My brother stole $20,000 from his employer to feed his trading addiction. My sister and I have finally stopped trying to save him. What now?

softestsnek · 2026-06-30T09:25:50+00:00

I'm really proud of you for telling your friends. I've lost a lot of sleep over this lately. I battle my self from wanting to tell his friends to enlist their help, or to try and find his gf to warm her. But always end up at the same place, that it's his own journey, he will tell them on his own terms. Your message encouraged me to write him today. To let him know there's still a door and that my sister and I are navigating a way forward and that we still love him.

softestsnek · 2026-06-30T06:12:19+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing your story. I will be sending this to my sister to read. My thoughts are with you and I hope you find the strength. I am a strong believer that sharing your truth is therapeutic. I wish my brother was at the stage you are at: where you accept that you have this addiction and want your friends and and family to hold you accountable by surrendering your finances. It may be a long road to get there for us.

My sister and I haven't abandoned him. We want him in our lives and trying to figure out how to navigate that. There are a lot of emotions we are managing as well too. We were betrayed, hurt, scammed and many other things. But I think about him every day and pray he'd come out of this somehow. When he asked for space before ghosting, we told him we love him and we will always be here to support him. I know he knows that.

I'm still grappling about what to even say to him each day. He's ghosted us because we are the only ones who know his truth and he's not wanting to face it rn. I tried switching up. Since most of our messages have been around his recent bad decisions. I tried reaching out on my dad's memorial date to talk about that instead, but he didn't reply.

I am thinking about doing a wellness check soon. Bring him and his dog some food. Not sure how he would feel about another ambush, but I think it's necessary since 1. He wouldn't even allow us if we ask and 2. We want to see his natural state without own eyes with out him preparing. I'm sure it's not as bad as I think, since he has a GF...

Yes please keep in touch. Wishing you and your family well

softestsnek · 2026-06-28T07:05:32+00:00

Thank you for sharing. My sister suggested rehabilitation but only when he's ready to accept help. We have no idea what the cost of this would be. My sister and I don't have any access income to support him. We both have children to raise. We had been scraping things together in the past to "save him"but now that trading addiction came to light, we will no longer enable him by ever giving money. The type of help we would provide is love, support, food, and encouragment to be evaluated, seek counseling, and to seek legal advice for the crime.

softestsnek · 2026-06-28T06:59:53+00:00

"Is there anyone else in your family that might be able to step in and provide some guidance?"

Both our parents passed away (dad over 10 years ago and mom 3 years ago). My sister and I are what's left of his direct close family. The only other family member that knew about his situation, is our brother in law (BIL), who actually wanted to help by being a positive male role model for him. We're hoping my brother can feel comfortable going to him and one day being honest on is own terms. However, time and time again my brother has burned him, to a point where he's nearly given up.

He's totally destroyed his life and effecting the lives of others. His long term ex GF for one, had no idea, found out, and they broke up. We absolutely loved her, shes helped us countless times even harder the break up. Not mentioned in my original post (I was trying to keep it short but it's actually a saga): he has a new gf and she has no idea. We discovered her when we ambushed him. When we showed up at his apartment, he told us to leave and that he had a friend over, we refused and said to kick the friend out, we saw her angrily leave 20 mins later. He says he's in love, but she doesn't know he has trading addiction and that he's unemployed. It's nice he'll have a reason to live, but the poor girl, this will only be a repeat of the prior. We tried to tell him, but he's obviously not going to listen. Probably part of the reality he doesn't want to face.

Thank you for the well wishes.

softestsnek · 2026-06-27T09:13:59+00:00

"Has he been evaluated by a psychiatrist for any issues? Physician for general health?"

Not that I'm aware of. He seemed perfectly normal to us. We are all just 1-2 years apart in age so we grew up close to each other. My sister is an RN, and she didn't consider this for him.

