How Do I Reconcile This?

[Naza Sutera]

Okay, so I had a situation where I had to put my brother out of the house yesterday. If you want the whole story, I can explain it to you and give you the context of what I am talking about. But right now, I want to get something out there that has been on my mind since the situation happened. It is basically advice I am giving to myself, and I am posting it here just in case anyone is going through something similar in their life, be it with a friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, sibling, parent, etc. I’ll give bits and pieces of the story as I go, but again, if you want, I can explain the whole thing. And keep in mind, this is my own opinion about a situation I’m dealing with, so I would like whomever to take from it whatever they can and apply it the best they can to their own situation. So, without further ado, I’m going to hop into the topic of discussion.

 

The question I had been asking myself is this: how do I rectify it in my mind that I love someone that I no longer care about? I had a little talk over Skype with Rob about a nasty situation with my brother. And I came to realize how selfish he really is, and how any relationship with him will be unhealthy for both of us. It is to the point where I am asking metaphysical questions, like the definition of love, and how love make sense without caring for the person in question. To me, love is a murky subject, but it is a strong word, and, like the word “hate”, I deign to use it if I don’t really mean it. So that is why I don’t know if I could fix my lips to say that I love someone when I couldn’t care less if I ever meet them again.

 

But I digress.

 

What I’ve learned or what I have been thinking about since this situation out is a couple things. First of all, I needed to have that happen, and I needed to learn that lesson. I needed to know what kind of person he is, so that I could start the process of ceasing the anguish I put myself through over him.

 

Second, before I love anyone else, I need to learn how to love myself first and foremost. Because I think that is one of the most powerful weapons a person can possess, is loving and appreciating his or herself. Not loving myself through the acceptance or approval of others, but knowing what I am worth and what I am capable of.

 

Those are the two main things that come to my mind. I’m sure that if I sat and thought about it long enough, I’d think of some more things, but those are the two for right now.

 

On the subject of loving myself: in light of this situation, if I sat down and evaluated who I am, what I have to offer (to others as well as myself) and where I want to take myself in life, I feel that I can walk out of this situation a better person. And when I come across someone that I can offer something to, I will be in a better position to give of myself without taking away from myself. Does that make sense? So I have to take the time to evaluate, and reflect on who I am as an individual, and acknowledge the things that make me awesome, and as well take not of the things that aren’t so great. Because, I know that I am not perfect. And that’s another thing. I’m not one of those people who are afraid to admit that I have flaws or that I can and will make mistakes. But I think that I could continue trying to be a better person if I do that.

 

Once I am aware of the things that make me great, the things that aren’t so great… As well as the things that bring me pain and suffering—also known as baggage. Because we all possess some form of baggage. I don’t care if you are ten years old or one hundred years old. If you are alive, you have lived life to some degree, and I don’t completely subscribe to the conversation of “Oh, she’s fifteen, she doesn’t know what life’s about”—no that is not always the case. We all walk a different path. There are kids who are half my age, maybe younger, who have experienced pain and suffering that I couldn’t imagine. I just depends on who you’re asking.

 

But getting back on topic, let me be very clear about something. When I say that I need to purge myself of my baggage, my pain and suffering, I need to love myself, and evaluate myself, and figure out where I want to go, etc., when I say “purge yourself of your baggage”, that does not mean I cannot go through turmoil.

 

Allow me to explain that further.

 

…I could be going through a shit storm in my life, and still operate from a place of (self-)love. Because, you cannot give love to yourself or others through hate, or anger, or jealousy. It’s just not going to happen.

 

So, when I come into a situation where I can love someone, be it a family member, friend, or significant other… First of all, I have to love myself before anything. And if that person knows how to love his or herself, then the situation is on equal footing, because (self-)love without (self-)respect is unhealthy.

 

But bringing it back to how to love someone you don’t care about, it is a very rocky subject, but I don’t know if I have the full answer I need for myself. Or even the right answer. But I will say again that I needed this to happen because I need to stop loving everyone else instead of myself.

 

I do not ever need to commit myself emotionally to someone or something, if I haven’t committed myself to myself first, and make a commitment to understand, and acknowledge, and heal…

 

That’s another thing: Healing properly.

