FREEDOM

Not one to go too deep into private stuff, but I need answers. So here goes:

My aries had a breakdown in March. Although he didn't go the murderous type of crazy, it made him overly excitable.

He talked a lot of gibberish, basically, and from this gibberish I was able to determine that his breakdown was caused by FEAR, GUILT and a bit of self-loathing.

Dude is one of those super blunt Aries peeps who knows why communication between him and a prospective friend breaks down in social situations (because of his bluntness) but doesn't seem to know how to solve the problem. Or he does, but like every normal overly blunt human being only remembers a lesson learned after it's been taught to him again (He makes the same mistake a lot, basically).

It doesn't help, of course, that most people are mean and hardly give the socially awkward a second chance. And since my bro, though socially awkward, is a normal human being and therefore gets an ego boost from good interactions with other normal human beings, it's simple math, really:

socially awkward + a continual lack of good social interactions with people = mental breakdown

Anyway, we're from Nigeria where sex before marriage is taught to be a sin in Church. I've long abandoned religion, myself, since a lot of it makes no fucking sense, but my bro, nnnotsomuch. Which is where the guilt and fear come in.

When he broke down the 1st time he spoke a lot about God and Heaven and sex before marriage and stuff.

Which made me realise he feels guilty about wanting to have sex before marriage, but at the same time he doesn't wanna go to hell.

This, coupled with self loathing from too many fruitless interactions with other people (friendship-wise) equals, you betcha, mental breakdown.

Now h
But he has to do it, though. I could help, of c
ere's the thing: I sorta know how to totally prevent a breakdown from happening again. Thing is, it isn't something I can do. It's something only my bro can:

1. he can learn from his mistakes and grow his ego a little. learn that not everyone will take him for who he is and learn to live with that and try to occasionally mince his words or at least not feel so shitty when the other person flees. With a big enough ego it's easy to rationalize the other person's reaction and carry on regardless.

2. he can get over feeling guilty about the whole sex before marriage thing, make sure point number one above is in his mind at all times and go get some poon.

CONTINUE😱

Now here's the thing: I sorta know how to totally prevent a breakdown from happening again. Thing is, it isn't something I can do. It's something only my bro can:

1. he can learn from his mistakes and grow his ego a little. learn that not everyone will take him for who he is and learn to live with that and try to occasionally mince his words or at least not feel so shitty when the other person flees. With a big enough ego it's easy to rationalize the other person's reaction and carry on regardless.

2. he can get over feeling guilty about the whole sex before marriage thing, make sure point number one above is in his mind at all times and go get some poon.

But he has to do these things on his own. I can help of course, bu it wldn't feel like a victory to him.

Which is what he needs.

ANYWAY, that's the backstory. Here's the thread:

My bro seems to be relapsing and I feel I need to take away some of his freedom. I'll explain.

When my bro broke down the first time he was VERY impressionable to outside stimuli.

Most people who breakdown mentally it seems have fragile sponges of minds whereby like drunk people they talk about all sorts of shit they can see around them.

And the internet has all manner of info on the end of the world, religion and other stuff that'd surely make my bro paranoid enough to snap.

Also when he broke down he phoned everyone in his phonebook. Embarassing himself.

Would you take away his freedom if you were in my position?

His freedom to use the internet? His phone?

Posted by ellessque
😢

is he younger or older than you?

also, is he in the same location as you or are you trying to communicate via phone or internet?

By a YEAR (I'm 23). And I'm in the UK, he's back in Nigeria.

It's like a vicious cycle: if he breaks down and embarasses himself on the phone he'll remeber doing so when he snaps out of it after being given his meds.

It's like being drunk it seems. For him, anyway. The doctor commeted on hismind beng strong.

He apparently was told to kill me, but didn't because "that didn't sound right".

So he isn't loopy enough to be completely loopy but stable enough EMOTIONALLY to never have it hapen again.

Posted by &2gedanow

So he isn't loopy enough to be completely loopy but stable enough EMOTIONALLY to never have it hapen again.

Which is the dillemma really and also the key to him getting better for good.

So IDK whether restricting the information he takes in would be a good idea at this point.

At the same time he needs to interact and for these interactions to go good for him to become stable enough.

And t that second point I don't think helping the process along would do any good because he's a smart dude, has got a scorpio moon and therefore would be suspicious if everyone was being all nice nice than normal.

He's pretty much alone in this thing, but the solution is simple.

Posted by ellessque
what sign is he?

Aries

Posted by ellessque
😢 ughh.

the distance is the worst. does he have adequate support back home?

how do you plan on doing this for him? I mean, taking away the freedom. He needs someone face to face, in his face constantly. imo.

my first gut feeling is he is or has surrounded himself with people of little character or people who are taking advantage of his sensitive soul. he needs to be around someone who is strong in character who can guide him along to develop himself. Is there anyone back home you could trust to help him?

He's with my mom. But someone with a strong character would only make him feel more shitty about himself.

One of those catch 22s. Like with suicidal people, basically.

I'm thinking of asking my mum to disallow his use of the internet. That's the freedom I plan on taking away.

If he can't find paranoia inducing info he can't panic and eventually breakdown is my line of thought.

Yeah, he's met enough dicks to feel completely shitty about himself. But its generally people, isn't it?

Not many people give socially awkward people a chance. They don't have to be bad people.

Posted by ellessque

What kind of support system does he have at home? You cannot take this all on your shoulders. He needs a team of people.

He's got my mum. A psychologist. Lots of family who care. But like I said, dude is smart:

he's aware that the people who surround him are only there because of his problem.

What I feel he needs is to succeed among strangers. It's like learning to ride a like, basically: He's aware of the training wheels but knows one day he's gonna have to ride without them.

Posted by ellessque
the thing is, someone with strong character and is genuine will know exactly how to lift him up and teach him. I wouldn't say someone that would make him feel shitty has strong character.

how about a male figure of sorts. uncle, cousin...even a distant relative.

I compltely agree. But it's the fact that my bro would sense the genuine strength of character that would make him feel shitty. NOT the person who is genuiney strong.

His train of thought would be "This guy is 100% strong. Why can't I be like him?" And on to depression.

It's a cocktail of problems, really.

Posted by ellessque
can you bring him to you?

No. I'm going to him. Come december.

The UK can be a cold and lonely place. This helped the breakdown along, to be honest.

He doesn't ever wanna come back here, he told me

Posted by ellessque
someone needs to validate his feelings. make him feel like he is not awkward, that he feels what everybody else feels. he probably feels it more intensely, but it is the same feelings everyone else processes at moments in their life.

his need is to stop feeling different then everyone else.

so, the sex after marriage issue....does he have a woman in his life? Could she be pressuring him? Maybe she is the problem right there.

No he doesn't have a woman. And THAT is the problem right there.

Add to this that he feels awkward and that some of the women he'd like won't give awkwardness a chance and you've got yet another problem.

Then there's the God thing, which, a small part of me knows, he's using to rationalize this...

You know, I don't wanna depress anyone because I know my brother will be fine.

HE just needs to know this to get better.

It's a simple complicated problem that can only be fixed if my bro comes to certain conclusions on his own.

I guess I could try making it look like I'm NOT taking away the freedom like Ellesque suggested but DO anyway, so he dones't take in anymore info that'll make him fret enough to breakdown mentally again

Thank you, Ellesque. You've helped immensely.