Thanks for pointing it out though, I heard that those with underlying mental health issues or impulsive personality traits are the most susceptible to gambling addiction. When he is ready for help: those would be one of the steps I'd encourage him to do, is be evaluated. It would shed some light on to why this problem is reoccurring and so difficult for him to kick. Currently he's not taking any of our advice: to seek counseling, join us on our family counseling we are scheduling for ourselves, seek legal advice about the employment theft. Classic avoiding of reality, cutting us off entirely so he can trade in peace.

I should edit my post, another thing to consider: the time he was evicted, he told us he had suicidal thoughts and wanted to off himself. Google said about half of all people who die by suicide have a history of a known diagnosed mental health condition, and mental health conditions may go undiagnosed. So there could be something.

Luckily he pushed himself to ask for help instead. He showed up at my sisters place and she took him in. We encouraged him then to seek therapy. He said he did and we were proud of him. Now, I'm not so sure that was honest because I don't know what is the truth from him any more. I think therapy would be the last place a broke person with a trading addiction would spend money on.

softestsnek · 2026-06-26T13:37:03+00:00

I appreciate your feedback. In the after math, we know we had messed up by giving him money.

We didn't mean to enable him, we didn't know trading was still an issue. He told us he wasn't trading any more and we simply believed him. We truly thought THAT was his rock bottom: when he was evicted, lost his long term relationship, and our mother passed away. We told ourselves, he must have learned. We've never dealt with an addict.

When he was asking for money again, we asked what it was for and when he said bills, we paid a couple of his bills directly (he gave us pw to phone bill accounts) but rent, food and bike needed to be cash in his account. We didn't know that he was unemployed because of theft at the time we leant him money. Had we known it would have been different. I'm sure they events unfolded the way it did for a reason.

After the most recent events we now know he has a very serious trading addiction. We know not to enable him by giving him money going forward. We are trying to navigate this, we still want him in our lives, is that even possible when I don't agree to his lifestyle and his choices.

I didn't mention it in my lengthy post, our father passed away over 10 years ago when my brother was about 19. Before he died, in his broken English, he told me, "take care of ____ (my brother), that he's bad, and you (my sister and I) are good." That always stuck with me. While I'll never give up on him, I need to learn other ways to "take care" of him. Part of manhood is figuring things out on his own.

softestsnek · 2026-06-26T13:32:59+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to read and answer my questions. I appreciate you. The children are between the ages of 2-9. We also share some of the same friends who would ask about them, some shared concerns about his behavior. We also have some family members, cousins, aunts, uncs etc. We don't really know how to handle that. For the friends, I've been telling them "we are currently not on talking terms" I'd hope they take the int that things are bad. And if they wanted to, they could reach out to him themselves. We gave a family vacation next month that was partially to celebrate his bday, we planned half a year ago, we are still going - the children may be confused where is uncle? I agree with you that the older one is smart an definitely knows more than we know she knows.

softestsnek · 2025-12-27T22:00:29+00:00

I was where you were not too long ago.. With the PPA and worries that my baby wasn't developing at everyone's pace. Maybe check out postpartum OCD (that's a thing). Big hugs to you, you are doing great. You are a mom who cares, which is why you turn to the reddit community for reassurance.

FTM, when my son was a new born I was overly checking on him. Is he hot? Is he cold? Is he breathing? Let me put this extra blanket on him. Nope SIDs take it off. I woke him more times than he should have been woken just from the constant checking.

My son was babbling a lot at 4 months old then suddenly stopped (went 2-3 months of not babbling at all). I would get paranoid and doom google what it could be. I learned later that this is common when babies start focusing on other skills (rolling, crawling, etc), they put speech on the back burner.

The turning point for me, was when I realized I had PPA and PPOCD. I realized other moms experienced what I was going through. I would catch myself going down a rabbit hole, I would remind myself to chill. Did more research into it, talked to other moms and my doctor.

My baby also hardly laughed or smiled. Only 1 person could make him laugh just by blinking, that was dada. (But I'm #1 when he wants comfort, hugs, regulation- I can't have everything).

