my Beagle. Hurting dogs calls for beatings a lot more severe than the one you gave your brother.

That hurt look on his face was shock; shock that his life has come to this. Don't let him slide back into his comfort zone of WoW and bounced checks.