I pose the following for the consideration of the brother of a young man who is suffering from an episode of depression. His father believes the condition is purely the bad luck of genetics, unrelated to any environmental factors (like competitive, judgmental parents who can never be wrong) and apparently beyond the reach of human intervention. This belief is preferred to understanding that a child judged by emotionally immature parents since birth, love conditioned on not making problems, will often grow up with certain morbid sensitivities.

Consider what your parents are teaching you and your suffering brother.

In every conflict, your parents are absolutely right, and blameless, no matter what actually took place.

The world is zero-sum, black and white, without nuance or the possibility of compromise.

Anyone who challenges our need to be right, defies our family. Defiance is a capital offense.

Defamation is permissible, if the stubbornly defiant party keeps insisting on “fairness” and “compromise.”

Being raised by immature assholes is a heavy burden on the soul. It will take years, with insight and luck, to begin to emerge from the endless layers of manure that have been heaped on you since before you had any inkling of what manure is. Immature parents have every opportunity, during the years you are a helpless infant, to do infinite harm to your brand new soul. As children, they may have had it even worse than what they are doing to you, but still.

Consider, my friend, if these lessons have anything to do with a good life or are only iron guidelines required by rigid people who can never be wrong.