 

I’ll say this, and then I will wrap it up. Now when people talking about healing properly, I think there is a misunderstanding. When some people talk about healing, they will have a wound, like something that happened in their childhood or even something recent… They will put a bandage on that wound for a while. And when they remove it, they will see that the skin has fused together and believe that the wound has healed. But that would be incorrect. To properly heal, I have to get into the wound and gut out the venom, gut out the poison, get to the root of it and pull it out, and only then can I start the healing process. Properly. Does that make sense?

 

Let me say one more thing in closing. And, Rob: when and if you read this, I want to thank you again to listening to me and giving me usable advice. I do whole-heartedly agree with everything you said, but I might have to apologize to you and anyone else who might see that I am about to contradict myself with what I am about to say when I address my initial question (since I noticed that I went off in a couple tangents)…

 

…Let’s say I take my own advice. I relieve myself by way of stopping from making someone else live my dream of them, I learn to love and appreciate myself before anyone, I purge myself of my baggage, I commit myself to myself, and heal… And then it still doesn’t rectify the dilemma in my mind. In order to love myself and appreciate the lessons and advice I am giving to myself, I will say to myself and this person if necessary that I do not love them, if that is what it takes to put myself at rest, if that is what it takes to keep myself healthy, if that is what it takes to love myself. Because if loving and respecting someone else is more important than loving and respecting myself, and it is bringing me pain and suffering—that baggage, then I cannot love that person. Especially not at the expense of myself.

 

So anyway, yeah. I’m done for right now. I want to thank you for reading this and taking some time to hear my thoughts. And after reading this myself, I know the set-up is a little weird. Like, I supposedly want you guys to take something useful from this, but yet I am talking about myself and whatnot. If that confused you as you read it, I’d like to apologize for that.

 

Ugh, I apologize too much.

 

Cheers!

 

[Zaphyr Stone]

Brah, we are two sides of the same flipping coin right now. It's nice to see someone echoing my sentiments on these matters. 

[Animal Pilot]

I will just say this: kicking your brother out of shelter without even giving him a few weeks notice is cold as hell and possibly illegal depending on the state, no matter how annoyed you may be at him and it is going to look that way until you share the details of the story to give your actions context. 

[Naza Sutera]

29 minutes ago, Animal Pilot said:

I will just say this: kicking your brother out of shelter without even giving him a few weeks notice is cold as hell and possibly illegal depending on the state, no matter how annoyed you may be at him and it is going to look that way until you share the details of the story to give your actions context. 

I appreciate your honesty. Because i do feel for the most part, I'm in the right, and it feels nice that others I have spoken to understand the frustration and turmoil that I have been toiling through with this whole situation. But if I am wrong in any way, and the person telling me that is simply stating facts, then I cannot be upset with that.

Should I get to work with putting out the whole story?

[DZComposer]

I think what he meant by that is that you can't just kick someone out of their legal established residence with no warning. Now, he may take the hint and leave, but if he wants to stay and gets the authorities involved, they will side with him unless he is a danger to someone in the house (restraining order). To kick him out at that point, you'd need to go through the legal eviction process.

[Animal Pilot]

DZ has it right. I think it would mostly depend on whether he was just crashing with you or if he was a rent paying tenant/a resident in your family home. If it was either of the latter, you probably had no legal right to do that unless he willingly left.

But beyond that, you morally need a very good reason to just throw someone out on the street, especially family, with no warning. How you feel about that person is a completely secondary thing, you don't have to like the person you live with as long as they try to respect your space. If they do something criminal, you call the cops to handle it.

 

 

[Naza Sutera]

I understood full and well what you both are saying about the legal level of the situation. In fact, the police officers made sure that I and my brother both understood that, so I am not going to argue with nor dispute that in any way.

As for the moral level of putting a family member out, etcetera... It involves a long series of tumultuous and sad stories--as do many things like this involving family--that I need to get around to explaining, especially considering that if I want to be open for advice on how to deal with emotionally and right-mindedly.

--In which case, let me quit being scared/lazy/whatever about explaining and at least try to start... 

The reason I was willing to toss him out onto the street is because he is a grown man who, for whatever reason, refuses to consistently pay any bills. For whatever sad reason, it is perfectly fine for him to live in the household and not lift a finger when there is an expense to maintain his lifestyle. If he is hungry, he goes into the fridge and eats/cooks anything including our personal foods, such as as food my grandmother consumes for her health problems, or a pint of ice cream I bought for my personal enjoyment, and when it's time to stock the fridge, he doesn't bat a lash. It is of no concern to him when the cable or electricity bill is due, thought he likes to stay up all night watching Adult Swim. The water bill is about seventy-five dollars, and he showers and washes his laundry like everyone else; the bill itself doesn't break our bank and we don't really fret about it... But is it that too much for him to deal with once a month? In light of all of this, he has something going on that's too important for him to be faced with the discomfort and sacrifice.

