family problems
my brother the felon
my brother the addict
people dont change
nobody cares what i have to say
The Least Important Kid
By StacyB
@Srbageldog (7716)
United States
June 22, 2017 11:05pm CST
Often I find myself feeling like the least important kid in my family. I'm the second oldest and the only one who has never moved back in with my parents after I moved out. I get left out a lot, and when I call to talk to my mom she spends the majority of the time talking to someone else who is physically there with her, or she abruptly ends our call to take a call from someone else, someone "more important."
A couple hours ago I called my mom and I was right in the middle of talking to her when she suddenly cut me off because "someone else was calling." She blurted out she'd call me back and hung up. I figured it was one of my brothers calling, because she always cuts me off and ends our call if one of them is calling. Which is hurtful. She always did value my brothers more than me and my sister, even though we were the ones who raised them. We were never allowed to discipline them, though, and they always got away with murder.
Anyway, I found out that she cut me off to talk to my brother-the-felon, the one who is an addict (they claim he's in recovery now but I'll believe it when I see it,) the one who has called me obscene names and threatened me on multiple occasions and sold my name and home address to other prisoners when he was in Corcoran Prison, which is a prison for mentally ill inmates, and is where Charles Manson resides. (Yeah...I feel real safe knowing my home address is floating around the same facility where Charles Manson is, not to mention the other serial killers being kept there.)
Needless to say I no longer have a relationship with this brother, and it disgusts me that my parents continue to enable him. He's in rehab right now (not by choice, it was court ordered) and he gets weekend passes and stays with my parents, even though he has threatened to kill my sister on multiple occasions and she lives there and doesn't feel safe when he's around. His presence causes her severe anxiety but they don't care. They've always put him first above anyone else, even though he's done nothing but crap all over them time and time again. They've already found beer cans in their yard after his weekend visits, but they deny they're from him (who else would they be from when none of them drink??)
Every time he gets "clean" it's the same thing, he feeds them the same line of bull and they buy it hook, line, and sinker. He's going to get his act together, he's going to go to college (he didn't even graduate 8th grade and never finished high school, so I can't picture him lasting long at the local community college,) he's going to become a drug and alcohol counselor, blah blah blah...then a week or two after he's back home, he starts drinking again, he stops taking his meds, he starts abusing people again, and sometimes he starts stealing to support his habit.
He has been diagnosed as schizophrenic (which was drug induced) and it was revealed last year that his brain is atrophying, and he is absolutely terrifying when he's delusional and under the influence. There have been times where I believed he was going to kill our family, and the cops wouldn't take him in because they claimed he'd "found religion" and we needed to be supportive, never mind the fact that he was ranting and raving like a lunatic and claiming we were all possessed by demons and that it was his duty to the Lord to rid the world of evil. But I digress.
I do not like this brother. I don't wish ill to befall him and wish he would get his act together, but we've gone through this crap so many times by now that I just don't believe it when he claims he's changed. Plus, he's never tried to make amends with anyone, which is part of the 12 step program. He just comes back around acting like nothing ever happened and we're all just supposed to forgive him. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. I would love nothing more than for him to get his life together, but I won't believe it until I see it. And I have never seen any indication that he was trying to change, or even wanted to change.
Anyway. It upset me quite a bit that my mom cut me off mid-conversation earlier to take a call from this brother. When she did call me back, I told her how I felt and she apologized. I asked her how she would have liked it if when she had called her parents, they had cut her off to take a call from her brother? And she said "they would have if they'd had three way calling," and then I guess it dawned on her how she would have felt about that (she did not have a good relationship with her parents and always says she felt like she didn't matter) so she apologized again. And then I spent the majority of our conversation listening to her talk to my sister on the other end of the phone, because that's how our conversations always go. I call, I try to talk, she doesn't listen and talks to my sister who's there in the room with her instead. Maybe I should just stop calling or coming around, since all of my siblings seem to take priority.
3 people like this
3 responses
@Courtlynn (67089)
• United States
23 Jun 17
I want to say dont give up.. but also dont want to.. as you can only trt so many times. Im sorry you feel neglected.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
23 Jun 17
Thanks. I've always had a tumultuous relationship with my parents, but the older I get the less patience I have for this crap. But then I don't want to cut them out of my life and regret it if something were to happen to them.
1 person likes this
@Courtlynn (67089)
• United States
23 Jun 17
@Srbageldog exactly. I know the feeling.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
23 Jun 17
I do visit in person but a lot of time she winds up falling asleep or is busy on the computer or her tablet. Sometimes she, my sister and I go out to the movies or to lunch, which is nice, but it's still hurtful when I call to talk and she cuts me off because one of my siblings is calling. With two of my brothers, I'm a bit more understanding as she doesn't see them or hear from them as often, but this one brother in particular always seems like he takes priority, even though he's done everyone wrong over and over again. It's always been like that, even when we were kids. And if they let him move back in with them, I won't be visiting as I don't want to be around him. She currently sees him more often than she sees me.
@prashu228 (37518)
• India
23 Jun 17
Better to stay away with such people, you will loose your peace ultimately
1 person likes this




