brother is bullying my parents

LegacyUser

Hi, I come from a really big family (8 kids), I'm the youngest. My sisters and brothers (most of them) work. I'm in college and i work nights. One brother left the country in 2006 when he got out of prison for robbing a car and driving it into a tree and we never heard from him again, and still to this day we do not know where he is.

The brother who bullies my parents is 26: third down from the oldest has been a nightmare for my parents. Smoked and drank since age 12, nothing my parents could do would have any impact on him. He got in with a worse crowd at 17 and racked up 12,000euro in debt to drug dealers (he was a drug dealer and believed his customers were his friends so he gave them "lay on"s -you give it and they pay later so he ended up broke when he never got paid. Enter the drug dealers at my parents place, with bats, petrol and a gun saying the house will be torched if he doens't pay. My dad ends up having to pay them off with their savings for their retirement holiday. Brother doesn't change and shows no gratitude.

Two years down the line of living in his room, endless string of jobs he does one week in, then rings in sick as soon as he is paid and drinks and smokes the money.he got into trouble for crashing into someone with no insurance on his car: mam ends up taking out another mortgage on the house to pay it off to the person so he doesn't go to prison/face charges. My other brother went to prison and became worse.

Fast forward to today: If he isn't given money or a lift someplace he screams , shouts, bangs doors, pulls the shrubs up in the garden... He is on the dole. He doesn't work. My mam gives him dinner, washes his clothes, brings him places.. He screams in her face and threatens my dad that he'll kill him. He smokes drugs in their house and if they challenge him on it he throws things at them so they are afraid and won't do anything now.

He has spent time in a mental facility because he tried to kill himself on a "bad low" and the psychiatrist informed us that he is not mentally ill, but has a criminal mind and will do anything he can to get what he wants, she threw his file on her desk and said he's been wasting her time with his lies and said if he wanted to kill himself he would have done it already.

My parents are in their 60s. I can't live at home as this brother was physically violent to me and my other sister before when we were giving out to him for the twat he has become. That was 4 years ago, I was 19 and i'm not going back.

How can I protect my parents? They're living in hell believing he will get older and change.

Missgoggles

Hi, I come from a really big family (8 kids), I'm the youngest. My sisters and brothers (most of them) work. I'm in college and i work nights. One brother left the country in 2006 when he got out of prison for robbing a car and driving it into a tree and we never heard from him again, and still to this day we do not know where he is.

The brother who bullies my parents is 26: third down from the oldest has been a nightmare for my parents. Smoked and drank since age 12, nothing my parents could do would have any impact on him. He got in with a worse crowd at 17 and racked up 12,000euro in debt to drug dealers (he was a drug dealer and believed his customers were his friends so he gave them "lay on"s -you give it and they pay later so he ended up broke when he never got paid. Enter the drug dealers at my parents place, with bats, petrol and a gun saying the house will be torched if he doens't pay. My dad ends up having to pay them off with their savings for their retirement holiday. Brother doesn't change and shows no gratitude.

Two years down the line of living in his room, endless string of jobs he does one week in, then rings in sick as soon as he is paid and drinks and smokes the money.he got into trouble for crashing into someone with no insurance on his car: mam ends up taking out another mortgage on the house to pay it off to the person so he doesn't go to prison/face charges. My other brother went to prison and became worse.

Fast forward to today: If he isn't given money or a lift someplace he screams , shouts, bangs doors, pulls the shrubs up in the garden... He is on the dole. He doesn't work. My mam gives him dinner, washes his clothes, brings him places.. He screams in her face and threatens my dad that he'll kill him. He smokes drugs in their house and if they challenge him on it he throws things at them so they are afraid and won't do anything now.

He has spent time in a mental facility because he tried to kill himself on a "bad low" and the psychiatrist informed us that he is not mentally ill, but has a criminal mind and will do anything he can to get what he wants, she threw his file on her desk and said he's been wasting her time with his lies and said if he wanted to kill himself he would have done it already.

My parents are in their 60s. I can't live at home as this brother was physically violent to me and my other sister before when we were giving out to him for the twat he has become. That was 4 years ago, I was 19 and i'm not going back.