There have been countless situations where we have, at the very least, expressed our frustration of how this is unfair to everyone in the household, and the conversation either ended with an inert apology or some heated argument where anyone who speaks in contest to him is wrong and he is being treated unfairly. It has gotten to the point to where when he is there, we have to tip-toe around him as if walking on eggshells, because heaven forbid that we say anything to him that may upset him or obstruct his operation

I had woken up one night to my grandmother screaming and yelling. I come out of my room at three in the morning, wondering what all of the yelling is about and it had turned out that my brother had gone into her room to mess with her personal stash of liquor. He had waited until she had woken up for a bathroom break, and as she was reliving herself, he had slipped into her room and stolen a bottle of Grey Goose. She would not have known anything about it, had he not tried to sneak back into her room after she'd lain back down and replace the bottle. She did not take it very well. Now, at that point, my brother was of legal age, so its fine if he consumes alcohol. My grandmother doesn't mind sharing, and it's not like the bottle of vodka was special to her. The fact is that he couldn't be mature or respectful enough to come to her face and tell her what his intentions were and simply ask for some of the vodka. Even if, instead of sneaking into her room and stealing, he had woken her up at three in the morning just to ask her for some of her Grey Goose... she might have given a what-the-actual-fuck-at-three-in-the-morning-about-some-damn-liquor scenario. But still, I'm sure she'd have given him the liquor and gone back to sleep. His excuse was that he didn't want to wake her up at three in the morning. Okay, that's fine... But, why the hell didn't he wait until three in the goddamn afternoon during a time when she was wide awake and ask her then, rather than sneaking into her room at O-dark-thirty like some punk and taking it without asking?

A week or so before that, I am walking upstairs one afternoon, and I see him in my room because the door was open. He is next to my chest of drawers reaching into a drawer and pulling out a package of Pop Tarts. He turns around and makes eye contact with me, and we did not say a word to each other. I can't really say what thought was going through his head at that exact moment, because I am not a telepath. Not only that, I can't even say what was going through my own head at that exact moment either, whether I was scared, or if I had quietly lost my mind. What I did do was walk into the bathroom and pee or whatever. And when I returned to my room, he was gone, doing whatever else he did that day. There was no mention of it from either of us for days, until I happened to casually bring it up, which earned an inert apology. How much does box of Pop Tarts cost, anyway? Two, maybe three dollars? Probably depends on if it is the four- or eight-pack They could easily be replaced. I wasn't starving and that was my last morsel of food or anything like that. But I had to have done something wrong to where he would go into my room and just casually take from me. Maybe I deserved that because I thought about myself for once and bought myself some junk food, rather than putting them in the pantry for anyone, including and especially him to have if they so choose. Is that correct, or am I throwing something on the wall to see if it sticks? The goddamned point is that I purchased something for my personal enjoyment, and I couldn't even rest assured that it would be fine if I put it in my room. Even if I had put the Pop Tarts in the pantry down stairs, I still reserved the right to come out of my mouth and say that no one but me is allowed to touch them. But if I DID put them in the pantry rather than in my room, then by that gesture I am saying that any and all are welcome to them. He went into my personal space and stole from me what little I allow myself, and it didn't even register to him as a cheese fart on the space-time continuum. And for days, instead of having the balls to confront someone who disrespected me and the space I live in, I tip-toed around the subject for fear that somehow I would end up to be the one who is wrong. To live like that with someone who does nothing for me or anyone I love is, and then to be ranked so much lower than, him that I can't even have solidarity in the idea of eating my own Pop Tarts.

We started feeling like prisoners in our own home as the arguments escalated, as our spaces were invaded, as boundaries were broken. It got so bad that I wanted to move out of the house, abandon my family, and sleep in my car if that meant that I didn't have to deal with that situation. It got to the point where he would tell us that it is our problem and he will not do anything about it. But we did nothing about it. What were we supposed to do? He is family, right? We felt utterly trapped, with no way out, and no way to rectify the situation.

