Original BORU [here](https://sh.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/11e4ipq/my_brother_m27_saved_me_f20_from_a_life_as_my/). New Updates...
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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/beerbellybegone on 2025-01-29 07:46:35+00:00.

Original BORU here. New Updates marked with 🔴🔴🔴

Trigger warning: misogyny, fundamental religion, abuse, mention of suicide but no actual suicide

ORIGINAL by u/Novel_Tap1132 at r/relationships (February 13, 2023)

Hi, I (20F) am currently in my 4th semester of college. The fact that I am able to go to college is largely thanks to my brother Mike (27M). This resulted in us both being estranged from family, and the reason for this post is that I need to help him with his resulting depression and isolation.

Some backstory: We come from a patriarchal, conservative Christian background, although we didn’t really practice. But everything was always in the “obey your parents” vibe. My parents (both 43) are the oldest siblings in their families. My fathers family (parents, 2 brothers, 1 sister) all live within 20 minutes of my parents home. All aunts/uncles are married and I have 8 cousins on that side. My mothers family is originally from here as well but has all since left the area (grandparents moved to a retirement community in AZ several years ago, uncle is career military currently stationed idk where, aunt (K) moved to AZ after graduating college for her career) We are from a Midwest US state and are Caucasian.

This whole fiasco started when my older sister Lisa (22F) was in college back in spring of 2020. Right before COVID shut down her college that March, she got pregnant after a party (she didnt know until after she was back home). In fall 2020, my senior year of HS, I started my college application process while my pregnant sister lived at home. Mike had finished school several years prior and had started his career about 90 min away from our hometown. Lisa gave birth to twins a few days after Thanksgiving 2020. In Jan 2021 I received my early acceptance to my dream school - nothing like Harvard but a highly rated “Public Ivy” in my state. I had also gotten enough of a scholarship to cover the tuition (but not room/board). Obviously I was ecstatic! Unfortunately that was about to come crashing down.

In May 2021, my parents told me that I could not go to school and that I needed to stay home to raise my nieces while my sister went back to school since she needed to support her kids and thus needed a better education. Much screaming ensued, with my father eventually telling me that his decision was final and that was that. Well Mike learned what happened, called me and said “Yeah that’s not happening” and we made plans.

I would like to take a moment to give a shout out to the Reddit posts back in early 2021 that discussed the steps to take and things/docs to gather in order to successfully leave home for good. And that’s what we did. We had discussed plans a few times when he visited and took me out to lunch, and one day that July I had my essentials all packed, left a letter for our parents and after lunch we just went back to his apartment.

As you can imagine, the fallout was explosive. Starting with angry calls and texts and led to us both being disowned by the family for being “disloyal”. MIke had predicted this and we were both prepared for it so it wasn’t a surprise. Anyway that August he paid my remaining school balance and dropped me off at my dorm and I have been living and studying here since then. He has continued to pay my room/board and whatever else scholarships didn’t cover ever since. I cannot thank him enough for what he has done for me.

Since then, we have had pretty much no contact with our parents, sister and all aunts/uncles and grandparents on dads side. I am still in contact with 2 cousins (F19, F17) who support me and think we made the right decision. We do have contact with moms side, and have both flown out to AZ the last 2 holiday seasons to spend with them. This past holiday is when Aunt K first talked to me about her concerns for Mike that she noticed. They are very close (she is only 3 years older than him and we all grew up together in our grandparents house) so they are like siblings and I guess she picked up on some things that were off.

The issue I need help with: Aunt K and I have noticed him seemingly becoming more depressed and isolated and this is what I am hoping for some help in helping him. Mike is somewhat introverted and has always had a very small social circle and a lot of his social outlet was with our extended paternal family. There were family BBQs very often, especially during football season when it was pretty much weekly. Throw in holidays, birthdays etc there were probably 2 big family events a month minimum. Mike was able to attend most of those and he always tried to hang out with my dad and uncles even tho they always acted lukewarm to him. With that now gone for the past 18 months, he hasn’t really had that outlet. So please Reddit, any advice would be appreciated. He gave me my life back and I need to find a way to do the same for him. Thank you all.

Note: I do plan on sharing this post with him when he visits me next weekend (my school is a 2 hr or so drive from where he lives so he meets me for lunch 2-3x per month). I want to be able to sit down and read this through with him and talk with him about everything so thank you again.

