For as long as I could remember, I've never had a good relationship with my brother. When we were little we'd fight constantly and when I started 5th grade we stopped talking entirely (btw my brother is two years older than me). I'm now going onto my second year of high school and a year ago my brother began opening up to me a little bit. He came out as bi and told me about his experience with drug use. At first, I didn't know how to take it. We had avoided each other for so long and now all of a sudden we're best pals. I was happy at the start but, the more I learned about him the grimmer my view of him became. If I were to describe my brother accurately, I'd say he's a mentally ill, unstable addict, with a stubborn attitude, and craves to be special. I was the only one who knew about the drugs, along with his toxic relationship with his GF. I couldn't go to my parents for help and my friends weren't qualified to help. Eventually, things got a bit too rough for him and he had a breakdown and was sent to a hospital for a few days, that was the start of what should have been a steady recovery.

When he got back, he was prescribed medications for many different things. Me being a kid I thought it was best to stay out of the way and let the adults handle things from here on out. I learned later that my parents knew about the drugs and actually supplied him with weed and a bong in hopes that it would make him happy. That was when I realized that my parents weren't much more qualified than I was. A lot of stuff happened after that, my brother became more active in self-harm, breakdowns became more frequent, and he argued with my dad a lot more. He'd stay up all night smoking and slept almost all day. A lot of times at night he would ask to talk to me about random things. This would go on for hours and I'd end up going to sleep at 3 in the morning and sometimes when I tried to say goodbye to him and go back to sleep, he'd come knocking on my door 5 minutes later wanting to talk some more.

I started to grow a strong distaste for him,(as any good sibling does) I had hoped for an older brother I could look up to or at least rely on. But I was the one taking care of him most of the time. It really wears me out, having to worry so much about whether my brother is gonna OD or self-harm or kill himself. As much as I want to just leave everything to the adults, I feel I can't just sit back and take a break.

Way back when my brother went to the mental hospital, he was given medication to help with his depression, anxiety, and whatever else. I thought that would be the end of it but turned out that he hadn't even been taking the meds. It was a hard struggle for my parents to get him to take them. Only recently has he begin taking them consistently, but that sparked a new problem. Because of the medication's side effects, he acts completely differently determining on the time of day. in the morning he's lazy, snappy, and immature. in the afternoon he's angry, on edge, and distant. at night hes anxious, way too talkative, and irrational. all these changes have made it very hard for me to communicate with him. When he's near me I get so full of anxiety and worry, and I'm not 100% sure why. In harsh terms, I find his presents irritating. I try my best to care about him but at times I really don't want to see him.

I'm aware of how much mental pain my brother must be going through. I've been through my fair share of dark years and I understand he's doing the best he can. I don't know who I should be telling all this to. I do have a therapist but I find it hard to communicate complex things like this using my voice. This is a rant, but it's also me reaching out to see if anyone has any advice for me. I want to be able to talk to my brother but also in doing so I don't want to sacrifice all the hard work I've put into my own self-improvement.

Thank you so much for ready this
-Orion :)

Hello. First, i'm sorry to hear that, I honestly hope you are doing better, as well as your brother.
If you do have a therapist and you feel you can trust him/her but get a little anxious when ranting, you could try writing this in a piece of paper, or even on your phone and show him/her. I'm assuming you are still a minor, so to be honest you should not blame yourself for anything, if sometimes you feel like your parents aren't any help, that's probably because they are not ready too and they get scared and make mistakes.
About your relationship with your brother, i'm sure you and your parents try and help him a lot to get better, but he can only save himself. I know drugs are not easy to quit because i had a lot of friends falling deep into them a bunch of times. Some of them are still struggling.
You are doing your best and that's what matter, you can only hope for the best.
If you ever feel carried away by this situation, take a break and talk to someone, or seek help. Not sure if this is a good piece of advice, but i hope it helps a little.
You can reach to me any time :)
Good times will come