Love and family is a slippery slope. Look at what some people put up with and are expected to put up with for the sake of love and/or loyalty. You have women (and some men) who's spouses beat their ass every of their life, and they let them do it because they are supposed love the person or have some kind of personal obligation to them. Or because they have been torn down, that there is no point of reference within for self-love. Or at the very least, they let them because these ass whippings keeps the children fed, clothed, and sheltered, or something like that.

As sad as it is, that is probably why I am willing to come to terms with the idea that I don't love this person anymore, and was ready to put him out on the street without a second thought, with my middle finger in his face, and with my ass for him to kiss. I come from a dysfunctional family, and myself and those close to me have had to put up with some of the nastiest people due to the gratuitous obligations of "love" and "family". I and those close close to me have seen others ruined by the gratuitous obligations of "love" and "family". I have never known my mother to lie or inflate her stories. Among the things she has told me about her life, she told me things about my father's side of the family that I couldn't have come up with in my wildest dreams. My aunt's ex husband, whom I personally have never met or seen a day in my life, used to molest his daughters, my cousins. When my aunt found out, she stayed with him. My cousin, Denise, had gotten really damaged by that, while her sister, my cousin Sharika, was lucky and somehow able to move on from that kind of experience. At the age of five, Denise was so messed up, that she had gotten paralyzing anxiety. It was so great, and she was so terrified of everything and nothing at the same time, that she would just stand stock still and just piss herself. On top of that, she would get punished with ass-whippings by the man who did this to her. Eventually, my aunt left him of her own accord and he ended up getting into another relationship and being sent to prison for doing the same to that woman's daughter. But back to my family, years later when she was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, her family up and abandoned her because she was "crazy". They moved from New York down to Florida into the next city over from where I live, Tampa (I live in Orlando). I talk to them occasionally, and when I bring up the subject of Denise, they don't want to talk about it. As far as Denise herself, I had not heard from her in years, not since I last visited for Thanksgiving in 2006 when they still lived in New York.

The point is that my brother is toxic and vile, whether I love him or not, no matter if I love him or not. I don't care if I am talking about my father, my brother, my lover, or even my dying mother; I will love and respect myself first, and I will NEVER let my feelings over my brother or anyone else make a fool of me again. Never in this life will I let him take control away from me and reduce me so low, that I am that terrified six year old girl who is so terrified that she pisses her pants then gets an ass-whipping for it, who is too afraid to confront him about anything from a stolen pop tart, to how rudely and ignorantly he spoke to his mother. The difference between me and Denise at six years old is that she was a child with no control over her environment, and I am a grown man who has every right to, and should stand up for himself. I cannot and will not love anyone enough to jeopardize that. And I will not think twice about putting him out of my hair, out of my house, out of my misery, and out of my life.

But yeah. The legal aspect of the situation I do understand, as it was explained to me by the police, though my mother was able to convince him to leave quietly anyway. I have given some context so hopefully you guys are able to come up with more detailed responses to my situation.

[Animal Pilot]

It sounds like the deeper issue is that you are angry at yourself for letting your brother take advantage of the situation for so long, and so you finally exploded in an angry fight that got him kicked out, something you would have avoided otherwise, and now seem to be looking for some kind of reassurance from the board.

But all you have stated is that he is a typical lazy freeloader who takes food and drink without permission because he was allowed to get away with it. Not a great sounding guy in the least but he isn't the pedophile in the family so that comparison isn't warranted. 

You handled it badly, didn't stand up for yourself all along which is why it became such an ugly situation, there is no way around it. Sorry to be so blunt but you can't make your brother responsible for the emotional pain you carry inside, he isn't likely the source.

 

 

 

 

[Redeemer]

This is something that also speaks to me, Naza, and let me tell you one thing that some people view as taboo:

Just because they're family, doesn't mean you have to put up with all their crap and accept it because "blood is thicker than water" or "family, you can't pick em!". It's NOT true and it's one of the biggest "taboos" that are abused by family to be assholes to their relatives in order to just be assholes or get what they want, no matter what the scale.