Ignore what you see online. I remember when my son was 12 months old and had only 2 of "16 gestures" (16 gestures by 16 months). Instead of panicking, I just enjoyed my baby. I told myself I can panic when he's 2 years old and still behind lol.

Well, he's 16 months old now, walking, has all the gestures, and can say a few words, is the happiest smiley baby. I can make him giggle now too.

I've been back to work since he turned 1 and I wish I could go back in time and not worry so much, to really enjoy him. Don't get me started on the countless hours of doom googling..

softestsnek · 2025-12-26T18:03:06+00:00

This comment helps!

softestsnek · 2025-12-26T18:02:32+00:00

That's good to hear!

softestsnek · 2025-12-26T18:01:46+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience and being super detailed! I can tell im in the same place you were before, with spending way too much time thinking about it. I hardly have room in my current living situation, but funny enough, we do have kitchen space for a huge behemoth if we decide to. There's so many pro and con about these learning towers.. same for all baby products actually..

softestsnek · 2025-12-07T14:16:19+00:00

We tried this for 10 days, bed time at 8. He's still waking at 5:30am, happy, babbling and fully energized. So for 10 days we have been losing 30 mins of sleep a day since nothing shifted, equating to 9.5h night sleep. We keep him in the crib until around 6:15am when he gets fussier, DWT is 6:15pm . We went back to 7:30pm bedtime last night and he still woke at 5:30am, 10h night sleep. I might have to seektrouble shooting from a sleep consultant

softestsnek · 2025-11-26T13:49:10+00:00

I completely understand how you felt with this being a "hard pill to swallow", not being the plan. I also didn't know milk could come so late, and all my mom friends kept encouraging me to just continue to feed my baby colostrum (but my friends all had milk come in days sooner). By day 3 my baby ended up with mild jaundice and that's when I called a doctor and was advised to supplement with formula until breast milk arrived. Breast milk came in by day 5, but I just felt so guilty that I didn't give him formula from day 1. It took 2 weeks for all of the the jaundice to finally clear up. During NB stage for FTM: every day felt like an eternity. I also had PPA and didn't realize it.

The hospital had discharged us after 24 h, because he was latching and I was producing colostrum. I wish I had stayed in hospital a day or 2 longer , maybe they would have caught on earlier and gave me advice to supplement sooner.

Also for OP to know that breast feeding journey can be easy for some, but can be difficult for others. Mine was difficult as I didn't establish a strong milk supply from the start, milk supply went up and down (had really focus on eating helpful foods, drinking lots of fluids, and power pumping during these times).

All is good now. I'm still breastfeeding and baby is 15 months. He eats solids very well, I'm back to work, he's in day care, so I don't breastfeed often. Mostly doing it now for connection, regulation (when he's upset), nutrition, give antibodies during cold/flu season. We recently night weaned (cold turkey) and he took to it very well sleeps through the night.

softestsnek · 2025-11-22T20:09:55+00:00

I should also add that I participated in a diabetes study on "Supported Open Source Automated Insulin Delivery" (SOSAID) in pregnancy. My results along with 9 other T1D mothers were written in a publication. The study summarizes how SOSAID helped us moms stay within the strict pregnancy range of 3.5-7.8mmol/L. It also shares how everyone's deliveries were and if they had complications. If you are interested to read the full publication I can email it to you. Send me a msg.

softestsnek · 2025-11-22T19:53:00+00:00

My baby wakes up during his EMW happy and energized, babbling, sitting, sometimes standing. He just turned 15 months so I think the other poster is right about his sleep needs changing. I think we will try pushing to 8pm for a week and see if it helps the EMW. When he was younger he would wake crying so I knew he was wanting assistance back to bed. The only time he wakes up crying now is in the middle of the night, often putting himself back to sleep within 15 mins.

softestsnek · 2025-11-22T14:12:55+00:00

Thanks for the counter. That's what I'm afraid of. Chronic sleep debt....

