A 17-year-old son feels invisible and frustrated after years of being referred to as “our other son” due to his brother’s disabilities.

When he vents by posting a tally of how many times he’s been called this, his parents are upset, calling him selfish and demanding sensitivity coaching.

Read on for the story.

AITA for leaving an angry message on the front door?

I (17 M) and my older brother “Johnny” (21 M) live with my parents.

Johnny has some disabilities.

For his privacy I don’t want to share exactly what they are, but it’s hard for him and it’s made things hard for my family for as long as I can remember.

The disabilities cause him to be extremely angry, have poor impulse control, and in recent years he’s been unable to manage his diet.

I don’t mean this to be offensive but he’s over 300 lbs.

Without me saying, you can imagine the combination of heavy weight and major anger issues and how this is occasionally a problem for me.

We’ve had countless specialists, therapists, social workers, doctors, etc. in our lives over the years but in the last two years particularly, things have gotten so bad that pretty much everything revolves around Johnny and managing him.

Sounds really stressful.

My parents help him with everything and they get me to do the same.

Clean his room, do his laundry, clean up his messes, drive him to appointments, replace things he breaks, make him food, make him more food when he doesn’t like what you made, etc.

About two years ago I noticed that in conversations about Johnny, they started referring to me as “our other son.”

I tried not to let it bother me, but when it kept happening, I got upset and started keeping a tally out of spite.

In two years I’ve heard then call me “our other son” to friends, distant relatives, social workers, each other even.

I’ve tallied 72 times. I know it’s not healthy and I should have stopped.

…But who’s counting?

This week has been particularly bad for Johnny and his therapist spent two afternoons at our house.

I was being barked around to accommodate Johnny all week while also trying to schedule college tours, going to work after school, preparing to buy a car, etc.

At one point, within my earshot, his therapist asked if the house was tense.

My mom said, “Our other son is stressed about his own issues.”

I’ll admit, I loudly said “I have an expletive name” and went to my room.

My parents berated me all night.

So I taped the page with the tallies on the front door.

The paper says “All the times I’ve been called our other son instead of the name you gave me” and then it has the tallies underneath Johnny’s therapist saw it and pointed it out during her second visit.

Oof.

I’ve been told I’m a selfish AH ever since and that I need sensitivity coaching because I’m not supportive enough.

But AITA?

What began as a small act of frustration over being overlooked quickly escalated into a family feud.

And Reddit doesn’t think he’s being at ALL unreasonable.

This person says he’s not being insensitive in the slightest.

This person refers to his family as “monsters.”

And this person says college can’t come quick enough.

Sometimes, when you’re treated as “the other” for too long, you just have to put it on display—literally.

It’s definitely time to move out.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.