You guys know me. You all know I'm all about giving people several chances and being fair, brutal as it can be at times. But you all know that despite that, fair is fair and when I give a word of advice or warning it's not personal and it's for the sake of harmony. And when any of you need help, no matter what your history here is, I'll look into it and support you where it's needed. I use the same tactic with family as well. I'm very direct with my family and sometimes also very strict, not because I think they also need admin-ing too but because some times I'm the one keeping that shit together or because it's required. My family, as a structure, is not based on deep-rooted connections of love and acceptance and I've found that to be more and more obvious as I've gotten older and wiser. The problems mainly source from one specific person and because I'm the one who can be very direct and assertive, I'm often approached for advice or help on how to handle a new situation or a past one that just won't go away. This problematic family member is someone I can't connect with anymore, haven't been able to for years since I was mature enough to know how messed up stuff was, and someone that hurts me to my core by hurting the rest of my family who I hold very close and deep in my heart. They used to hurt me but have since realised that I'm long past the whole "I will respond to you the way you want me to" and have given up on even trying their shit with me unless I'm under their roof and somehow in that logic obliged to unconditionally do as I'm told despite the fact that I'm not 10. But I'm barely there, and honestly, I'm too strong for them now. And I get so angry at them. I get so, so angry I give myself a mirgrane and almost pass out from the stress. And lately this person has been doing all sorts of shit that's destroying my family and digging up old secrets from even before I was born that spells the end for my family in the future, and they do not care because it does not affect them directly and therefore isn't their problem. I will not give any details here because this is a public forum but I assure you, it's all kinds of fucked up. I'm sharing a brief picture because it's relative to the topic at hand and I have wisdom and experience to share.

This person? Direct family. I do not like them. And honestly, I do not love them either. I do not respect them as a family member but I do respect them as a human being and that is the basis of how I communicate with this person now. This person uses emotional blackmail, lies, steals and is selfish to the point that you wonder what they did to deserve a family in the first place. Especially one that, apart from me of course, just accepts all their bullshit because "family is family I guess that's my lot".

Naza, it doesn't have to be like that. You are not obligated to love someone who does not love, respect, or care about you. I know it's something that's been drilled into our minds for generations and honestly, it's a nice concept. But it's not like that anymore. Maybe before, when the world was simpler and people didn't have the needs they have now, but it's just not like that anymore.

You are NOT indebted to any family member to continue being a source of free money, a punching bag, an emotional outlet, or whatever. Respect should flow BOTH ways, and if it doesn't, then something has to change. Now, I'm not saying that you should like, throw him out and move away and change all your phone numbers and whatever - do things legally. Lay down the cards, show them to him, and DOCUMENT IT. I can't stress that enough. Document shit. Because when worst comes to worst, and the police are like "where's your proof that you were fair to him" because for some reason police are idiots that seem to always side with the people that can cry the hardest, make sure you have something to present. Be it a diary, videos, pictures, document it.

It doesn't matter who it is either. Your brother? A parent? A grandparent? You are not there for abusing, my friend. You are a human being and have the exact same rights as everyone else. "Oh this person/abuser is older than you, you should respect people that are older than you" - just another loophole that's exploited. You have the SAME RIGHTS as anyone else. Because at the end of it all, we all have to live our lives, pay our damn bills, pay for services, work to live, and then at the end of it all, our lives come to an end.

That being said, if he can change and turns his life around, then great. Support his change. But if not... it'll just be an endless circle.

You are not required to unconditionally love someone who treats you like shit. Family or not. Love yourself first. Protect yourself. Because if you don't do that, you sure as hell won't be able to protect anyone else. A teapot that pours several refills to one greedy cup will eventually have nothing for the other cups.

[Naza Sutera]

Redeemer, that is hair-raising what you are telling me. I want to thank you for sharing that, because I know it might have been hard to come to terms with how you feel when it all hit the fan, and then you had to revisit it.

and again, Animal Pilot, I want to thank you for your honesty, which you don't need to apologize for. You are right in that I have baggage of my own. Who doesn't? And I am looking for reassurance from my fellow board members. But I don't want this to turn into a pity party for me. If in the big picture it turns out that I am wrong for what I did and how I feel, then I'd like to know that.

To be honest, I am fixated on you, Animal Pilot. You came into the conversation and said what you thought without kissing my ass. You stated what you thought to be true, whether you thought it was what I wanted to hear or not, and I respect you. But I am reaching out to you for a little more.

