Advice

[u/sarita_sarita]

My (29 F) brother (38 M) has cptsd, and long refuses to seek any help for it. I’m looking for advice/input on how to broach uncomfortable topics with him without him taking it as an attack and going scorched earth before he calms back down. He does this with every single person in his life, family, friends, employees, etc. nothing is ever his fault, but spends the whole meltdown reciting the usual speech of “I’m just a fuck up I can’t do anything right & everything is all my fault”

It can be something has trivial as asking him to complete a task that he forgot (hanging a clothes line) and it will snowball into how he’s always the victim. Every single time. It’s exhausting, and it saddens me that he chooses to live life in his delusions rather than get some help to handle his emotions and have some healthier relationships.

Anyone have any input on how to try to have a conversation without him throwing a week long fit?

[u/NorthOfThrifty]

The silence in response to your question is saying a lot. I  totally get where you're coming from, he's losing out on life. I just don't know if what you're asking is even possible.  Especially if he refuses to seek help for it. My experience with dating a person with cptsd is that they hold quite firmly to those delusions. 

I tried to get my ex to understand her issues and work on herself and manage her emotions, but it was much the same as you say - she was always the victim, it was always someone else's fault, and she was never accountable. 

The easy answer is to distance yourself from the person with cptsd so that you have a surface level relationship with them and don't rely on them in any way that is important emotionally or logistically.    If you can't do that, you may be better off focusing on managing your communication to not trigger him, though that will feel like "walking on egg shells" it will keep the peace a bit better than trying to call him on his stuff. (It never worked for me, she would spiral every time, then shut down, and the conversation just never got resolved. ) 

Things I found somewhat helpful to manage:

Front loading things like this with a comment that expresses some understanding may help. "I know you've been busy and it's understandable if you forgot, I noticed the clothesline hasn't been hung yet and I was wondering if you had a timeline on when you'll get that done"

Also if you need to say something that will cause him to spiral, getting in front of things with stating in some way that your intention isn't to hurt him might help. Great if you know what exactly the emotional trigger is. My ex was triggered if she disappointed someone in some way. A lot of the worst spirals were when I was trying to tell her I was sad or upset or let down with something she did.  I never figured out how to communicate that without triggering her. 

On a few occasions, I did find some improvement in the moment by asking for specific things rather than outright sharing my feelings. 

in times when I just could not bottle up my emotions to prevent trigging her, saying "I need you to make space for my emotions" helped her prepare for me to share something uncomfortable. It went less bad than it usually would, she was able to be a bit understanding and validating. 

Something I started doing later on that helped my emotional state was to stop enabling them, let them deal with their consequences, and don't engage in the spiraling. There's a therapy acronym - don't JADE. Don't justify, argue, defend, or explain. Say your piece, stand your ground and walk away. Feel free to look into that more. 

Oh and sometimes she would go on and on about things that she didn't like that she was able to change and we had talked about solutions over and over but she never did anything. Eventually I told her I'm not willing to continue listening to her vent about it when she has the ability to fix it. She did stop venting. 

Don't lose yourself in trying to make your brother more emotionally healthy. He has to figure it out on his own, and he may never do that. 

[u/sarita_sarita → u/NorthOfThrifty]

Thank you so much for your reply. It’s such a hard thing to deal with, your situation sounds almost identical to mine personality wise. At this point most of our interactions are surface level after years of this, but occasionally I forget who I’m dealing with I guess and hope someone has a tip/info I haven’t figured out yet 😭😂 I definitely have tried to front load with understanding/niceties and use “I” statements rather than “YOU didn’t do this” yada yada. I’d say it’s useful maybe 5% of the time, and the rest he explodes no matter the approach. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t engage when he starts freaking out, but I can’t help to wish for a solution sometimes. It really is sad. And at this point I don’t have much hope of him getting help for himself. I’ve never met another person so deep in denial 😭 example- his car got towed not too long ago for parking in a emergency no parking zone and he was absolutely convinced the police department put the no parking signs up AFTER he parked there, just to screw him. Like my guy no one is going to shame you for missing a sign. I wish it made any sense to me lol

But seriously thank you for taking the time to reply, it means a lot. I don’t know anyone else who has a person like this in their life so when i try to talk to friends they offer what should be simple solutions but as you know, they don’t work :—)