Quote From: mogawaiiI am a 38 year old who has a 36 year old brother that is the mooch. Our mother passed away 22 months ago, before she died she asked me to look out for him. "he is not as strong as you are" she said. Well he has been living in my house for 14 months now, not working, he is attending technical college but has a year to go before he is finished. He was injured on the job January 2001, and has not worked since. Before mom died she gave him her entire social security check to pay his bills while she lived with me and I paid for everything. I would not take her money because I wanted her to be able to spend it on herself, she only got $550.00. I also helped him with bills so that he could stay in his apartment. After mom died I just couldn't keep up the extra $1100.00 each month.
I am now working 80-104 hours a week to stay even with the bills because of my brother. I no longer have savings because I have spent it all on him. If he doesn't stay with me he is homeless. As his only living relative I can't just give him the boot but I also can't keep up the schedule I currently have. Any suggestions?
To use something that Dr. Phil has said every now and then: "That's enablement!"
It is. Seriously.
There's a difference between helping someone and enabling them.
Helping someone is providing assistance to them to achieve a positive goal when it's either beyond their means or if it just makes more sense to have help than to not have help.
Enabling someone is providing assistance to maladaptive or self-destructive behavior--the most extreme being giving someone a bottle of pills or a gun to assist a suicide.
Yes, I did read one of your responses, stating that he has an industrial injury and that insurance won't cover it. In fact, I'll respond to this:
Because his injury is so nebulous he isn't eligable for any disability assistance. The best that I can do is get him through school so that he can support himself again. That was a fairly hard sell
I really find it interesting that prior to this injusry he was a good worker and had pride in his job. Now each day is a struggle. I understand what long-term injuries are like I have a spinal injury that has plagued me for 18 years. I hurt nearly everyday but get up and keep going, nobody owes me a living I have to be willing to go get it. Why doesn't he see it this way? My mother did.
It's easy to use any kind of setback, regardless of its degree, as an excuse, or to even feel sorry for yourself because of it. I know it's easy for someone like me to say that since I've never had it happen (the closest thing to that was having a third-degree burn on my leg when I was nine years old from boiling water).
In fact, when I was in grade school, I saw a little boy who was born with only one finger and a thumb on his right hand play Nintendo with his elbow! I thought that was pretty ****ing amazing. He didn't feel sorry for himself, saying "I can't play this game." He did it anyway.
Perhaps your brother is affected by your mother's passing to a point of halting his own life. For that reason, he probably needs to talk to someone, like a counselor, about his feelings and to come up with ways to cope with this as well as get on his feet and stay in school (the very schooling that you're funding for him, at that). He also needs to have a purpose, an ultimate goal, for his schooling. Going to school for a purpose is a far more motivating force than going to school just to go to school.