My older brother called me and I told him what happened. I don't want to say exactly what is going on with him, but I will say that, although he is currently paying for his past mistakes, he is in a relatively safe position. That being said, his opinion was that I was wrong; I should not have done it; I need to talk to him; I need to bring him home. And that I've been through this with him, I've been through that with him, what if he ends up dead, what if he ends up in jail, what if this, what if that. But my question is, if I talk to him, what do I say if nothing I say is good enough? If I pick him up, where do I take him, to where we are both comfortable in our own environments? Because I am not inviting him back in and possibly wind up starting the cycle over. For those two questions, he had no answers. It's a little annoying, to be honest, being told that I am wrong with no suggestion to make it right for everyone involved.

Do you mind having this conversation, Animal Pilot? If I try to get all the information out, do you think you can help me? Because, I'm sure you aren't a life coach, and I'm sure this isn't Dr. Phil. And also, we didn't even know each other existed until you responded to my topic and I responded to you, so you definitely not obligated to have to hear my pour my soul out to you, and I am supposed to get an answer. But are you willing to help me figure this out?

[Animal Pilot]

Your home situation sounds complicated so I don't know exactly what you should do Naza, but I guess a good start would be to listen to what your family thinks, promise to at least try not to fight with your brother (if only to ease their minds) and help him find a place of his own. I assume he has a job and some savings, since you mentioned he could have paid for things but didn't, and with enough roommates to share expenses it should be feasible.

I think a good expression of faith like that would go a long way to at least show the family you aren't going to abandon your younger brother, while still expecting him to take responsibility and make his own way in life.

  

[Naza Sutera]

You know what? There probably is no definitive answer anyway. Nothing you can say, and nothing I can say. I did what I thought was right; I stood up for myself, I stood up for my other family members, but yet people are still hurt in the end. They way I feel right now, I can't burden myself with fighting with him any longer. And yeah, I suppose that I can help him if he is at all in a mental place to receive it, and hope that he doesn't bring himself any pain or suffering.

[Redeemer]

23 hours ago, Naza Sutera said:

Redeemer, that is hair-raising what you are telling me. I want to thank you for sharing that, because I know it might have been hard to come to terms with how you feel when it all hit the fan, and then you had to revisit it.

There's no need to thank me at all. If you want to talk more in-depth or want someone to rant to, please feel free to approach me privately. You don't have to deal with this shit alone, buddy.

[Drasiana]

I'm going to chime in with agreement with Red.

Being related to someone does not oblige you to sacrifice yourself for them. Loving someone should not come at your expense, yet putting your foot down also does not mean that you lack love. Sometimes it's just the step you need to take to take care of yourself. I find more often than not people are more worried about preserving the image of a perfect family than they are concerned with making sure the family in question is healthy and accountable. People often forget that every manipulative, self-serving, and even abusive person in the world has to be related to someone.

My family's had situations where we had to over-extend ourselves to "help" a family member, even multiple times, but time and again that person took advantage of and even endangered the rest of us with no apparent intent to improve. It's a shitty situation to be in and the guilt is natural, but it isn't necessarily warranted.

[Animal Pilot]

So this is more of a general post not directed to anyone in particular. Strong sentiments from personal experience are fine in the right context, but what worries me is that when seeking advice for complicated issues, the message posters will probably interpret from vague encouragement without course-correction is "Right on, you were totally in the right to tell your family member to go fuck him/herself" which doesn't support careful introspection of one's own motives and which inner voice they are listening to when making critical decisions that affect other people.

Nothing this OP has said indicates to me that this brother really is a monstrous guy, so why encourage him not to act in moderation?

  

[Naza Sutera]

I would just like to add that, again, while I am seeking that reassurance and understanding, I am looking for something to think about. Something or someone to tell me to examine that inner voice, and do some introspection about it. I've been mulling over this for days, wondering if I've made the right decision for myself, my brother, and my family.

I don't think it would be easy for anyone to have it occur to them one day, one moment, that someone in their immediate family is a sad, disgusting person, and that they should rip the whole situation involving them up by the root. I have been mulling over this for days, wondering "Was I not a good enough brother?" "Did I not care enough to give him what he needed?" "Where did I go wrong?" Just blaming myself for what a nasty person he has become. You know what my mother, his mother, had to say about that? If I feel like I have failed him, then she feels like she has failed all three of her sons: my younger brother is a selfish person who doesn't care about how much he sucks someone dry; my older brother is in a situation where his materialism has gotten him in some serious trouble, and now he's paying dearly for it; and then there is me, who never seemed to love himself enough, and instead tried to love and care for everyone else to compensate. She said, if anyone should feel like they failed my younger brother, then it should be her, because she is his mother for crying out loud. Was she not a good enough mother? Did she not care enough to give him what he needed? Where did she go wrong? I guess what I am trying to do here is say that no matter what anyone says, there is probably nothing I can do about this, and that I should just come to terms with the fact that there may not be a happy ending.

