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Everything you're saying is real and important! I just want to validate that for you. So first thing, give yourself a break. It's stressful to have a close relative with mental health challenges. So acknowledge it's ok to make mistakes. Go easy on yourself the next couple months. You will have a lot of trial and error with him. Automatically forgive yourself when you make a mistake and just try to think of a simpler more effective way to do the same thing next time if you're trying to get him to do something or you're just trying to prevent him from causing a scene.

Use therapy to your advantage! Don't hold back. Tell the therapist everything you told us and more. All your concerns about your brother and your relationship with your parents. Really, use this as a chance to think through the whole thing. And yes, it's ok to admit to your parents you're depressed. And tell them why, your brother causes you a lot of anxiety because it's never-ending. Do you have your own room? That would help if you're currently sharing. Might not be possible but if you let your parents know you never get any quiet time and other problems, they might be able to come up with solutions. Be very specific on what is bothering you. "I hate him" doesn't help. "I can't study when he's talking non-stop and walking around my room" is better. And with the therapist, you do not have to take meds even if they suggest it (they probably won't but just in case it comes up). You are just there for "talk therapy".

Get a notebook to use as a journal. Something easily portable like any one of those 5" x 8" college ruled notebooks can be super cheap, or better yet an A5 Moleskin fits in a backpack more easily, or even better a Bullet Journal (like bullet points for rapid journaling). Or whatever you have lying around the house. Start jotting down a few notes each day. Just write November at the top of the page and then on the left side, today's date and then just write a few notes about what went well, what went bad and what you'd like to fix. Do the same thing again tomorrow. You can keep it with a pen on your desk or nightstand so it's always ready to go.

You can take your journal to your therapy sessions as well and write the therapist's suggestions. It's a great way to get in the habit of reflection on your relationship not just with your brother but family and friends, keeping your schedule organized, etc. The bullet journal has a guide in the back with tips on how to use it and there are tons of videos online and people blog about how to use it as well. It's basically a bare-bones way to keep a diary. It's a great thing to ask for for Christmas and I think they still carry them at Barnes & Noble stores next to all the other journals (usually along the wall next to the registers).

If he is home all the time, make sure you have time to yourself to collect your thoughts and take care of yourself. That could mean going to the gym to exercise, going to a nearby library to do your homework, going to a coffee shop so you can get some reading done.

The hard part is, he's always going to be your brother and he's not going to change. So you are basically obligated to accept him the way he is. That takes work and patience. Don't let your friends increase your anxiety about your brother. Having your brother in your life shouldn't decrease your social status. Make sure you have friends who appreciate real life and can help you handle it, not just push him away.

If you are spiritual at all it's pretty easy to see that everything about your relationship with your brother is a spiritual exercise. Kindness, forgiveness, acceptance, compassion, joy. Joy? Yes, joy. Can you play games with him? Can you read a book to him or have him read a book out loud? Anything that cultivates a positive connection between you two. This helps there be positive times to balance out the negative times. And it takes effort.

I'm a movie person so I would suggest watching movies like movie Rain Man, Charly, Mask or even Elephant Man to get a sense of how a loved one's problems have shaped other people's lives.

You want to stop calling him names. If he thinks you don't respect him that will make his response to you worse. So that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. For the next week focus on not calling him names, cursing or saying anything condescending or in a negative tone. That might mean you talk "at him" a lot less and instead find that you are talking "to him" such as giving him instruction on the things he needs to do on a daily basis. Your language becomes more practical and routine. And should also become less angry and agitated. This takes a lot of patience but it can change the attitude between you two.

In public, it doesn't matter if your brother starts it. This is where a sense of responsibility comes in. You're older and you're normal. So you want to take on the role of protection. Protect your brother in public. Don't let him get into trouble. Protect him from bullying. People with mental illness are much more vulnerable to being harmed by strangers than regular people are and that can include your friends. So you just want to keep an eye out and steer him in the right direction at all times. Be vigilant on his behalf. It's not easy but you are his Superman. Leverage your parents for help. Set up an appointment with your school counselor too to see what advice they can offer.
That's what the adults are there for... Don't worry about making things perfect. Just a little better each day. Hang in there! [edit: fixed the links and spelling]

You sound like you've finally had enough of your anger, are willing to take responsibility for how you express it, and have plenty of motivation to find strategies for managing it better. That's a great place to start. A good next step might be to enroll in an inexpensive online anger management course (you don't have to pay for the certificate), and you might pair that curriculum with an anger management app like AIMS, which is free and has a lot of tools that seem promising.

I personally struggled with anger for years and eventually found therapeutic success with anger journaling and meditation. Both helped me become more aware of my anger and the journaling gave me a fuller understanding of my triggers and enough awareness to more effectively defuse my anger when triggered. But you'll have to find the strategies that seem right for you -- there's no one-size-fits-all approach IME.

You might also consider working with your gf on something like this. Your upbringing sounds like an emotional cesspool, so you have a lot of toxicity to work through. Your gf's trying to help, but she's not your therapist and its sounds like you'd maybe like to be a more active participant in those conversations rather than hearing lectures about how terribly your family behaved. A communication workbook might help establish some positive boundaries for how you can explore and discuss some of that family material together.

Whatever approach you choose, it's all about trying to be consistent with your efforts and patient through the inevitable ups and downs. I wish you all the best with your process!

What you've described is word for word my life experience. You speaking about justice being the core of your anger resonates deeply with me. I have a friend who's mother recently said "evil is an excess of good", and since then I've been speaking about my anger as "excess righteousness". Me being so agitated when things aren't correct largely has to do with how deep my desire for correctness is.

I recently started listening to an audiobook called "The Anger Trap", and while I'm still towards the beginning of it, it's been great at acknowledging that our anger is often justified, but teaches us that we have other options for how to respond, and that our current responses actually undermine our ability to be heard.

I've also just started a book called "The Cow In The Parking Lot, a Zen Approach to Overcoming Anger", which takes a very different approach that is also helpful. This book focuses on not being so concerned about what is right. When we are so deeply concerned about what is right, what we are really doing is judging the world around us and making everything and everyone in it wrong. What if they aren't wrong? What if the problem is in our discriminating perception?

I think that approaching anger deserves these multiple approaches because it's a multifaceted issue. Hopefully by the end of the books I'll have made some progress, and maybe you can find them useful too. either way, I'm glad you're wanting to take action and not wait until the shit hits the fan harder and harder over time. People get divorces and lose jobs over this kind of thing, but we can heal it.

You should check out this book it’s great.