Inculcating the Foundation of Personal Development

[francstoic]

Dear Steve and fellow members,

I've been facing one particularly difficult challenge for the past five long years but I haven't had much success. I have been reading Steve Pavlina for about four months. I have read his "Dealing with Close-Minded People" and "Helping Stubborn People" and "Why Grow?" and "Why Pursue Personal Growth At All?" which are all related to my problem here. I sincerely hope you will be able to provide guidance and advice to me.

I've got a brother. He is younger to me by 2 years. He's going to begin college next year (he's in last year of high school). But everything in his life (or at least the basics) are in such a mess. I've been trying to help him at least for the past 4 years but it has been extremely challenging.

He is extremely lazy. To sum it all up, he doesn't care. He simply sits home often bunking classes, sleeps, eats, and sleeps more. We've visited at least 5 psychologists/psychiatrists/psychotherapists for his "disorder" but they say they can't characterise it as any spcific medical condition apart from a "general apathetic outlook towards life".

My parents are always incrdibly busy, and so whatever time my mother can find for him she gives it to him, and we've been trying to help him out of this for the past three years without success.

We've tried various approaches. About five years ago I'd found myself in a difficult phase. But I've grown so much better in the past few years, it's been amazing. I tried to inculcate some positive messages about growth and development that I learnt over the years. About four years ago he found himself in a sexual addiction. Those addictive patterns continued for about two years, but then he began to get apathetic about the addiction too -- earlier he'd at least try to listen to me when I'd say "you've got a problem that could be disastrous for you in the future... we can't ignore it". Later when he broke up with the girl he used to have sex with, and then tried getting a few more women, but on being rejected he simply gave up his social life and would simply isolate himself and maybe watch crap on the internet. Now he's given up that too and even if I try to encourage him into getting a girlfriend (or even simply try making other friends at school), he gives his predictable i-don't-care or why-do-you-care or what's-the-point responses. When he was in the addiction he was also often violent and jealous of other kids, his list of people he hated was much much larger than the people he liked (which had only a couple of girls I guess).

I stopped yelling (or other negative communication) at him a really long time ago. I've tried my best to be positive to him for the last 5 years but it hasn't made a dent. In fact, and I really hate to say this, but, he's gotten worse over the years... now he's turned so apathetic towards life, everything's so dull for him (even sex doesn't appeal to him any longer, probably because of low-self-esteem but also maybe because he's tired of experiencing 5-seconds highs and then the same dull routine everyday... I guess that at least if sex or romance did appeal then I could motivate him to do other things slowly and slowly).

He tends to be more tolerant of me than of my parents, though, probably because I've always treated him as an equal and not as "my younger brother". But I haven't had success. For the past seven months, I've been really trying to follow the way Covey has written about in The Seven Habits (when he and his wife were trying to help their son), by internalising a radically different perspective of him (as fundamentally adequate, able to cope with life, seeking positive change but merely having a rough phase to deal with, etc. letting him be on his own to find his way out of this mess, even assuming that he already does care about his life) but it hasn't changed things for my brother.

A friend of mine simply asked me to consider if he's retarded or psychologically challenged, but we've got him to give a dozen different tests (not just q&a [wherein his assessment is "normal"] but also changing diets a couple of times, changing schools [to change friends and environment], we even shifted to another part of the city) but it doesn't seem to work. In fact, when he was in 4th grade, he was pretty brilliant at math and computers. But then in 6th grade he started thinking about girls, and then about sex, and now he's completely apathetic to life, he doesn't care, he tells me he often feels like committing suicide but doesn't want to feel the pain that may arise while killing himself, he even asked me if I could inject anaesthetics or something for him and let him die. These days though he doesn't even talk to me much, he's stopped opening up to me.

As I said, I've tried each and every idea that Steve suggested in his articles in related topics. And, mind you, not in the form of 30-day trials, but extended months of trial, researching, and journaling.

I can't simply "leave the relationship" either, nor would I ever want to -- he's my brother! I sincerely want to help him out. If you'd ever seen him in junior school you'd never have guessed that he could ever turn into anything like this, he was a very smart guy, smarter than me (and I'm doing physics at college now). I've tried to ask him what went wrong, I've even occasionally went asking people he knew as to what kind of a guy he was at school, the things he'd talk about etc., and what reasonably seemed to be the causes of his negative spiral, I did note down and try to change in him.

David Hawkins says that for people below the level of courage, external help is needed. Well, we've consulted half a dozen psychotherapists, relatives, some books, our intuition, what not, yet why doesn't this guy seem to care. The problem is not merely about logically convincing him that the path of personal growth is best, but also the emotional resistance he shows to it. I remember once, about a year ago, when I'd justified to him in a long speech the importance of personal growth (including quotes of various people), he simply said at the end "so what? I don't care". The current situation is that he is mostly apathetic, a while before he used to be negative sometimes, like talk about how he is no good with girls and academics, how everyone else is simply born to win and not him, I tried to use those moments to motivate him to aspire for a better life but he won't listen and he's simply too stubborn, close-minded, it's like he's set up a wall in his mind that's so hard to penetrate.

Steve, what would you do? This is not a question of him liking, say, apple juice and me liking orange juice instead and so we're against each other. It's not something you can pass off saying "well, that's the way he is, he's just different". It's a fundamental psychological issue. I consider it the greatest disability or disorder... isn't it so? I mean, for a man to not try his best, a man who simply gives up and doesn't care -- that's worse than a man born without senses.

I really hope you will advise me here. It's not a hopeless situation -- he's human, and as much as I hate that quote of Marilyn Fergusson ("No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal.") that Covey quotes, I really want to help him out.

Thank you for reading. Honestly, I will really appreciate advice to solve this situation.

Sincerely,
Frank

[ArthurHung]

Focus on improving yourself. Live a little "cleaner" yourself, simpler, develop patience/tolerance and be more compassionate with yourself.

[Kaspian]

Marilyn Fergusson is absolutely right.

Someone gave me some really good advice when I was a teenager and wanted to "save" the members of my family:

If you try to save someone, you only help them stay stuck. Let go of needing to change them. Instead, work on your self, heal, grow, and empower yourself. By becoming the best of who you are, you show them that it's possible.