#when my parents baselessly hate someone they talk to each other (or me for some reason)

[boneless-mika]

If you ever have the instinct to make a useless addition to a post that you know will be received badly? Possibly because you're aware that you're about to say something nobody should or perhaps it would cause an argument with one of your closest friends?

Somebody said something incredibly foolish and inconsiderate in your favorite fandom tag and you just get an itching to tell them to stop it but you know it would not change their mind?

May I recommend this epic new technique called "pretend you never saw the post". I have been utilizing this technique for years and I truly believe that with enough practice you, too, can stop saying things you shouldn't

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

(tw for mentions of suicide/suicide attempts and abuse (nothing detailed))

🎧💙

so i can find it ☝️

tldr at the bottom

AITA for telling my dad that my brother wanted to kill himself and then getting into an argument with said brother?

I (24 genderfluid) have a stepbrother (26) who has had a very difficult life. We haven't known each other for very long, only about five years, but for about three of those years, we were pretty much inseparable. We had similar interests, and I care about him very much. I knew he was struggling mentally and physically, especially since pretty much every time we talked he would bring up every way his mother had hurt him.

He lives in a different city with his mother and my biological father (I was adopted), and by his account, they don't treat him well. I believe him. I know about bad parents, and I know they can be one way at home and another way in public, so I didn't really doubt any of what he said about them, especially since I barely knew them.

My relationship with him was great at first. I always wanted an older brother, and suddenly I had one! But after some time, I started feeling more like the older sibling. I had to protect him. I had to make sure he was okay.

After even more time, I started feeling like the therapist friend who couldn't actually help with his problems. There was always something happening with him. He would say upsetting things without seeming to care if I was okay with it. He would accuse people of things baselessly then get upset if I questioned it. He would drop friendships over minor disagreements, usually over fandoms and ships, then say that he was so lonely and that no one seemed to actually want to be his friend.

This is all a preamble to the part about the argument, sorry. I don't hate him. I'm a little frustrated, sure, but I could never hate him. I know it sounds bad, and again, I'm sorry. I wanted to be his friend. I still do, because I know he needs people who will be there for him.

I wasn't open with how I felt until it was too much, and that part is definitely my fault.

Around the beginning of our third year knowing each other, he texted me saying that he wanted me to find someone to look after his cats. I was confused and scared, so I asked him what he meant. He said that it was all too much and he just wanted out. I started to try to calm him down, but I was at a point in my own mental health treatment where I knew I couldn't handle this without having an episode of my own, so I texted my dad.

He had told me that my dad was part of why he was having an episode, but, again, they live in another city and there was no way for me to physically get there to help him.

So I told my dad that my brother was not okay.

The next text I got from my brother was accusational.

He told me he was getting help from his other friends as well as me before that point, and that he wasn't actually going to end it all.

I broke. I was madder than I'd ever been in my entire life. I didn't know he wasn't actually going to kill himself, all I had were his words on a screen telling me that he was. I told him that I only told dad because I thought I was going to lose my brother, and I really didn't want to. I finally told him that I was unhappy with the way he was treating me, and he took that to mean that I was comparing him to his mother. I told him we both needed a break from the conversation because I was only getting more upset and I didn't want to go off on him anymore.

When I tried to text him the next day to apologize, I found out he blocked me on everything. I asked his friends about it, and they said it was because he was afraid that I was actually always out to hurt him. He was afraid that everything I did was always meant to hurt him. He was afraid that if I lived with him and his mother and my father (which was a plan my father had to get me out of my own abusive household), I would actively try to hurt him or his cats.

I can understand why he would be afraid that I would be lying to him about my intentions and feelings, because I had before. It didn't matter that I was trying to protect his own feelings, I still lied to him about mine. But he did, too. He told me he was going to kill himself, and he didn't actually have the intention to.

It's been about a year since that happened. I don't know if I dodged a bullet or if I'm the one who messed up worse.

tldr: aita for blowing up at my brother over unaired grievances after I told my dad that he told me he was going to kill himself even though he wasn't actually going to?

What are these acronyms?