How can I protect my parents? They're living in hell believing he will get older and change.

Hi OP,

Reading your post is like reliving my teenage years. I'm sorry to hear that your family are going through what my family are still going through over more then 10 years. I was only 12 when my brother started doing this to my parents, but he was physically violent towards them and I cant count how many times I took my parents to hospital over the years for abuse at the hands of my brother. The amount of times we were told that he didnt have anything mentally wrong with him, that he was just a criminal and that we were to be more firm with him and try not to let him get away with things. My parents and I constantly called the police on him and he would be taken away for the night, and released the next day only to be put back in the next week. My parents have remortgaged the house and are in so much debt, paying off drug dealers and loans he got but never intended to pay back. He's recently put a €3500 phone bill on my fathers phone that Dad is now having to pay off. Dad recently left his job because of it and mum has moved away to be with another man, that will protect her from her son.
My brother has just finished a 3 year sentence for GBH, and the 3 years while he was away has been the closest thing to normal I have known since being a child for my parents. It took myself, my other brother and my parents statements and to press charges on him to get him to be put away for a long time. He is now out and as far as I know (I moved across the world to get away from him) he is doing so much better (apart from the recent debt he has clocked up for my dad). Counselling and rehab in jail helped him alot and he is now off the drugs and trying to take control of his life. He had been in jail loads before but it was the longer sentence that really made him evaluate his life. I also cut all contact from him and my brother & father did the same, we only started talking to him again last year. My parents tried a restraining order loads of times, but he kept violating it.

My advice in your situation, I think what your parents need to do is call the gardai. Make sure that one or all of ye are with them and press charges, and get him out of the house. Tough love is the only way to beat this situation. I dont know what your brother is like, but if he's already showing signs of being physical to them then you need to show him that you are not afraid to put him behind bars. I was only a teenager, and I was constantly calling the cops on my brother, I dont regret it for a second. What I do regret is leaving my parents to deal with him on their own as soon as I turned 18 and not being there to help them. I know you cant go back because he is violent, but maybe you could go collect them when he's kicking up. This is extreme but we put locks on a room and my parents would lock themselves in that room if he kicked off. Made it really safe for them, I put a phone in there (my brother never knew) and tv. Im not sure if these are going to help you, I just felt the need to write as your post mimicked my life...I hope someone else will be able to give you some more suggestions as to how to protect your parents as I feel the police, mental health system and law let us down and a really serious incident had to occur before we could do anything about him. Im not sure if they have helplines for advice on this type of thing. Anyway its a horrible situation to be in and I thought I'd just take the time to write.

LegacyUser

I'm afraid parents who become enablers to these type of children do so because they feel that the child is their full responsibility, that all the child's actions are a direct result of them having failed somewhere in the raising of the child.
Your parents are partly responsible, there was possibly a point in your brother's life where they could have made hard decisions and forced him away from the bad influence he was under. It's never to late to make those hard decisions, but unfortunately it appears they are now in damage limitation mode, keep him out of jail and keep him sweet because his life is a bit of a mess and the longer they enable him the worse it will get.
They need to realise that when we reach a certain age we have free will, we can make our own decisions in life, your brother makes his decisions fully knowing what the consequences can be...but he doesn't care, and the reason it's so easy for him is because he'll be helped out by the parents or he can give them dog's abuse and they'll do nothing about it.
I'm afraid they need to get tough in order to protect the rest of the family, when they're no longer around to sort him out he'll put pressure on other family members. Kick up the backside, clip around the ear and to be shown the hall door is what he needs!!

Beruthiel

farawayobserver wrote: »

if they challenge him on it he throws things at them so they are afraid and won't do anything now.

My parents are in their seventies and wouldn't put up with the kind of sh!te your brother is throwing at yours.
Point being, if your parents actually wanted to sort this out in any real way, they would have had the Gardai turf him out on his ass by now.
Instead, they are enabling his behaviour. Unfortunately, they have brought this on themselves for allowing it to go on. Until they stop that, nothing will change.
This is not down to you to sort out, it's down to them.

