Both myself and my younger brother (4yrs younger currently he’s 29) have gone through extended periods of unemployment throughout our twenties. In my case I’ve been on disability after a suicide attempt and several more in the years since 2015 that I’m still recovering from. I’m doing better these days but I can’t deny that I did cumulatively spend several years NEET on regular unemployment welfare (Job Seeker’s Allowance, or JSA) and my brother is the same.
In my brother’s case he was diagnosed with a personality disorder and did not take the treatment of it seriously enough because he was disillusioned with/did not trust the NHS mental health teams that I’ve largely benefited from over the past 10 years or so as my depression worsened and led up to a full-blown suicide attempt. It’s only very recently that I was able to convince him to refer himself to the service for treatment again and apply for disability welfare on mental health grounds if his condition is deemed serious enough. He has a high school friend diagnosed with the precise same personality disorder who has been on ESA (disability welfare) for several years after a diagnosis helped him avoid serious prison time for drug manufacture, possession and supply. I’ve always let my brother know that his circumstances don’t need to get as extreme as mine or his friend’s before seeking financial and medical help and that I would never think any less of him. He didn’t listen though, insisted he was special and a ‘high functioning depressive’ so he has spent many years working various stressful and/or shitty or low income jobs that he invariably always gets extremely burnt out and bored with then gets fired. I’m not kidding - he’s genuinely been fired from basically every major FT job he’s ever had as far as I’m aware. Always for consistent lateness or failure to perform. Because he over-confidently went for high-pressure sales jobs thinking he was going to make bank and achieve highly because he has the gift of the gab, but it always resulted in him not being able to meet basic targets.
He got let go from being a care worker for - again - consistent depression-related lateness that accrued during a 6 months probation period he was only in because he avoided being sacked on the spot after a skin-of-his-teeth incident of neglect when he took his eye off an elderly autistic pedophile while he was chaperoning him while out in public.
He’s currently a waiter at Cafe Rogue, the same job he had 10 years ago. He likes it because he gets to keep all his cash tips and he gets to feel appreciated when he gets his customers laughing. He told me that when he first did the job years ago he always felt valued when people would tell him he should be an actor or on TV or something and he’s gone back to that, so I’m happy for him. He’s also started making crude but effective character comedy videos for Facebook and Instagram Stories.
The issue I’ve always had with him has not been that he’s also had periods of being NEET, it’s that his personality disorder has meant that he’s grown into a highly self absorbed and narcissistic person, but the kind who is smart enough to realise that and so makes efforts to hide the behaviour rather than work to correct it. It’s meant that he’s treated me terribly badly over the last few years while I’ve been going through my own mental health hell, because he always felt that he was suffering more than everyone else so didn’t feel like he had to help me. He’s lied and stolen money from me, told me to my face that I don’t deserve the help I’ve been afforded from the government. He never apologises. Or if he does it’s always in the form of ‘I’m sorry you feel that way about my behaviour’ etc. He is almost 30 years old and hasn’t learned how to take full responsibility.
Yet he always phones me whenever he’s had a miserable day/week/period or even when he’s suicidal and expects me to just absorb all his suicidal thoughts like a sponge for hours and hours on end. And of course I’m going to listen to it, of course going to try and speak the most positive words I can think of with all my heart to try and avoid a suicide, but he never ever has done this for me. It’s always one-way - me supporting his emotional needs.
However he flipped out once when I let a very close mutual friend of ours know that my brother was feeling suicidal, but I was led to believe it was a serious and imminent threat. He left me feeling like all his threads and suicidal proclamations are just performative it embellished to get a rise out of me. To deliberately worry and/or stress me out and punish me. So unfortunately I do feel like a mug and that I’ve been used like an emotional tampon and that my brother is crying suicidal wolf with a shot-eating grin. Especially so when he goes and steals money from me a few weeks afterward or does something equally cultish or passive aggressive. I’m always trying to be as good and supportive an older sibling to him despite my feeling constantly disrespected and invalidated by him.
It’s tough.
On the other hand we also have a younger sister who is a born-again Christian and has worked FT consistently since graduation. No problems there.