u/ChalkThatTalks

I'm kind of getting desperate recently so I hope somebody can help. It is extremely long though, sorry about that.

My (17F) brother (9M) has had his phone since he was 3 and he's gotten inseperable from it. My mom has been very lenient with him and gave him that phone probably because she's gotten tired of raising children at her age. But now, his mental state seems almost like it's stuck at the age of 3. When he's not at school or doing homework, he's constantly on YouTube shorts. He's extremely prone to tantrums over the smallest reasons and will cry for actual hours if something doesn't go his way (i.e. if he gets his phone taken, has to do homework he doesn't understand, gets the pillow our dog had in her mouth for a literal second instead of the one my other brother is using (not for sleeping, just for leaning on), etc.) and only gets louder when you try to calm him down. The one thimg that calms him down is a kiss on the cheek or a hug from my mom, but the way he goes about it is extremely weird. He will demand my mom gives him either of those (just says mommy, kiss or mommy, hug), even if he was yelling at her earlier for something out of her control, and will start wailing even louder if she tells him no, no matter how gently she puts it.

He doesn't even get up to get himself snacks, he commands my mom to get it for him (as in, he just screams MOMMY, [thing he wants, singular word]), then he has her open it for him and starts eating, without ever looking away from the phone. If she doesn't comply, or when I tried to convince him to at least TRY to get it himself and open it, he starts crying again, insisting he doesn't know how to even if he has done it before. His cries are genuine screams, and I have to listen to that the whole day as I have no door and it passes by all noise cancelling technology.

Recently, it's gotten particularily bad, with him genuinely threatening with things if his phone gets taken away and says things like "or I will punch you". One milder example: He shares a room with my other younger brother (15M). My mom usually allows the youngest to take his phone with him when he goes to sleep, so of course he sometimes tries to sneakily watch some shorts. The older brother told him to put it away repeatedly (from what he told me, but I trust him with that), and a while later I heard actual screams coming from the room. He said something that the 15 year old was scaring him or something along those lines (was a while ago) and the 15 year old got scolded really bad for bothering him.

Now a worse example, what happened today and inspired me to write this. He, once again, didn't want to do his homework and got his phone taken away and started crying. Then, he said some really disturbing things to my mom. He was saying he would tell his teacher my mom was abusing him if she didn't give it back, and also that he would kill himself. It is crazy to me that a 9 year old can even THINK such things. My mom doesn't believe it's from the phone, but it sounds like exactly something that would be on those "how to convince your mom to do something" shorts that are clearly supposed to be jokes. My dad and brother both agree that it is the phone, at least partially.

He's not diagnosed with anything but we have a history of autism (and various other mental illness) in our family and my mom has been to a psychiatrist with him before who suggested ADHD, but without any actual assessment since my mom considers it a waste of time since him having ADHD wouldn't make him eligeble for any help other than maybe meds.

Due to what happened today, my brother managed to convince him to agree to a phone curfew where he won't be allowed to use his phone after 6PM (though he probably will scream about it tomorrow). We used to have some parental restrictions on his phone (which once again me and my brother had to set up), but my mom told us to get rid of them because he couldn't record his YouTube shorts (he does videos playing with his toys sometimes, me and my brother had to supervise those videos as he showed himself in only underwear once).

I know this is extremely long, but I genuinely don't know what to do anymore. I know it's not his fault and it makes me feel terrible that almost his entire existence is scrolling, and I can't handle the screaming anymore. I'm really worried, he's already failing school and I don't want him ending up a bum or someone unable to even live alone. I'm already in the process of getting off my antidepressants and all of this isn't making me feel better. So I've headed here.

And to whoever actually bothered to read all of this, thanks.