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Is he gay, depressed, on drugs and/or paranoid? I need my brother back!
Thanks, both to Ben and the coddled brother for listening and for your responses.
Ben, as time has gone on, I have come to that conclusion, as well. It's sad that I don't speak with my brother very often but I agree that it's not worth it to be pushed around anymore. I'll be honest, I'm not sure what I thought I would get out of writing a novel about my relationship with my brother, but it has been therapeutic to me just to know that someone listened. For that, I thank you.
After a few recent events, it is also becoming more and more clear that he's hiding a drug/alcohol problem of some sort. Hence, the paranoia in answering phone calls from family, the money issues, etc.
I don't know why he uses anything but it is likely connected with some sort of anger that I don't and probably will never understand.
And, 'the coddled brother,' thanks for your insight, as well. I think some tough love is in order, and I think I will take your advice and seek a therapist to talk to. I don't exactly have the means, which is why I started my quest to get some help by writing here... but I learned the other day that I do have a couple of mental health sessions available to me through my company insurance and I'm going to try and take advantage of those.
Mar 04, 2010 Rating
From a coddled brother by: Anonymous
I just want to contribute from the other perspective, which is likely somewhat different, but may offer a kind of middle area.
I'm the youngest of 7. All of the older children had left the house by the time I was 11, the next oldest two having run away from all the arguing of the parents. In my youth and occasionally even today, I have terrible feelings of abandonment, that how could the older children have left me in my parents cycles abuse without ever looking back or giving me advice on how to deal with it. A couple of them turned out to be successful college graduates.
Really I'd never asked for any help until after I'd gotten married, after age 30, but it is just an interesting situation where I've been principal one to withstand much of my father's later dementia and took all the chores in the office the others in the family business did not want, that because of a later psychological crisis and help I've needed, there is this abusive retaliatory stuff I'm hit with; Including jealousy and resentment.
Often times in our Christian upbringing and our need for security and family culture, we really don't want to look at greater traditions of abuse within families, and it is easier to place all the emphasis on the one who has gone completely berserk. if most children succeed in a family partly out of extreme fear of an extremely wrathful or subtly abusive parent... anyway, I don't know your situation, but abusive people and contexts tend to put blame on others automatically, and your brother could also be a willful scapegoat of denial.
I totally agree with Ben, having had a recent encounter with a borderline personality abusive friend which was a no win situation, you may have to keep a distance.
However, setting an example, if you have the means, of you yourself going to a therapist to talk about this stuff might be a good path. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you, but you could have some authority with your brother expressing that you are human too, and needed an outside of family objective person to talk with. This doesn't mean you need like months of therapy, just go in with the goal of helping another in your mind, and be careful in choosing a therapist too...be skeptical, don't give them the bridle and bit immediately.
You can also talk with your pastor on this.
My own oldest sister, really laid into me and excommunicated me and condemned me recently, essentially saying I could have done what she did and been successful; However life has other successes. Fortunately with therapy I can be honest and take her valid points, but also see compassionately that there is still sickness in family and abuse and blame. Again, maybe it is very simple in supporting your brother, that you present (at safe distance) total support for him not out of an ideal of traditional perfection, but your own struggle and humanity.
