This show is like Keith Malley tied McNally to a fire ant mound, watched him get bit by a thousand fire ants, and then cradled his head and crooned him to sleep afterwards. But McNally called the fire ant mound an evil imperialist pigdog beforehand, so he deserved it.
Pat psychological diagnosis from an untrained ear follows.
McNally's problems deal with his mother's simultaneous rejection and support. She rejects him on a daily basis by not enabling him to have much to do with the care of his brother in the old family home - admittedly he probably can't do anything anyway, but to him it would feel like rejection in an emotional sense, even if he understands the logic of it. She continues to support him by propping up of his lifestyle outside the home with cash.
McNally strongly identifies with his mother, leading to unjustifiably personal guilt trips about how hard his mother had it in olden times - and how hard she has it now in dealing with his brother. McNally feels guilt on both fronts: guilt for not helping out with his brother and guilt for receiving monthly cash handouts. And the latter feeds into the former in a vicious cycle, because his mother pays him to continue his lifestyle outside the family home, thus leaving her open to her brother's behaviour.
His mother may not realise this is a problem, or may have pointed out the solution and is waiting for him to come to the realisation himself, because this is a step he has to take himself like an adult would, and leading him down it would defeat the point.
The pathway is for McNally to realise that:
(a) his mother loves him unconditionally, unrelated to anything that has happened with or to his brother;
(b) his mother wants him to live his own life and be happy creating his own destiny, unrelated to anything that has happened with or to his brother;
(c) crying and worrying over her is precisely what his mother would not want him to do, and in fact destroys the whole reason for her funding his lifestyle outside the family home.
Now, (c) would probably also be eating at McNally, because he's not dumb, he realises all this shit anyway, but the fact that he is still stuck at (c) with the crying and worrying leads to another vicious cycle of crying and worrying about his own crying and worrying, one that he hasn't broken out of yet, so he continues to feel sorry for her and by extension himself. He becomes the World's Most Pitiful Victim, and thus deserving of one thousand dollars per month.
I have been in such vicious cycles before. Most people have, to a lesser or greater extent. Pissing matches about whose cycle is more vicious is only a symptom of the cycle itself, not part of the solution.
The final part of the solution is:
(d) find something that he really wants to do in life that will make his mother and everyone else around him proud and happy for him. And fuck that shit right in the pussy.
In other words, take that cycle shit and make it virtuous. If your personality is prone to repeated behaviour patterns and OCD, as it is for so many of us, turn it to your advantage. Virtuous cycles are what happens when you do this shit right.
How do you do that? That can only come from within you, ultimately. Support from friends and fellow travellers (e.g. Al-Anon) is great, don't get me wrong, and in the place McNally is at right now, that will be crucial. When it comes down to it, after you've had the worst habits knocked out of you by your support groups, it comes from within you. That's the last part of growing up.
I am on the other side of that one, myself. I was in some dark places and hurt some good people, family and friends. I was brought up Catholic, I had penance to do. McNally has done more than enough of that. When you've figured out what it is that is going to fuel your virtuous cycles, then you can fuck some shit UP. You are unstoppable. It's the strongest tool you can wield in your life. You become whatever it is you were going to be, and you wonder how you lived before.
I hope you get there, McNally. Cos right now, you're a bit of a dickhead.
