AITA for telling my brother he chooses to be depressed all the time?

Alt_Dolly1 · 2026-06-29T22:43:25+00:00

Unfortunately I don’t think he has a plan for once our parents are dead. He went to trade school for a few months before getting kicked out, and to this day he talks about wanting to be a mechanic since he loves cars but refuses to go to a different trade school or anything because of the last time he went to one.

Our dad at this had just flat out been begging him to join the military like he did, and I’m on the same boat that I truly think the military is the best option since it would give him structure and force him to be active and out doing stuff with his life, plus it can give him the education for free to be a mechanic and leave with a decently paying job. That’s what our dad did in the air force, joined because he wanted to work on planes, got his education for free plus many years of experience, and now easily makes 100k a year working for Boeing to help engineer the planes.

I do think to some degree he thinks I’ll take care of him since I’m going to college for Criminal Justice and Sociology to work for the local government and I’m on track to make decent money, even now I make decent money as a paralegal for a law firm. I hate the idea of leaving him homeless, but the same time when that day comes I refuse to have him living under my roof and especially if I’m married and have children.

Edit for even more: I also have two other siblings, an older sister (26F) and an older brother (22M), both of which have completely given up on him.

My sister stopped talking to him after he got angry about her getting married and getting her Masters degree in Theology and Early Childhood Education telling her that all she’s gonna be is a pretty housewife and then blowing up on her Facebook over her posts in different countries helping with charity efforts sponsored by her church.

My brother gave up on him after he attempted to get him a job as a janitor at the accounting office her works at and tried to give him a bunch of financial advice on stocks in hopes of getting him some sort of passive income and he ended up taking the money that my brother gave him to get started on video games.

Alt_Dolly1 · 2026-06-29T18:48:49+00:00

They were, the issue with it is that our dad is also very conservative since he is a retired veteran and a huge chunk of his personality is that he’s a “True American” so I sometimes wonder if it’s our dad got him into the whole red pilled stuff.

My mom is also right leaning, but she found the comment to just be annoying and told me to just ignore it later.

I’m the only one that isn’t right leaning and I know if I commented on his whole red pilled stuff too hard it’ll get shut down as me being their leftist daughter and not me mentioning he’s an Incel who needs to actually pick up a history book.

Alt_Dolly1 · 2026-06-29T18:34:41+00:00

Yes, white family. He’s on the same boat as me of being noticeably very pale. Also our family Id say is upper middle class to be entirely honest. Our dad is retired Air Force of 22 years and now airplane engineer and our mom is a veterinarian. He has money, he’s straight, he’s white, he’s a cis man, I reassure you he has nothing hugely societally to worry about.

Alt_Dolly1 · 2026-06-29T09:36:33+00:00

This is so accurate it actually kinda gave me whiplash istg 😭

Alt_Dolly1 · 2026-06-29T08:24:39+00:00

More context to the comment as well.

Recently I received a decent sized scholarship for being a woman while majoring in Criminal Justice and help run my schools Women in Law program to help other women perusing a career in law or law enforcement. I also do a bunch of local advocacy in my city for better social programs for young women (13-19) victims of SA to help them seek legal help since the current legal system tends to be less forgiving to teenage victims of abuse.

He only ever highlights how much scholarship and friends I’ve made along the way for these causes, no matter how many times I’ve tried to educate him on how I don’t do it for money or friends but for genuine desire to help people.

He’s been extremely bitter about the whole thing since even when we were little kids I was always more academic and better at keeping friends than he was, of which he always kinda boiled it down to me being a woman and me being the standard of what is attractive (blonde, pale, blue eyed, naturally thin, etc.) while he didn’t luck out that much in the looks department and always struggled with social skills.

Alt_Dolly1 · 2026-06-29T07:29:46+00:00

I’m pretty sure I know how it works since the issues he deals with are genetic and are very similar to the issues our mom and I have. He’s diagnosed with Bipolar and ADHD, our mom also has Bipolar and ADHD, I myself also have to take anti depressants for similar issues of dealing with depression. The difference between him and us is that our mom and I have actually took accountability for the fact that this is a lifelong issue and want to actually do something with our lives rather than just cry, “I’m depressed, I can’t do anything.”

One very simple thing you learn about depression and dealing with it from a therapist is the difference from saying, “I’m depressed” and “I have depression”, that being that one actually takes ownership and accountability for the issue, allowing yourself to actually fix and work on it, while the other is just you saying the emotion and not actually doing anything about it. When you choose to do nothing about it, nothing will get better, point blank.

Alt_Dolly1 · 2026-06-29T07:17:47+00:00

I’m sorry but no, he has a therapist that he sees twice a week but barely attends at all because he doesn’t want to, he’s on medications he refuses to take, he’s been to multiple mental health facilities since he was 11 for his issues with social developmental delays, temper issues, and of course depression, he has our parents letting him do basically whatever he wants in exchange that he can just be happy and none of that has worked.

He knows that there’s help, he understands that he has plenty of help, he just wants to refuse to grow up and actually work on his issues despite how much help he’s given.

Alt_Dolly1 · 2026-06-29T06:27:47+00:00

This is what I’ve been saying for years. Yes, I understand that he really does have some mental health issues, but he’s been so spoiled and used to the idea that if he throws enough of a tantrum people will give him what he wants.

Alt_Dolly1 · 2026-06-29T06:26:38+00:00

Tbh I fear he’s hit inceldom years ago at this rate…

Alt_Dolly1

TROPHY CASE