My sister
I am the oldest brother. My father passed away, and my aunt takes care of us. I have a younger sister who is two years younger than me; she is 18. We are from the Middle East. When my father died, I was 15. I was never ready for responsibility, but it stopped being a choice. Even now, after turning 20, I am still socially awkward and constantly under pressure, but there is nothing I can do about it. All of this is because I never learned how a man should be or how he should speak. I did not learn anything from my father. Of course, I developed a little after countless embarrassing situations that made me wish I could disappear.
Anyway, my sister only sits on her phone and does nothing. She is the only one in the house who does nothing. She is supposed to help take care of our younger siblings after me, but she does not do anything. When she refuses, my aunt scolds and insults her because she never moves or helps. I do not blame my aunt. She is like a machine, doing everything and making sure we are comfortable. She would go crazy if we were not fed or did not get what we wanted. Even if she has no money, she would sell her own belongings or borrow money just to buy us what we want, unlike my sister.
Of course, I do not like seeing my sister being scolded or spoken badly about, so I want her to do something, anything. I often tell her to prepare food for our younger siblings, but she refuses, saying, “You should make your own food yourselves.” I reply that everyone in the house has responsibilities except her. I also ask her to do other things like cleaning the room and so on, but everything is met with refusal. Of course, I do these tasks myself. I cook for my younger siblings and do my responsibilities. I just want her to do anything at all, but she refuses.
So naturally, I thought she should be punished. I used the traditional way of discipline that I was raised with: hitting. I did not beat her like a boxer or anything extreme, just light hitting, pinching, or poking with my finger. Of course, I was afraid to hit sensitive areas like her face. She would fight back and attack me because I am stronger and older, so her hits did not affect me much. Instead, she scratched me with her nails or bit me. It would end with me hitting her harder, and she would respond the same way. Sometimes she scratched my face badly enough to make it bleed, or I could not move my hand because she crushed it with her teeth.
Of course, she got hurt too because I often lost control of myself. In the end, I always lost and could never make her do anything. The same scenario kept repeating until I grew older and realized that hitting and fighting solve nothing. So I started trying to talk to her rationally, and sometimes I even gave her money to do things. I do not remember exactly, but I think it worked temporarily. Then she started responding with things like, “I did not ask you for this,” “No, I do not want it,” or “I do not need you.” No matter what I did for her or gave her, she always said she did not care.
Eventually, I returned to trying to punish her, but since I got older, I stopped hitting her and started using other methods, like forbidding sweets. It would continue for weeks and she still would not give in. Of course, my aunt pressured me to stop and buy her sweets, and somehow I always failed.
Over time, my sister isolated herself from us more and more. She stopped eating with us. Before, whenever she ate with us, she caused problems. She also started constantly insulting people and respecting no one. Of course, I tried to show her that I loved her. I would kiss her on the cheeks or try to talk to her kindly, but none of it worked.
So I started taking away her phone and iPad as punishment. She would start crying, and eventually I would give them back. But this time, when I took her phone, she started screaming very loudly and hitting her head. It looked like she was having a nervous breakdown or something similar.
Something like this happened to me before when I was 12. My phone broke, and I had nothing to distract myself with. I could not stay around my younger siblings because their loud voices hurt my head, so I spent my entire day isolated in a room staring at the ceiling and lost in my thoughts. That eventually led to my own breakdown. I started screaming, crying, and hitting my head against the wall just like she did.
So I want to ask: am I just a failure who takes out his social pressure and anger on his younger sister, meaning I should stop interfering in her life? Or does my sister actually have a problem that needs to be solved?
TLDR: I only want her to do her responsibilities, but she refuses to do anything at all i just want her to take responsibility