My brother is in distress and I am not sure what to do. Any help/guidance that can be provided is much appreciated.

He is 38. Never married. No kids. Never even really had a girlfriend. Never had much of a social life or friends. He is not that attractive and he never did well in school. He was definitely a mama’s boy through and through. And herein lies the problem. Our mother passed away two years ago. So he is now totally alone, still living in the house that we grew up in (our dad had a stroke a few years back and is in a nursing home).

At first things weren’t so bad as I think he had work to keep him busy. He also went to the gym a lot. He was a super recluse and it became impossible for anyone to reach him (phone, email, he would even ignore knocking on the door, etc). I live two hours away and unfortunately can’t check up on him as much as I’d like. But whenever I did see him he seemed in good spirits and his usual self. He worked for Sears. So now that they have gone belly up, he is unemployed.

Normally we always spend Xmas at our aunts (who is just around the corner from his place), but he didn’t show up. When I asked he just said he didn’t want to celebrate Xmas this year. I saw him yesterday and he seemed in a more disheveled state, and when I asked him about his plans and stuff he was just talking paranoid crazy. Like “Life is fake. Life is the matrix. We are all just being controlled. There is no point in trying. I have no good skills. I don’t care... etc”

Also while the house was in its usual shape. He had actually trashed my mom’s old bedroom.

I recognize that my brother is now on the edge and is likely close to either hurting himself or someone else. But I am not sure how to fix this. He is an extremely stubborn person and will never admit he has a problem (especially with his current doomsday outlook on life). He hates responsibility, and loves to just hide himself from the truth, shutting himself from the outside world by just staying in his bedroom and losing himself in multiple computer games.

He lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I live in Ottawa, Ontario and am not sure what resources are available there. I feel like he needs something where they force him to do the right things and take the necessary steps in order to take care of himself. Where they check up on him everyday to make sure he is doing it. I don’t think something like that really exists unless you just committed a crime and you are under some sort of provincial mandate, or jail which of course I don’t want this to end up as. Any ideas?