Jane Eyre

Beruthiel wrote: »

My parents are in their seventies and wouldn't put up with the kind of sh!te your brother is throwing at yours.
Point being, if your parents actually wanted to sort this out in any real way, they would have had the Gardai turf him out on his ass by now.
Instead, they are enabling his behaviour. Unfortunately, they have brought this on themselves for allowing it to go on. Until they stop that, nothing will change.
This is not down to you to sort out, it's down to them.

I cant believe you're being so unsympathetic. The parents are obviously terrified of the brother. It might be an idea for them to talk to their Community Guard in an informal way just to get advice on how to deal with him. There's a load of social housing available now. They might rehouse the brother and if so, change the locks on the family home and delete his number from their phone. He needs to manage on his own. Your parents are not able to stop loving him but the kindest thing might be to simply cut him loose. Good luck.

fonecrusher1

Jane Eyre wrote: »

I cant believe you're being so unsympathetic.

I think he's spot on. Its called tough love. He sounds like someone who has been given everything all his life & now he's decided to take. If the parents for once actually said you carry on with this behaviour & your out the door & actually follow through with the ultimatum things would change. If the gards are called & they want him out they will eject him from the property make no mistake. Physically or non-physically.
Maybe leave him out in the real world (staying with a friend or in a hostel) he'd soon change his ways. Then let him come back a week or two later under strict conditions.

The parents are going to have a miserable existence till he learns about the word consequences. He needs a kick up the hole.

Cheap Thrills!

'A criminal mind' means he has no conscience at all. Which he has demonstrated in his actions. He won't change, Your parents are wasting their time and money.

Your parents are enabling this parasite by bailing him out and allowing him to live in their home.

They need to kick him out, change the locks and get a barring order and write him off.

paky

farawayobserver wrote: »

Hi, I come from a really big family (8 kids), I'm the youngest. My sisters and brothers (most of them) work. I'm in college and i work nights. One brother left the country in 2006 when he got out of prison for robbing a car and driving it into a tree and we never heard from him again, and still to this day we do not know where he is.

The brother who bullies my parents is 26: third down from the oldest has been a nightmare for my parents. Smoked and drank since age 12, nothing my parents could do would have any impact on him. He got in with a worse crowd at 17 and racked up 12,000euro in debt to drug dealers (he was a drug dealer and believed his customers were his friends so he gave them "lay on"s -you give it and they pay later so he ended up broke when he never got paid. Enter the drug dealers at my parents place, with bats, petrol and a gun saying the house will be torched if he doens't pay. My dad ends up having to pay them off with their savings for their retirement holiday. Brother doesn't change and shows no gratitude.

Two years down the line of living in his room, endless string of jobs he does one week in, then rings in sick as soon as he is paid and drinks and smokes the money.he got into trouble for crashing into someone with no insurance on his car: mam ends up taking out another mortgage on the house to pay it off to the person so he doesn't go to prison/face charges. My other brother went to prison and became worse.

Fast forward to today: If he isn't given money or a lift someplace he screams , shouts, bangs doors, pulls the shrubs up in the garden... He is on the dole. He doesn't work. My mam gives him dinner, washes his clothes, brings him places.. He screams in her face and threatens my dad that he'll kill him. He smokes drugs in their house and if they challenge him on it he throws things at them so they are afraid and won't do anything now.

He has spent time in a mental facility because he tried to kill himself on a "bad low" and the psychiatrist informed us that he is not mentally ill, but has a criminal mind and will do anything he can to get what he wants, she threw his file on her desk and said he's been wasting her time with his lies and said if he wanted to kill himself he would have done it already.

My parents are in their 60s. I can't live at home as this brother was physically violent to me and my other sister before when we were giving out to him for the twat he has become. That was 4 years ago, I was 19 and i'm not going back.

How can I protect my parents? They're living in hell believing he will get older and change.

to be dead honest op, ive heard similar stories like the one you've just posted. you sound like you've grown up in a pretty dysfunctional house. are your parents in anyway to blame in how your brothers turned out?