<p>Hi, everyone. I am going into my second year of college. I will just cut right down to the chase. Last year, I always worried about how my family was doing at home without me and what was going on. Mostly because my deadbeat brother won't move out and drinks a lot and what not. It frightens me that he might do something drastic like he has in the past and I won't be there. Of course I've talked to my parents, but that doesn't help. I am just squeezing out every bit of information I can.</p>
<p>Basically, my question is how do I stop worrying about this sort of thing at home? How can I work toward focusing on my own school life and not my family at home? How can I just not let what might happen at home interfere with my college life? It did a lot last year and I don't want to have another year like last year. Any sort of help would be appreciated even though it might be a weird situation to understand. </p>
<p>I completly understand how you feel. My brother has some issues as well and I worry that he may hurt my parents sometimes. I convinced myself that it is just my anxiety that’s causing me to feel this way. You have to trust that your parents have everything under control and since they raised him they know him best. I keep a journal/diary that I can vent/write on my anxieties in and that helps a lot. I bought a 20 dollar safe from Amazon so no one will be able to open it up and read it. I also text my parents at least once a day or every other day. It’s typically short convos. I just message them saying hey what’s up and they reply and that’s it. Also as Aposkaha said if you keep your mind busy and get involved and hang out with your friends then you’ll be less likely to think worry about it. The thought my pass your head but you have to remind yourself that it’s just anxiety. Don’t let your brother control and ruin your life.</p>
<p>I understand how you feel, though my situation is different.</p>
<p>In my case, my younger sister is autistic and tends to get into trouble without knowing any better. Believe me, I was really worried about her when I left, for a couple reasons: One, she looks up to me a lot and was really clingy; two, due to my parents’ work schedules I was the main one that kept an eye on her for all these years. My parents got it under control though, and just skyping her for a few minutes a couple times a week for the first few weeks was enough to calm her down and realize that I hadn’t completely disappeared. After that, she was fine…though she’s still really excited whenever I come home.</p>
<p>Of course I was still worried about her initially, but there haven’t been any issues as far as worrying past the first couple weeks of my first quarter. That’s partly because my mom fills me in on what’s happened every few days and partly because I just keep myself busy.</p>
<p>So long story short, what everyone else has said: Keep yourself busy and trust your parents. Even better if you can talk to one or both of them periodically to find out what’s going on at home.</p>
<p>I kind of understand where you are coming but my situation wasn’t as serious I guess. I think what I did was to separate myself mentally from being concerned about that. It basically means that you have to realize that you are hundreds of miles of away and you have no control over what transpires. Similarly, you are not responsible for anything that happens and even more so, you probably won’t hear about much that happens…the normal day to day that you probably despise about your brother will not be there anymore and you will only learn about the more serious things and when you learn about them, they will be over.</p>
<p>So in addition to realizing that you have no control and more importantly no responsibility, you should just stay very social and very busy academically. If you try to make friends and hang out with them while at the same time working hard in school, you will be quite busy and as a result you won’t really think too much about what is going on at home. GL!</p>
<p>Stop caring about that life and move forward with your own. Your family doesn’t own you anymore in college, time to become self-reliant and better yourself.</p>