My brother suffers from mental health issues. Sometimes he is the kindest, funniest most sociable person. Other times, he’s a jackass – mean, cruel, antagonistic and hateful. I never know what I’m going to get with him…. so, I’ve given up reaching out.
Our dad is always trying to get me to talk to him, to invite my brother to family events, to include him in celebrations but I just don’t want to anymore. I’m tired of putting myself in the firing line.
How can I get my dad to see that just because he’s my brother doesn’t mean I have to suffer his abuse. I love him for the childhood we once shared. But as an adult, I’m not interested. Why does that make me the bad guy?
Can’t take it
As we are aware, mental health affects more people every year. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than one billion people suffer from mental health disorders. In the UK and the US, one of every five adults suffers. That’s a huge number and neither country has the resources to take care of everyone who falls into that percentage.
I’m sorry for your brother that he is suffering. It can’t be easy for him to live a life fraught with such dichotomy. And I’m sorry for your father because no parent likes to see their child suffer. Especially when they’re helpless to make effective change. And I’m sorry for you that you have felt verbal and emotional abuse from your sibling.
You can walk away. You don’t have to feel guilty. You need to protect yourself. Your brother needs help. Be a good person and look after your dad.
Reader’s Commentary Regarding the abusive mother (Oct. 2):
“I cannot help but look back at my own childhood. I think there are plenty of families where the mother was far from ideal. How do the children deal with the consequences of this childhood, and how do they stop influencing the next generation?
“I had to seriously decide: If I cut off my mother from my life, my children will not have a grandmother. Also, what am I teaching them and what is it that I want for them?
“So, I decided to love. It sounds trivial, I know. But instead of concentrating on what was and what is, I decided to not be like her. I took care of her in her later years (she didn’t need much, she was in good health), and I asked my kids for help. It wasn’t easy.
“But why was she what she was? Maybe her upbringing, maybe something happened to her, maybe she just needed somebody to understand her. We visited, arranged whatever she needed, talked to her. Often it was unpleasant. So, we shortened our visit. But we would still visit. And it gave me a chance to teach my kids how to deal with people like her.
“I understood their concerns, but I tried to help them find a way to deal with their grandma. After years, it became easier, and healing for us. We would see her for what she was as a person, not as a mother. We started to understand that there were underlying reasons for her behaviour, even though, yes, we still did not deserve to have a childhood like we did. And after she died, there was just peace for me.
“Yes, there were years of abuse, but it somehow dissipates much faster, changes into longing to show my mother love much earlier in our life together, which I also realize just couldn’t happen. I was only a child; but as an adult I did my best.”
FEEDBACK Regarding cold-caffeinated (Oct. 7):
Reader – “Your suppositions about the parents in this incident melt in the face of the coffee-throwing. They behaved badly and then they behaved worse, modelling behaviour that would earn a two-year-old a severe reprimand. No, you can’t right every wrong you see being committed — if only for your own safety.
“The writer is lucky it wasn’t boiling hot coffee. On the other hand, maybe the parents should be relieved she didn’t karate chop them in the throat or pepper spray them. Whatever the case, it is just one more sad comment on current social trends that we can no longer verbally confront bad behaviour but must instead avert our eyes and pretend that all is well. And sad that adults, in the presence of their child, can’t control themselves, can’t ‘use their words.’ Maybe what’s needed is less caffeine all around.”