Tl:dr: My brother helped me escape life as a forced nanny and go to college, we both got disowned by family and he is becoming depressed, I am looking for ways to help him.

ETA: I saw a few comments below regarding our extended family so I thought I would add a couple notes:

My mom’s side totally supports what Mike and I have done. We both talk to our grandparents and aunt regularly. We have even visited them a few times in the past year in AZ.

From what I can gather on my dads side from talking with my cousins, some of the family dont think we are wrong and are just following my dads lead since he is the oldest sibling. My uncles (dads brothers) are still very much supporting my dads point of view.

According to my aunt, my mom and sister both want to put this all behind us and move forward but my dad is being stubborn and wont let it go and they dont want to go behind his back.

The craziest thing to me is that my sister didn’t even want to go back to her school! My dad was going to force her to go back. It boggles my mind still how they thought it would work out.

Growing up, our parents had always encouraged all 3 of us to pursue some kind of higher education after HS, either a traditional college or trade school. So there wasn’t really the gender dynamic of “dad works, mom raises the kids” in the extended family. None of my aunts (or grandmothers for that matter) are traditional SAHMs.

I would also like to thank everyone who has commented so far. I have shared this post with both my aunt K and some friends here who are aware of my situation. Mike is still planning on coming down here on Saturday so I am hoping to update this after.

Commentators suggest that OOP help her brother out by encouraging therapy for himself and to plan some game nights or outdoorsy activities or other hobbies he might enjoy. They also suggest open communication to help her brother open up more about his feelings and troubles. Some even think that the brother might have suicidal or drug issues.

UPDATE (February 21, 2023)

Hi, I just wanted to post a quick update to what I posted last week. I say quick but it’s probably going to be long so apologies in advance just trying to get everything out of my head.

Mike came down here on Saturday as planned. I had spoken to my aunt K before this and she thinks if I gently asked direct questions and probed that he would answer. So that was my plan. My roommates knew the situation and what I was planning to do and they were understanding and agreed to give us the apt to ourselves for the afternoon.

After he arrived and we ate, I just straight up said to him that Aunt K and I had noticed some changes to his behavior and that he seemed really down. He looked at me for a bit and then slowly nodded and agreed. I took this as a good sign that he would be open and honest with me. I said that I wanted to help him and to please be open and talk to me and that I wouldn’t judge him for anything. He said OK. Then I pulled out my laptop and mentioned that I had made a post to reddit about him and he gave me a very confused look. I sat down next to him and asked him to just read it and we can talk about it. Well….he basically broke down with his head in his hands after reading the title. So yeah, I guess it was pretty accurate. I just held him and said that we would talk whenever he was ready.

After a few minutes he was able to collect himself and we went through the whole post together. Then we started reading the comments one at a time and talking about each one. He took all of the comments and suggestions to heart and we talked about how he can go about putting himself out there more, both dating and trying to make new friends. In typical nerd fashion, he even broke all of the ideas down in categories (outdoor, indoor, online) and is wi…

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  • @[email protected]MEnglish
    1•17 hours ago

    After a few minutes he was able to collect himself and we went through the whole post together. Then we started reading the comments one at a time and talking about each one. He took all of the comments and suggestions to heart and we talked about how he can go about putting himself out there more, both dating and trying to make new friends. In typical nerd fashion, he even broke all of the ideas down in categories (outdoor, indoor, online) and is willing to give pretty much anything a try. The city he lives in isn’t huge but a quick look through its sub on here found a few things so the opportunity is there. He seemed a little embarrassed, in a good way, about all of the praise he was getting. I knew he would be but I just told him that other people see him for the wonderful brother that he is.

    There were a couple comments that mentioned suicide or drug abuse that I really pressed him on. He promised he wasn’t doing drugs or drinking excessively. In all of the times I was at his place he never had more than a 6-pack of Guinness or some craft beer. This is something I am definitely going to keep on him about since I don’t want him to drink his pain away. He said while he never really thought about actually hurting himself, he said he sometimes feels lost and has dark thoughts that can really mess up his mood and that he was struggling and very frustrated with himself at times. He said that he often can’t even look at himself in a mirror because he is embarrassed at where he is in his life, outside of work, compared to his friends. Really just that his closest friends have all moved on to the next phase of their lives and is stuck and feels left behind and not able to move forward. He is scared that he is going to turn into one of those people that have their own dedicated sub on here. He often just drives around the city after work for hours because he doesn’t want to go home and every once in a while he said he has gone to bed with the thought that he didn’t really care if he woke up or not. All of this scared me and broke my heart. He agreed that this isn’t healthy (massive understatement to say the least!) and that he needs to seek some professional help soon.

