Overprotective parents and OCD brother...

[youdontknowme]

My brother was diagnosed with OCD about a year ago. Some brain scans also revealed a few abnormalities; nothing fatal, but they could be linked to his depressive issues, among other things.

He has a difficult time learning from mistakes and making good decisions, but he's overall a really intelligent guy. He just lacks a particularly high assertive capacity and gives into delusions that he is being stalked.

My parents babied us both way too much. We never had chores to do. I have a strong sense of resilience, so I wanted to outgrow it. My Mom was never particularly happy with many of my attempts. She used to force me to wear a bra in middle school so that I would "fit in" (I didn't need one. Still don't. Small chestedness is convenient), wouldn't let me get a job when I was younger (I might be sexually harassed at work), tried like hell to discourage me from moving out at 20 years old, etc. etc. I successfully moved out for quite some time, but am temporarily living with them again to save up cash for a bus so that I can travel around the US. I've managed to get them out of my business to a fair extent by showing them that I am totally capable of independence. It helps that I'm working full time.

Unfortunately, my brother doesn't know how to put his foot down very well, and they use his OCD as an excuse to tell him what to do. He is 25 years old.
He is taking some classes at the community college and working to get his AA, which is awesome. But they still baby him and get mad at me if I don't play along. For instance, last night he wanted to go out for an hour or two to hang out with a mutual friend of ours. He asked if he could come with me to see her. I told him that it was up to him because he is an adult. My parents immediately hovered in and started telling him that he NEEDS to stay home and go to bed ASAP because he had class in the morning and there's a test coming up, so on and so forth.

I maintained that it was up to him. They didn't like that and confronted me about it this morning, telling me that I was undermining them, calling them bad parents, that I need to be a better sister... I wound up going back and forth with them to the point that I missed my chance to take a shower before work.

The irony is that they think they must tell him what to do because he has OCD and can't make smart decisions on his own, but I can't help but think that they are making the problem WORSE by helicoptering over him when he is in his mid twenties. He is seeing a psychiatrist, so I don't understand why they can't just put their focus on getting him proper treatment and helping him learn to make smart choices on his own so that he can move out and have an adult life. He'd be way happier that way. It's what he wants. But I really feel like they unintentionally thwart him.

I mean, he moved out a few years back and my Dad would come to his house to make sure he got up on time for work. He even interrogated me at one point because a girl in the towel answered my brother's door. He was at least 22 years old, for Christ's sake. His sex life was none of our concern.
Any advice for a situation like this? How do I deal?!

[MyNameIsTerry]

You do realise that this makes you Robert the older brother in Everybody Loves Raymond? At some point he will get married to a Debra and the competition will start between your parents and his wife.

You are right on this. Its not just his OCD here, the more they do this, the more they will prevent him from naturally developing the attributes & life skills that you have.

They need to trust him and trust you. But it doesn't sound like a trust issue at all, it sounds a very overprotective issue. Parents can struggle to let go but your were displaying these traits long before then so they are only going to continue.

I'm sorry if that sounds bad, I don't know how this is going to come across about yout family but its not meant to sound bad.

What changed so that they learned to let go of you? Can that be slowly introduced for your brother?

Do his issues with the brain abnormality mean he has some impaired functioning? Is that what causes his delusions? Is it really a delusion as in a diagnosis so that he can't see outside of it to get to the reality?

You are also right that he doesn't need decisions making for him, he needs to be supported to make his own. In a child, you can expect parents to act this way but they have to let go but I'm unclear as to whether his diagnosis means he needs an element of it or not and they are just continuing in a more intense version of the childhood cycle?

[youdontknowme]

Lol, Everybody Loves Raymond.

None of what you said shocked or offended me in the slightest. It's something I've been aware of for quite some time. My family is dysfunctional. Non violent, but dysfunctional nonetheless. I mean, my Mom was so terrified of the outside world when my brother and I were little that she would sometimes block off the entrances to the house with furniture. She would leave lights on and set up dolls on the couch to make it look like people were awake. We did not live in an unsafe area. There was no need for such extremes.

I could go on and on, but yes, our family is dysfunctional, and breaking free from that dysfunction was a big part of getting to a good place with my anxiety/depression. It took a lot of pushing, though. I had to assert my adulthood very firmly to break free. They didn't want me to move out, but I was ready to move out. I moved out. They didn't want me to get a job. I needed a job. I got a job.

I just had to show them that I was going to do what I wanted no matter what they thought, but would always love them even if I disagreed with them. Now my relationship with my parents is a lot healthier and more fulfilling.

