This is long. Sorry…
Hi everyone. I put this on the parents forum because I can use some parental advise.
I’m going to be transferring to a small LAC in Florida this year and I’m actually excited for the first time in forever. I spent my first year in a humungous public school in Colorado but I didn’t feel so great about it (more about that later) and I felt like I might have needed some more schooling before I could go into the discipline I want to go into (im in a 3/2 Engineering Program). I also got a very generous merit scholarship and am excited to pursue opportunities in undergrad research at my new school.
All might seem great you may ask, but the truth is the year before now has been one of the worst years of my life. I just want to go on record and say that the main reason I had such a terrible time at my old school, and throughout the entire year, was purely because of my own mindset and my attitude towards my surroundings. But, I feel that that mindset was enabled by someone I initially trusted in my life, my brother. I’m not gonna tell my entire childhood story and crap, I’m just gonna tell you enough just for me to ask what can I do now going forward.
Ok so when I was in High school, my dream school, the place where I literally would have loved to have gone, loved the academics and the students, was super crazy over, and always imaged I would spend my undergrad studies at was Brown. To give more context, I attended a summer program there and fell in love with the group of friends I made, the professors I had, and the subjects (computer science and robotics) I studied. I was really fascinated by the Brain Gate projects they had there as well, although I didn’t have intentions on doing bio med, I really wanted to work with the research they were doing. And most prominent of all, my brother went there. He always told me how much it was paradise and amazing and how everything about it was perfect, even dragging me there during the weekends to see it and sitting in on lectures that really made me excited about the school. All of this was fine and nothing I have gripes over, but it gave me a bad president towards the school alone.
Now when it came time for admission, SURPRISE!!!, I was rejected. I was bummed out like anyone would be, but I tried to keep my best foot forward and see the opportunities I did have. However, my brother told me that “You can’t amount to anything without the institution that you want most.” He also constantly told me that I needed to take a gap year and that I need to go to an institution that was going to be prestigious. I tried not to let the prestige craze control me as much, but my brother kept enabling this sense of worthlessness in me because I was attending my other school, the one in Colorado. The entire summer before my freshmen year was filled with comments about how inferior I was.
Then comes freshmen year, already feeling like I was mess. I wish I approached school with a better mindset, especially first year of engineering school. Even when I started to get involved (I became part of an engineering team that worked on a project for the semester Design Expo, I participated in a code-a-thon, and I got to meet some interesting TA’s and students that were passionate about the stuff I initially loved about Brown) I still felt like I was not in the right place. My brother then proceeded to tell me how much none of that meant anything and convinced me to try to transfer out. While I did feel like I wanted to transfer (of my own accord not my brothers) my brother forced me to transfer in a misguided way and continued to shine the light of ‘hope’ for a second chance. He said that I should transfer to all these top tier institutions, under a field that I did not want to study because he thought it would be easier for me. During my second semester, I fell into a depressing state. My brother convinced me to take classes I didn’t like because it would “look good” for the universities. I forgot to eat, I stopped exercising, and I stopped seeing friends that my brother told me were inferior. I continued to believe in his comments about “you need to go to an institution that you’ll feel proud of the name” and “only Ivy league students change the world and have an amazing undergrad experience.” I was so stupid for believing him for a second.
My epiphany came near the end of my second semester from my mother. She told me that I sounded completely miserable and I shouldn’t listen to my brother at all because he was having problems too (ironically enough after graduating he never got a job and moved to New York and my dad paid for all his living expenses including a new apartment, I’ll elaborate that later). I realized I had to take matters into my own hands and start living the life I needed to live. I eventually got rejected by all the schools my brother told me to transfer to, but in that time, I applied to schools that seemed more in my range of fit. It was a little to late for some options but I still found a great school, the one that I’m going to this fall yay!
Once I left for the summer, I started an internship for a startup back home in Miami, I started working out again which helped my mood, and I started getting excited for my new school. Things have been going amazing. Unfortunately, my Brother still comes to the house, because he sometimes feels homesick from spending too much time partying and “networking” in New York. He blatantly insults me for the rejections I got and about the decisions I’ve made. He tells me the school I’m going to is filled with rich spoiled kids that not give me a stimulating environment. I try to ignore him, but his words still infected my brain a bit. I have made large strides in trying to forget all the bad things he’s told me, but he still manages to pop up in the worst timing.
I try to talk to my dad about what I can do and I told him to stop subsidizing him. He told me that “I don’t agree with anything your brother has said, but I will continue to support him as long as he wants, he is my son and I care about him” even though my brother overtly insults my dad every single second he gets. I really am pissed that I was affected by such a toxic person. He continues to insult my choice of studies, my school, me in general and I want him to leave the house, but he will never leave as long as my father continues to support him. What do I do. Sometimes throughout the day, he just bursts into a fit of rage and continues to insult me and say I’m a spoiled idiot who can’t think for himself. Any advice would be helpful, thanks for reading.
TL:DR
My brother is toxic and tells me I have no chance of being happy if I don’t go to BrownU. How do I tell him he’s wrong and continue to live my life and be happy with the opportunities I do have?