    We talked about his social life after college. He said that for the first couple years he and his closest friends and SO’s would meet a few times a week and travel somewhere together every few months. He separated from his gf of 4 years in 2019. He and his friends still met up after the lockdowns started in 2020 but it became less and less frequent as the friends were becoming more involved with their SO’s and later kids. Eventually they were meeting once a month or less. Mike recognized this but said he had a hard time meeting new people to go out with or finding people who were looking to make new friends as opposed to just chit chatting while they did whatever activity they were doing. He said he found it very hard to break into existing friend groups and has some acquaintances but not really anyone who he feels close to. At the same time, he was going to more and more family functions just to fill a void and be social around people, and dote on our nieces after they were born. After that was gone, he felt completely lost and spiraled down but didnt know how to communicate how he felt until I forced the issue.

    It was mentioned that I should not try to keep defending my parents and I agree. What they wanted to do was inexcusable and unforgivable. I asked Mike if he would ever consider reconciling with the family if they reached out. He said “Lisa yes, mom maybe, everyone else can fuck off”. I was a little surprised and asked why and he said that they basically told him what they really thought of him and his life and interests. He pulled out his phone and showed me the old texts from when I left. Multiple messages from our father calling him a disgrace, disowning him, demanding he return me to them (WTF?! I am not property!), calling him the “Mastermind” of this plot to destroy the family and all sorts of other vile stuff. One uncle mocking his “manliness” for doing things like reading (he likes to read fantasy stuff) as well as his career (engineer) as something not manly enough, one aunt that threatened to cut his balls off as “they are the source of attitude and disobedience”, another uncle that threatened to “beat the shit out of him” if he saw him again (I think Mike would wipe the floor with any one of them). More of the same from grandparents (dads parents) and some other adults on that side. I had received some nasty messages, just not the threats, and was a little shocked overall but he just had a little smirk. When I gave him a questioning look, he just said that it’s good to know how people really feel and where you stand with them.

    When I asked about mom, he showed me her last few messages to him. I was expecting more of the same but it was much different and I am not sure what to make of it. She said “Your father needs you to bring her back right now”. Mike: “I can’t do that. You know if I do she will never be able to get out”. Mom: “I know. Please take care of her. I love you both”. Mike: “I will. I love you too mom”. NGL, I cried after that for a bit. So yeah it turns out that my dads whole family is a lot more toxic and despicable than I thought. I still can’t figure out moms reaction tho

    I asked him point blank if he wanted me to take out a loan to cover my expenses for the rest of my time at school and he rejected that immediately. I said that I didn’t want him going into debt for me and he said that he wasn’t. He pulled up his account and showed me the transaction last month from his savings acct to my school as proof. He said that he wanted me to be able to finish school debt free like he did since it takes so much pressure off. Most of his friends have $40k+ in debt so even tho there is currently a payment pause eventually that will come due. I asked him how he was able to do that and he said he got merit scholarships plus several grants that covered all but about $2k per semester, which he could cover himself and he worked to always have enough money for the difference. We grew up low income, not exactly poverty but definitely at the low end of the middle class. I would have been eligible for need based aid as well but my parents refused to fill out the forms so I wasn’t able to get the grants or regular student loans and they wouldn’t co-sign a private loan. This is how they were going to force me to stay. When Mike found out, he did the math and figured out that as long as I was able to keep my scholarship to cover tuition, he would be able to cover the rest. It comes out to about $7k a semester that he is covering. I am more comfortable knowing that he isn’t going into debt for me and I am definitely making sure I keep my GPA well above the level needed to keep my scholarships. He told me to not worry about the money and to just focus on doing my best. I also found out that he is still sending money every month to our sister - something I knew he did before but didn’t realize he was still doing. His response: a shrug and a comment that he was pretty sure the kids aren’t eating less.