Social Anxiety Disorder For My Brother, Please Advise For Solution

Dear Rachu123,
What a loving and caring sister you are! God Nless You
1. Just for ONE full year, accept your brother just as he is and allow him to be. Fill your loving heart with tolerance and encourage your mom also to...in your current scenario, what is just one more year?

2. Use this year to 'observe' him objectively,' without bringing to mind what all the other 30+ years old men are doing and comparing him and pressuring him to 'conform,' just yet.

3. LET HIM APPROACH YOU WITH TALK OR OTHER FORMS OF COMMUNICATION.
You don't engage but be pleasant and normal yourself as if there is nothing wrong or unusual about him. As he sees or senses all this change, he will feel 'acceptance,' if not 'approval and validation' of him as an individual, as he is (unconditional love).

Since you are far away in the US., it is especially your mom who will need to do this to understand him better.

4. In all of this time, chances are he will feel encouraged to give put more about what he wants for himself out of life.
You can only support that and I don't think anything too far from it however 'normal,' will work and this is because the individuality needs to be recognized and given the space it needs for anyone then to start to 'fall in line' with familial and social norms.

5. Most important is to know that when finally he feels relaxed enough to start dropping his guard and teveal some of his true self to your mom and through her communication to you, you guys can offer him support where you can and suggestions for change where it needs to take place for him to attain what 'he' wants as a member of the society (including your mom and you) that he lives within. There is no rush to bring in or allow another human being until you first understand him and his needs. First things first.

6. Google's results are so accurate and on the spotsounding because their indexes are built with user search words not subject experts.
If from what you learn from this experimental, limited long term, patient and objectively loving observations still warrant it, select a capable and good behavioral cousellor like another reader has suggested. Ask people he or she has treated before for their experience and references. Try to first help him unlearn what he has 'learned' (mistakenly or wrongly from any intervening experience or revelation), that has caused him to suddenly develop these variant behavior patterns.

Conclusion:
This is going to take time, patience, tolerance and a great measure of objectivity, especially for your mother, but since it will be limited to one year, (to be applied sincerely to more accurately gauge what went on with him in the past ten years), it will be worth it, in the end.

I always try to untangle a knot first before I try weakening it or cutting it off or other more drastic measures, and that way the original yarn or chord keeps its strength even if strained...
I know that through this method, you will succeed in getting positive results which will help your family and yourself move ahead and perhaps even invite a loving spouse for him into your fold.
I wish you good luck, dear.

 

Dear Rachu123,
Give yourselves one more year to allow him supported but totally unpressued TIME and SPACE. This is your brother's and your (=mom & you) first need to be fulfilled for true healing to begin. This is basic for further progress in your lives, together. Yes, even when separated in distant continents family members are always bonded inseparably together and thats why this healing will need to be pervasive.

ALLOW him to reach his full potential with 'unonditional' love and give the needed space for him to do it in. This 'space,' refers not just to the physical space housing him in, but more to that in your hearts, his true "refuge" at this vilnerable time for him, in his life. Conforming to society at large will occur subsequently. YOU are his society, his World NOW and let him succeed here first.

Who knows, he may have felt undue pressure in his first company job because he was indeed slower and is now trying to verify the true level of his abilities and potentials by placing himself in close proximity to the relationships that have the potential to be honest and therefore the most trust-worthy to him, his mom and sister. If you also judge him by the same high standards, validate once again his slowness as a drawback by your impatience for him to advance faster to the level that you feel is 'the standard' and at the pace you determine is 'normal,' where is he to turn, if he is indeed slower and less able than that? Instead, perhaps by accepting him at his level and speed for achievements, he, your mom and you 'as a family' can then determine a more level starting point for him to begin his life-journey from and plot a more achievable course of progress in it?!
Recognize his individuality.

Until this is done, I would wait and not bring another human being into this unbalanced family dynamic to cause more challenges and imbalance. STOP trying to CONFORM to the World outside for just this period of ONE year (what's one more in the current scenario, if it will reset more realistically, for the better?!).

Once you feel he is feeling relaxed enough and beginning to seek your counsel on his own, rather than keep running from it, you can then arrange for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT=counselling) as another IL member rightly recommended. They are the experts at diagnoses and matched therapy course, not us. However, they must come with excellent tried and true references and this whole idea of 'behavioral counsel,' MUST have your brother's full acceptance and concurrence if not initiation for it to be fruitful. Also what has gotten 'knotted up,' through thought processes must first be unravelled utilizing that same process before administering strong medications.

Far from him achieving things per your specs, above are stuff for your mom and you to implent FIRST, for your family to regain the elusve but much needed balance. Granted it will be uphill at least for most of that year...especially getting him on board for CBT, but, improvement will eventually occur if this is carried out successfully, first. In the end you will feel it was all worthwhile.

You have a loving heart and very good intentions. I see just some fine tuning may be needed.
Good Luck, God Bless!
NOTHING IS UNSURMOUNTABLE!

 

@Rachu123

You said that your brother was hyper active, and was really doing normal with his studies and work until he was 22. And he suddenly started to behave weird as this, and lost jobs since then.
So, you really have to go back to the time when he was 22, and see what has happened during that time.
Probably you may overlooked some thing that has impacted his life seriously back then.
This kind of investigations really helpful when you see a therapist for his disorder.

At that age, he might have faced some shocks in his life. A work related shock, accident, love failure, failure in exams... I don't know. But just go back to that time, meet the people who mattered to him around then, and start investigating the reason behind his changed behavior.

For ex: a mere love failure or failure in exam may be a simple matter for many of us. We might grieve for a while, and then move on. But for some, it may be a life changing matter. Many people have committed suicide and went to extremes for such matters. It is all about their individual tolerance level. So, do not ignore any fact even if that is very smaller according to general terms.
Just check and see what has caused his changes.

I am sure, you will be able to trace down something from your bro's life around that time asap.
If so, then take him to a therapist with all the information. He may refer your bro to a counselor and from then you guys could start supportive counselling sessions at home with proper guidance from a professional counselor.
Yoga and meditation will be really helpful when the root cause of the problem is addressed. So in your bro's case, track the root cause, and address it with a professional therapist. Then try yoga as a support healing mechanism.

Until then, no amount of yelling, supporting, therapy or even financial assistance will help your bro.
Also, a marriage in a hurry will not change anything. It will further affect his and his life partner's lives.
Also, general therapies or any thing like antidepressants won't be helpful either.

 

There is no point of discussing with anyone with whom he works or mingles today. They might be seeing the same version of his as you are. So, try to locate the people whom mingled with him some 10-15 years back when your bro was in his normal/active mode.
They must know some of the background, which you might be missing.

One of my relative became like this all of a sudden, and it took the family around 4 years to realize that he has a serious problem, which is running inside him; thus the behavioral changes.
They had no clue, but as advised by the psychiatrist, they went back to his university, and met all the old friends, room mates, and canteen fellows to find out that he had a love affair there. A girl used to follow him, and love him so madly that he was in clouds due to that. But the affair was very short lived, as that girl suddenly left the college to pursue her higher studies in abroad, by leaving all the contacts behind. So, the fellow students started to tease him for the loss, which has seriously affected him. But none of them thought that he could go this bad and lose all the interest in life due to it.
They all left college after a few months, and never met him afterwards.
My uncle was able to bring him back to almost normal, and he is now married with a kid. But timely medical and psychological intervention by addressing the root cause of the problem has saved my cousin.
In your bro's case, I think you guys are not really addressing the root cause, rather addressing the symptoms. That's why it is taking this long.