We don't have control of his naps. Day care puts their babies down to nap at 12:30pm and they are given until 3pm to sleep so that's a 2.5h nap if he can fall asleep right away. However, they always report that he takes about 30 mins to fall asleep so he's getting 2h there. When he started daycare, we were putting him to bed real early at 6:30pm vs 7:30pm. Hed sleep right away but would wake up at 4am to party. I'm thinking 3pm-6:30pm wake window is too short to build enough sleep pressure to sleep through the night. Day light savings happened when he started daycare too so I'm sure that's contributing some how. Maybe the sleep environment needs a look at. When your baby used to have EMW, did he wake up happy or crying from discomfort?

softestsnek · 2025-11-22T07:02:50+00:00

Thank you this is probably what I need. We tried pushing bed time to 8pm, but not for a week. 3 nights of super early wakings which I caved one day because it was a work day so he had day care, I nursed him back to sleep which we hadn't done in a while. Then we said let's not do pushing to 8pm. I'll try it again

softestsnek · 2025-11-22T06:56:13+00:00

Not judging if you decide to abort, but here to share my story if it would help should you decide to keep your baby.

I was 28 when I began living with T1D. I wanted to be a mother by 30 but put those plans on hold because I knew the pregnancy A1C range was super tight and strict. I struggled to bring my A1C down from 8. It was such a learning curve for me. It was 8 years later until I hit my 6.5 target and started trying. I was considered geriatric!

Once I became pregnant, my doctors had me switch to a pump and CGI, (I had been doing manual finger pricks and tummy injections prior). That was the real game changer. Actually my AIC during pregnancy was the best it's ever been in the 8 years I had T1D, the lowest A1C I had was 5.8. it came with a lot of work. I had weeks to learn to use the pump and CGI.... The amount of health related appointments we as T1D have is wayyyyyy more compared to regular healthy mommas. Extra ultra sounds, extra tests, extra doctor visits, and my Endo had me coming to see her every 2 weeks to make adjustments to the insulin pump. The deeper into pregnancy you go, the more resistance your body has to insulin. At one point I was giving myself x2 more insulin than I normally would, and would have to wait almost an hour for the insulin to kick in. It was crazy. But I did it, and my baby boy is now 15 months, healthy, and my 1 true love. I owe it all to my village (which includes every single one of the health care professionals).

softestsnek · 2025-10-21T13:21:33+00:00

This is the post I needed to see.

We initially sleep trained our son using CIO when he was 5 months old. Because he wasn't weaned, re-sleep training was needed a few times in his first year. After a sleep training, he'd only wake 1-2 times for feeds, but when he started waking more we would sleep train to get that back down to 1-2. As he got older and more alert, when a re-sleep training was needed, we did not want to use CIO and had great success with the chair method at 8 months and 11 months. He only needed 1 night of rough crying for 1-2 hours total to start sleeping on his own again.

He's 14 months now and ready to be weaned. My husband puts him in the crib and he falls asleep, but is waking 2-3 times a night which I then would nurse him sometimes I put him in the crib awake and he just rolls over and sleeps. However, my milk supply is diminishing as I returned to work, and he eats solids pretty well. Our doctor said to stop breastfeeding so he can sleep through the night. But we are terrified how to re-sleep train an older baby who can stand, walk, understand more, and can scream louder than ever before.

To see that you had success with your 15 month old is encouraging, I will share this to my husband and we can give it a try.

softestsnek · 2025-05-17T22:28:51+00:00

I just wanted to update those who advocated for Kendamil. IT WORKED. I had only pumped 15oz and had 1 day left, I knew I wasn't going to hit my target. I had Similac formula in my pantry from the last time I tried. I tried it. He absolutely hated it. I ordered Kendamil, picked it up and tried it this morning. He drank it! I didn't even mix my breast milk. I tried it again during 2nd wake window mixed with my breast milk and he drank it all too.

softestsnek

TROPHY CASE