Comment by throwaway803453 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway803453 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

throwaway803453

My 45 year old sister is that way now and to a lesser extent my older brother was too. I lost _decades_ of sleep over their situation.

Ultimately I didn't know anything when I left home at 18 and I figured it out. Other people can too. How long does it take to learn how to drive, open a checking account, cook, pay bill, etc. after all ? You can learn these things privately over the Internet so there's no longer a social stigma holding you back. To digress, I eventually taught my older brother responsibility, job skills (he worked at my business), how to file taxes, basic math, etc. He became even more bitter and resentful and then one day broke down and admitted how painful it is to know nothing useful and most of what he does know he had to learn from his little brother. But eventually he started just Googling instead of calling me when he had a question he should know the answer to.

I truly feel sorry for these lost souls and if I hadn't been naturally good at math, I'd likely be one of them.

I want to comment on your brother’s reflection that he was in pain, bitter, and resentful that he did not have useful knowledge/skills and needed your help.

There is an incredible amount of shame and self-directed anger and fear in men who have found themselves in this position.

All of those feelings are heavy to carry, but they can be shoved aside and ignored by constant entertainment (video games, tv binges etc). Shoved aside they don’t hurt as bad.

But those feelings don’t go away. They get bigger as each year goes on & they flare up when confronted with having to do something they aren’t capable of doing (or think they aren’t capable) like moving out, getting a job, getting a better job, having an adult relationship etc.

Those feelings of inadequacy have to be taken on and grace & forgiveness has to be granted to oneself in order for them to spread their wings / leave the nest and not come back.

For me, the question is how do you get someone so deep into a dark emotional morass to take on the emotional dragons they’ve been hiding from?

>For me, the question is how do you get someone so deep into a dark emotional morass to take on the emotional dragons they’ve been hiding from?

What worked for me was a hero's dose of mushrooms, and about a 4-5 hour talk with the universe to shift my perspective 180 degrees.

> How long does it take to learn how to drive

You're not wrong generally, but this one costs about $1000 where I live, which is close to average national monthly salary and approximately twice the minimum salary.

Not pocket change for someone who has trouble finding work (and many jobs require driver's license).

Just to add to the story. My sister claimed for 10+ years she had the DMV book and just needed to study it before getting her permit. She said this repeatedly to my father and brother and no one questioned her. For 10+ years.

Then a year ago I just called a driving school near my parents house on her behalf. I offered to pay for everything including study time and taxi rides to and from the school. Whatever it took. She said she still needed more time to read the book, but I said the school would help her. So when the time finally came to schedule a pickup time, she texted me and just said that she isn't interested in learning to drive.

So that basically ended our relationship since this lie was too much. Now the only lever I have left is shunning her for her irresponsible life-style choices that put a burden on others. It has had no effect on her but at least I sleep better.

Is someone enabling this behavior in her life? My sister is the same way. My parents enabled her for a decade. Now she is 34 and has minimal life skills and no real job skills to speak of. She just works at a day care. It is a tragedy, but my parents bail her out every time and they barely have many resources themselves. My sister can at least drive and has mostly had a job for a few years now... but that is a recent development.

> It has had no effect on her

I doubt that.

It sounds to me like none of your family does a very good job of understanding her. The behavior you describe sounds much less like someone who is uninterested in driving and more like someone who has significant anxiety around that activity that they are surpressing.

She is obviously scared of driving.

So at no point did anyone figure that she was experiencing pathological amounts of anxiety around learning to drive, and most likely other ordinary activities? That sounds to me like an issue mental healthcare professionals help address.

Yeah I agree with the poster that said she is scared of driving. I'm guessing the excuse that she needed to read the book was either her using an excuse to self deceptively avoid facing her fear or just an attempt to save face by not saying how fearful she was.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com