I'm 19, my older sister is 22 and my younger brother is 17. Our parents tried to raise us the same and in general they managed but not in all ways. I got away with more than my sister and my brother got more slack than me but I feel like that's probably normal. When we were younger I had 'middle child syndrome' where I felt like my sister got more attention because they were worried she'd feel replaced and my brother got more because he was the baby. I say "felt" but looking back, that was the case, even though my parents tried not to. My brother and sister were always quite close and I didn't really get along with them until my late teens when I became closer to my sister. I can just about take my brother but I've never liked his personality which is difficult. I love him because he's my brother but it's rare that I choose to spend time with him.

I've been away at university at a year and now I'm back I can't stand him. He's disrespectful to my parents to the point my dad has given up and rarely talks to him. He's cruel to my mother who's seriously ill, had a pituitary tumour removed last December and is still suffering from the side effects of the steroids along with a past broken leg that never fully healed. When I was at home I did most of the housework because my dad works overtime, my mum works from home and her health isn't great and my brother did a little but my parents didn't push him because he was younger (even though I'd had consistent chores as long as I can remember, as did my sister). Now my brother literally does nothing but play on his computer up in the attic. My mum does most of the housework because I'm back from uni with a chronic illness and staying home for a year to recover and my dad still works ridiculous hours. My brother refuses to do anything and any time I try to talk to him about it it's like hitting my head against the wall - he doesn't care and doesn't think he should have to do any work around the house even though he's on summer break and refuses to get a job so he has nothing except video games to do. It's so infuriating I have to stop myself from just slapping him sometimes when he says something disrespectful about our parents. A few months before uni he lost his temper with me and sent me to hospital after punching me in the eye and making me temporarily blind. He's also hit my mum once or twice and it almost made me resort to violence against him when I found out but she's refusing to tell my dad because she's scared how he'll react. I want to but I don't know enough about it. If he doesn't change I never, ever want the kid in a relationship and I'd honestly go out of my way to stop it.

It's not just that though, I'm scared he's a damn "meninist". Seriously. He was trying to argue with me the other day that men have it harder in all ways and women get by easy with everything. My sister is a biologist, I am a physicist and we're both pretty open feminists so I'm horrified. My mum was also around and active in protests during third wave feminism and we were raised with education about gender equality and the current situation in our society so I don't know how he slipped through. He's also very dismissive of my illness, it's registered as a disability and it's bad enough that people can't work with it and get paid disability leave even at a time when the government is making cuts to the disability allowances. I called it a disability the other day and he literally laughed at me and told me I was being dramatic and I was visibly okay so clearly I wasn't ill. I can let it slide for me but I don't want him talking to anyone else like that.

I remember when I was at school and he was in year 8 I saw him verbally bullying some kid. I went straight to his head of year and told her and she literally laughed in my face that I wanted to tell her about my brother bullying. She never did anything about it and I forgot about it but I'm really scared that my brother is a bad person. I hate him and can't stand being around him and it's literally making my illness worse because I'm not supposed to have any stress whatsoever. My parents have given up and my sister is the other side of the world. All he does every day is sleep into the afternoon then play video games non stop until the early hours of the morning so he doesn't have to see anyone. My parents tried turning off the Internet or taking the computer and he got even worse so they backed off. I tried waking him at a normal time the other day and the almost physically attacked me.

He has seen counsellors at school because he had no friends but all it did was get him a few friends who slack at school, dragged down his grades and made him disrespect my parents. Everyone outside the family thinks he's lovely but I hate him like this.

Is this a normal phase? I'm pretty desperate.