Hello,

I am new here with a complicated situation. I realize there are many people who have much more difficult situations, but I really need to vent this and hopefully get some feedback. This is probably going to be long.

I'm very concerned about my parents who are in their late 60's and my
44 year old brother, who still lives with them. Although he is
financially independent and voluntarily contributes to their household
expenses, he is still very dependent on them in every other way, and
shows no goals of ever leaving them. He has no social life and has not
dated since high school. He quit his job 4 years ago and is living off his savings. He spends most of his time at their house watching t.v. It seems that he suffers from low self esteem, fear of failure, fear of change, depression, and possible OCD, as he has odd counting routines, rigid schedules and an odd fear of bones being broken. He will not answer the door or speak on the phone. He seems stuck in the past. But he has never been diagnosed as he refuses to seek treatment. This all started in his late teens/early 20's.

My parents do not insist that he seek treatment, though my mother atleast has acknowleged at times that she wishes that he would. But she also seems to realize that he problably never will, atleast not willingly, anyway. She says it must be his decision. I would agree with her, since he is an adult, if he were living in his own place. I tell her that if she really wants him to get help, it should be a condition for living with them. But then she gets extremely defensive and reminds me how generous he is to her and how dad gambles too much money, and how she can't just "kick him out". If I persist, she hangs up on me and will not speak to me for several days. So I get nowhere. Dad is in denail and just jokes about his son's quirks. There is no talking to him either.

To complicate matters, my parents have become dependent on my brother as well. They no longer have a car and now rely on him to drive them shopping, dr. appt's and to visit me and their grandchildren (I live over 100 miles away from them). My mother never learned how to drive and it seems that my father gave up his car to free up more money to support his gambling addiction, which he will not even admit, much less do anything about. They just go along with all of his odd routines and my arthritic mom has been waiting on him hand and foot his whole life, though now she has cut down quite a bit, due to her arthritis. He has our mother count out the money he contributes a certain number of times. He also offers her "bonus money" for when she agree's to do something special for him, like fix his favorite meal. She then just gushes about how generous her son is. Very sad and disturbing.

I think things are taking it's toll on our mother as she often hides away
in her basement, just to get a break from my brother's constant
presense. He is very good to her for the most part, but he also nit-picks at her a lot and seems to expect her to fill the huge whole in his empty life. But she can not bring herself to say anything to him. Maybe she feels sorry for him? Maybe she feels guilty over our dysfunctional childhood? (mental illness, alcoholism, secrecy, constatnt fighting, but thats another story!) Maybe she worries that he will not be able to deal in the real world? Maybe she feels that she owes him for his generous financial contributions and for driving them? Maybe she needs him as much as he nedds her? Maybe all of the above. I don't know.

Mom says that dad will never quit gambling, no matter how much she has pleaded with him over the years to stop. This seems to be true as they seem to manage with the basics, well except for a car. I told her that she may have depression and it is treatable, but just like my brother when I tried telling him that his OCD is treatable, it fell on deaf ears. She says it will pass all on it's own or changes the subject. When I told my dad of my concerns for mom, he denied it and even got angry at me for even suggesting such a thing. A whole lot of denial in my family, so problems do not even get discussed and nothing ever changes. It is very depressing.

Even though I have my own husband and children, and live far away from them, I still worry about all of them. I know that they are all
adults and I can not change them but detaching is very hard. I don't
know how to remain detached when I visit them and see what I see. I
find that I get very anxious before visits and very depressed afterwards, even though they are all very nice to me and my husband and our children. I just am very sad for all of them and seeing them only reminds me of their sad lives. But anytime I ever tried talking to them in the past, it always ended up in a defensive argument. So I have learned over the years to keep my opinions to myself just to keep the peace. But it is getting harder and harder to do. I feel like I am going to explode sometimes during family gatherings. I don't know how to feel normal around such dysfunction. I love them all dearly, but It makes me not want to be around them. Then I feel guilty for feeling this way. And I also don't want to deprive my children as they adore them. They are very kind and generous to them. I just want them to live better lives. My brother is just wasthing his life like this and so are my parents, especially my mother. Atleast dad keeps busy, mom rarely leaves the house and never socializes outside of us. I don't think she wants others to witness their dysfunction.

I wonder if I am part of the problem, by being a codependent to this situation. But I am not sure if it is my worrying about them (wanting them to get help) or my silence (enabling them to remain this way) that makes codependent. Thanks for letting me vent. I would be very appreciative of any opinions or advice.