Posted by HyperFocus on June 20, 2009, at 1:06:36
It has really torn me up for a long time that I am not able to have a close relationship with my only brother. He was born when things weren't that bad for me and I wasn't very seriously ill as yet. As a baby I actually loved him a lot but he was developing a very different personality from me and I wasn't mature enough to be able to accept him for who he was. Also my social anxiety was getting very bad - and I guess it would seem to him that I was being deliberately cold and neglectful a lot fo the time. A lot of times he would like ask me to play with him out front, you know, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't ride bikes or take him swimming or do anything that boys might do. All the stuff that I would have liked an older brother to do for me I couldn't do for him.
Our biological mother was very unstable and abusive - she loved us but she couldn't help the person she was. As they years went by and things got worse for me I found him and our mother to be very stressful and I guess I overreacted a lot of the time - to the point of being abusive. Between the two of us I guess we made him pretty miserable. I went away to university at the time he went into middle school. So I wasn't even there much for him during this stressful time. I know he wasn't really bullied a lot but I don't really know how he felt about school. He kept getting worse and worse academically. My family stress traditional academic achievementand I know for a fact that they were nagging and negative and condescending when he didn't initially measure up. But he is very brilliant, just in a different way. He has a head for machines and electronics and computers that is amazing - he was taking apart and building stuff at a rate that was unbelievable. Just recently when I moved back home I saw how he had jury-rigged his broken computer so he could post on Facebook and MSN. But I know he's become very discouraged because he never received much encouragement from us. He used to like playing sports and is very athletic (completely opposite from me) but he doesn't do much now except workout.
I realize now that I was a real jerk to him for a long time. One time I lent him my Playsation for a while. But he was a typical careless kid and managed to scratch a lot of the discs (it's only now that I think that this is exactly something I might have done at that age.) So I really raged at him. Talk about kicking somebody when they're down. He's become very disenchanted with academic work - nobody around to encourage him and all his life he's been hearing how he's not as smart as his older brother. He works at a club now for menial pay.Sigh. I sat tonight and wrote this and there was so much unbelievable heaviness in my heart that I went upstairs and I knocked on his door and I tried to say some of the things I wrote here. I also said that he didn't owe me forgiveness for what he had been through, but I was asking him if we could start over. I feel like so many things have been missing from my dysfunctional family - and this is of course a major problem. With a strong family base people are very resilient. But for many different reasons this wasn't our fate. He is very unhappy with our family - and he spends most of his time with his friends.
I just ordered a netbook for him to replace his crappy computer. Clumsy effort at trying to start to make amends. But I feel like I'm getting stronger these past few days. Things that seem impossible to do before seem doable. I like to say that I never hurt people intentionally but that's nor true. I have hurt my brother a great deal. Yeah ok, I am mentally ill, but I have to start taking responsibility for my actions. I feel a huge deal of guilt and remorse and I think it's a good and just thing - a lot of this stuff has been locked inside me for a long time. It's not too late for us though.
poster:HyperFocus
thread:902194
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090614/msgs/902194.html