Wow shez. I had thought it would be too heavy duty a label to put on him. But I ask myself this: Am I waiting for him to actually murder someone before I accept that he is that pathological? He has voiced murderous thought about people . . . dark stuff. He told me once, "I don't need a suicide hot-line. I need a homicide hot-line."

Just about everything up there in your post fits him. Thank you for putting that here in my thread where I've really looked at it. I don't know that I can even find anything there that doesn't fit him. How I managed to cover so much of that over and entertain illusions about him . . . Relatives had warned me. My parents cautioned me years ago against becoming over-involved with him. After they were both gone, I felt an even stronger need to reach out to him. I used to cry about once a month, or so, wondering if he were still alive.

He did cruel things as a child. Adults did not trust him to be near money. I used to protest that they were unfairly labeling him. They were seeing a pattern and reading it, while I was making him be - in my mind - what I wanted him to be.

I have a long pattern of offering myself up for exploitation to people whose interest in me has a dubious basis. This past week, it seems like I'm seeing that more clearly than ever . . . in regards to him . . . and others. I feel like I've wasted my life . . . well, a lot of it. I thought I was being the good person . . . helping needy folks who came my way. I was an awful fool . . . and there is nothing virtuous about it . . . and the cost to me in having misspent my attention and resources is very high. I have aloneness stretched out before me, and I am very uncared about. I shouldn't have lived so as to end up like this. No one held a gun to my head. I did it all willingly.

My S/O of over 25 years is, basically, a more benign version of my bother. It's been a heart-breaking relationship. I am broken now. My spirit feels broken.

I thought that, if you cared about someone, the caring would come back. It's not that way. You can be drained and left discarded. I should have known better.

Like you, I will remove myself from my brother's reach, though he probably has already taken care of that, himself. He sees that I have a small income now. Not much in it for him anymore. I envisioned him being a help to me, as I am getting older.

I have lost all faith in life . . . in myself. I am very depressed.

Sorry for all this self-pity.