What to do about my brother?

[Robbed]

The whole depression/anxiety thing has taken a BIG turn for me lately. Symptoms like unreality and free-floating anxiety are WAYY down compared to the past. But something different seems to be happening. It seems like that old stuff that was a problem before the anxiety disorder has come back 100000 times stronger! And at this time, I am feeling ALOT of resentment toward my brother. Back when we were growing up, he used to tease, taunt, and demean me to no end. And my parents didn't seem to care about this, as they did NOTHING to stop it. I feel like SO much confidence and creativity was sucked out of me as a result. For instance, I never wanted to tell ANYONE about ANYTHING I have thought of for fear of a response similar to something from my brother. I also learned to hate any idea that I had, and keep it to myself. Of course, this encompassed everything, as I started to REALLY hate myself for being so pathetic as to deserve this sort of treatment. After all, my parents always just told me to try not to get so upset about it, but NEVER told my brother to lay off. What kind of message do you suppose THAT sends?

Interestingly, starting around my teenage years, things got better between my brother and I (maybe retaliating to his teasing by showing my parents the Ds and Fs on exams he tried to hide from them, and making fun of his music helped here). And interestingly, we became quite close. But it's not like I really COMPLETELY got over it. Anyway, I got quite pissed off with him the other day since, on hikes, he would just leave me behind. He is a faster hiker than I am, and doesn't seem to care about how I feel about this. I decided to go on a hike on my own, and all that I could think of up and down the mountain was ow my brother treated me in the past. I constantly thought about the teasing and taunting. And I thought about the way that, to this day, I look at him as a TYRANT. I mean, I just can't be myself around him. I can't do something as simple as wear shorts around him for fear of him laughing at me and telling me I look bad. I can't talk about music I like for fear of him striking me down. I just feel like I can't do ANYTHING out of the ordinary, for fear of 'rocking the boat' when I am around him. What should I do about him? When I saw him today, I just frowned at him and didn't say a word to him. It's not that we haven't had LOTS good times together. But I just don't know that this can happen again.

One more thing. It is simply AMAZING how simpler it is to deal with anxiety symptoms than this.

[joey9]

It sounds a lot like all of the consequences of your brothers taunting are to do with how it makes you FEEL. You fear what he will think about you, and you fear his put downs as they make you feel low. So you have adjusted your behaviour to avoid this fear and these feelings. The classic anxiety trap. Fear of the fear. But you control all these feelings. You have the power to not fear his comments any more - you can decide that you don't care if he doesn't like what you do - why should you? Avoidance is the wrong path as with most anxiety issues - some sort of gentle exposure is much more likely to resolve your feelings.

[Robbed]

This whole thing made me think of the whole concept of 'safe people'. It's just amazing to think about how much more COMFORTABLE I feel around perfect strangers than around my own brother. Then again, I feel more comfortable around perfect strangers than ANYONE I actually know. When you think about it, strangers have MUCH less reason to have bad thoughts about you than people you know. There is a reason why the VAST majority of people who are murdered were killed by someone they actually know!

[joey9]

Your brother can still push your buttons more than strangers because his behaviour shaped your formative years and helped to shape some of the wiring in your brain. Even families that are apart often revert to type when they come together again - people can often tend to slot into the roles that they had within the family no matter how they are in the real world. Does he know that your comments hurt your feelings or does he think that they are just light hearted sibling banter?