As far as all of the things my brother did and said, I would have to sit here all night and into the wee hours of the morning, spilling everything that happened. Stealing pop tarts and liquor may not seem like a big enough deal for me to compare that whole situation to my uncle molesting and ruining my cousin, because my brother has never committed any heinous crimes against humanity, and I hope he never does. But things add up, especially over the course of three or four years, and there comes a point where it has to end.

You guys want to know something? I am coming understand the real reason I made this thread is because I am going through a lot over this and I wanted to express myself and feel as though my feelings are heard. I wanted people to agree with me, I wanted people to disagree with me, but above all, I wanted what I am thinking to be broadcast. Thank you to everyone thus far for taking the time to read this and share what you though about it.

[Drasiana]

5 hours ago, Animal Pilot said:

the message posters will probably interpret from vague encouragement is "Right on, you were totally in the right to tell your family member to go fuck him/herself" which doesn't support careful introspection of one's own motives and which inner voice they are listening to when making critical decisions that affect other people.  

You're ridiculously oversimplifying everything anyone speaking to your contrary has said. Naza has clearly put a lot of thought into this and why he's in this situation, and people who have experienced similar things are offering their support, which is far from "vague encouragement" and "telling your family member to go fuck himself". Nobody has called his brother a "horrible monster" either. You don't have to be a "horrible monster" to be impossible to live with, though.

[Animal Pilot]

Ok, I won't press you on this topic. I had written up this whole thing, but it feels like this thread has run its course. Our philosophical viewpoints are probably too far apart to reconcile, but that's ok too.  

 

[Drasiana]

You seem to be under the impression that Red and I are just being mopey overdramatic babies projecting on the first thing we see rather than rational adults who see the similarities in a situation we have been in with Naza's own situation and offering advice based on that. Stop being so condescending to everyone involved here.

[Redeemer]

22 minutes ago, Drasiana said:

You seem to be under the impression that Red and I are just being mopey overdramatic babies projecting on the first thing we see rather than rational adults who see the similarities in a situation we have been in with Naza's own situation and offering advice based on that. Stop being so condescending to everyone involved here.

Yeah I'm going to second what Dras says because really, from what I've read, Naza has been through a hell of a lot and is suffering from the situation, which is being caused by a family member. Now seeing that Dras and I also have similar experiences, we offered our take on the matter (a very personal offering might I add, so you could have at least respected that, my friend), so you can assume that we also know how there are several sides to a story/situation because nothing is more of a reality check than a family issue. Neither of us have encouraged him to punish his brother or ditch him but instead we reassured him it's okay to feel how he feels, and if you read my post again you will see that I said this:

" Now, I'm not saying that you should like, throw him out and move away and change all your phone numbers and whatever - do things legally. Lay down the cards, show them to him, and DOCUMENT IT. I can't stress that enough. Document shit. Because when worst comes to worst, and the police are like "where's your proof that you were fair to him" because for some reason police are idiots that seem to always side with the people that can cry the hardest, make sure you have something to present. "

Again, I told him to be fair about it. To offer his brother a chance to fix things, etc. etc. However Dras and I are telling him the thing that seems to get to people, which is evident in your reaction, Animal Pilot - it's okay to protect yourself from family. It's not an over-reaction, it's not a command. It's support. But I guess it's easier to understand if you've got family issues yourself or been abused by a family member, then it's more relatable of course.

However I don't want to derail Naza's personal topic and I wish to respect him and not start picking at other peoples' well-intended and delicately shared stories, so I'm going to say that if you have an issue with either of us, or want to talk about this in more detail, please PM us and help keep this topic peaceful. This topic is for Naza, not us.

[Animal Pilot]

25 minutes ago, Redeemer said:

But I guess it's easier to understand if you've got family issues yourself or been abused by a family member, then it's more relatable of course.

You should not assume that, but I've already said I won't further elaborate and you made the same command, so that is that.