My brother, on the other hand, doesn't have quite as much moxie. They've been coddling him since well before we had this diagnosis; even before we were really aware that anything was wrong to a psychiatric degree.

To complicate matters, he was self medicating for years using copious drugs and alcohol. He still "slips" with alcohol sometimes, but is clean of hard drugs. He probably needs treatment for his addictive tendencies.

The brain abnormalities, from what I understand, involve water on the brain, which can cause head aches and foggy headedness. He also has an enlargement that can be linked to depressive tendencies. But there is nothing that would prevent him from cognitive intelligence. In fact, he aced several classes that are legendarily difficult. I've taken a few of these classes.

The two profs who teach it are phenomenal; they were offered positions at several prestigious universities, but turned them down in order to teach at a community college as a humanitarian gesture. They specifically design their courses so that students cannot pass without a high degree of engagement, research, and synthesizing capacity. Most students give up and drop out. A's are almost unheard of. But he put himself to it and passed with flying colors. He is highly intelligent. Not intellectually impaired in the slightest. He just has a difficult time with day to day, practical thinking because he is a bit out of touch with reality, deals with head aches, get lost in obsessive thought patterns, etc.

His main issue is that he gets obsessively lost in the delusion that he is the center of some gang stalking conspiracy. He comes in and out of it to varying degrees. I hope that he can get the cognitive and/or medicinal treatment he needs to learn how to discern these terrifying fantasies from reality, because they are really his main problem. However, I don't see why this means he can't decide basic things like when he wants to stay out late.

So yes, the OCD and brain abnormalities have made an adult life more difficult to achieve for him than for me, but I see that as all the more reason that adult skills should be encouraged. The way I see it, if he can develop the high thinking skills and discipline needed to get an A in those difficult courses, the guy could keep an apartment.

I am glad that he is seeing the psychiatrist. On my end, all that I can do is encourage him to get out there and live a normal life, maybe toss a few job openings down to him if he wants to apply. Perhaps I could take him on a trip once I get my bus. Going out, getting away from the nest, and seeing places beyond our tiny rural county might help, who knows? At the very least it would fun.

The rest of it is really up to him and those who can provide him with professional treatment.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yeah, getting out would be a good thing to try. If thats something he enjoys, it might give him some motivation to break out of his bubble.

We do get really bogged down in routines. I have OCD and I struggle with that too but only since the OCD came along. Before that I still saw how wonderful a day could be. It got much harder with OCD as whole days can become rituals in their own right and before you know it you are doing the same things at the same times everyday. Each time I have challenged this by shaking things up, it has been positive in terms of how it affected my mood & gave me a boost although it could be an issue with anxiety due to breaking a habit.

Its worth a try.

Given how protective your mum sounds, it makes sense this is going to affect you guys to the core. Core beliefs & schemas are going to be impacted by this as you grow up seeing it as just the way things are. You broke free of that and he needs to do the same or he is going to move on and he could just end up stuck there many years after when he could have got out there on his own. All the time impacts things like self confidence, self worth, self esteem, etc so its great you are looking out for him and want to try to give him a nudge in the right direction. Maybe if he gets to see there is more out there, he will want more and just go with it?

He seems to have issues with paranoia with the gang thing. But doesn't this sound a bit like your example with your mum blocking entrances? So, has he learned to be like that? If so, if thats going on around him, is that just going to keep reinforcing it? Like there is a core belief in there trying to protect him from a false situation?

If the medics are happy with him not needing care, they will be happy with him getting out there and doing things. I'm sure they would encourage it.

Can you get him involved in your bus project? Maybe even doing something on it? Maybe just start some interest off and then get him out there in it like you say?

[youdontknowme]

It's insightful to hear all of this from some one who knows OCD from the inside.

His main issue always seems to be that he has a hard time figuring out what he wants and who he is. Hopefully, if he can break away from them a little more, he'll start forming more of his own person.

And yes, his paranoia is quite a bit like a grotesque mimicry of the worldview that my parents instilled in us. He recently even repeated the formula of putting furniture in front of his door, just like our Mom used to when we were little. She doesn't rearrange the furniture anymore, but she and my Dad are still very paranoid about the outside world. They watch the news all of the time and buy into all of the media scare tactics. I try to get them to see the humor in all of the sensationalization that goes on in mainstream news, but they don't see it. They really think the world is quite scary, and they are terrified of us participating in it.

I have enough cash to get the bus at this point. I'm just shopping around for the right one, and then I'd love to try getting him involved in the conversion process. He seemed interested in going on a trip with me at some point, so at the very least it would be good to get him on board for my first venture out into the wild blue yonder.

As I get closer and closer to my goal of a new lifestyle, I can see them starting to tighten up on me again. They are terrified of their children participating in the world and having adventures. They really want us to stay here with them. I've broken away from it once and know I can do it again, I just hope that my brother can do the same. Maybe the bus trip can be a practice round for the rest of his life.

---------- Post added at 03:13 ---------- Previous post was at 03:07 ----------

I might add that they don't encourage his delusional paranoia directly. When he thinks that people are after him, using street theater to threaten him, etc. they always disagree. The issue is that they subconsciously encourage some really codependent types of behavior that make it difficult for him to reach psychological adulthood.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I guess their behaviour is unknown to them as they see it as the norm but at some level they must recognise that the things they did/do are not healthy?

The best thing they could do for him would be to trust him and change towards encouraging him as opposed to protecting him.

Its not surprising that he doesn't know what he wants as he's in a situation where it life is almost managed for him so he has no need for such desires. Getting him out of that should help with this as it will show him there is a world outside of his "bubble" and its not the world he has been led to believe exists. That old world leads him back to protection and safe zones that are holding him back.

I don't know where his OCD comes into this as it seems to be more about paranoia though. Does he perform compulsions, whether physical or mental in nature?

[youdontknowme]

I know that his psychiatrist thinks he is likely OCD because he is very obsessive with certain ideas. The cause of his paranoid delusions is not entirely diagnosed.
He is on an up streak lately, though. He's been talking about getting a job and is considering that his delusions may not be real, or, at least, that he should live his life in spite of the people he thinks are stalking him.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Thats good news. Maybe this period is exactly what he needs?

Paranoia is certainly found in anxiety disorders as many of us have had. I tended to have this at my worst stages.

I just found it strange that he believes others may hurt him within the context of OCD because I would see that more as paranoia. I guess with him having obsessive themes, it could be as simple as making a primary diagnosis with a secondary aspect or the paranoia isn't enough to warrant it's own seperate diagnosis?

Does he perform compulsions whether physical or mental?

He's going to have some pretty strong core beliefs because of how he grew up and maybe even deeper to the schema level. So, could he be misreading things that he seems in people, as we all can do with anxiety disorders, and these are feeding back into his beliefs?

[youdontknowme]

I remember a few ritual-like behaviors that he used to engage in. There was a period he went through where he seemed to assign words enormous and undue power. For instance, I might say, "that's a bad picture of you," or something even remotely negative about anything at all. He would suddenly get very uneasy and tell me that I had to take it back. He couldn't totally relax until I said, "okay, I take it back." My Mom caught him following the tile in a very particular pattern at our old house, once. Other than that, there was never anything too painfully obvious. All I know is that his psychiatrist seems to think he is OCD, so many of the rituals may be mental ones that he only told his psychiatrist about.

Yes, it's definitely awesome to see him with this much hope. He's finally starting to believe in himself. Nothing would make me happier than to see him satisfied with his own apartment, pet, job, and girlfriend, just like he says he wants. It's been so long since I've seen my brother truly happy.

He's going to have some pretty strong core beliefs because of how he grew up and maybe even deeper to the schema level. So, could he be misreading things that he seems in people, as we all can do with anxiety disorders, and these are feeding back into his beliefs?

That is very possible. I know that my anxiety started up when I was only 5 or 6 years old. Our parents fought all of the time, my Dad had anger issues, and both of them made us think the outside world was scary. Not only that, but there is a history of mental problems in our family. Anxiety, depression, alcoholism, and a host of other issues that were never diagnosed. It's really no wonder that both of us have struggled with mental illness, haha.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yeah, like a completion compulsion.

If this was in childhood, I've read that a lot of children demonstrate OCD type behaviour and grow out of it. When I started looking back at mine I could see things but they went away later and it was about 4-5 years into my GAD before the OCD reared its head properly and that was only because of the Duloxetine I started.

Pets are really good for people with our issues. It will give him something outward to concentrate on and the fact someone will be dependent on him will be great for him because he just isn't getting opportunities like that right now.

He sounds like he is realising what he wants out of life now. Some time with you on your project and this may really take off even more as he gets more positive thinking time.

Maybe some useful smart goals would help him? He's clearly intelligent and has ideas but you can feel like a kid no matter what age when you live with your parents. This can hammer self confidence and self esteem, even though they don't mean it too. We get lost in it all but perhaps with some things to work towards, some stepping stones towards his dreams, maybe it will help him further?