Bad memories are haunting me.

One time, my brother got mad at me. We lived far apart from each other. It was during a phone call. I didn't know just how mad he got, until he showed me.

I send him a card for some occasion. A week later, I got a piece of mail from him. When I opened it, inside was the piece of mail I sent him. Scrawled across the envelope were these words. "Anything else you send me will be put in the trash." The next day I came home to a message on my answering machine. It was my brother's voice. He said something about how he could see through me and that he was not fooled by me doing things to seem nice and that he knew what a piece of crap I really was.

I knew my brother was disturbed, but I hadn't known he was that full of anger and hatred, or that he could despise me so much.

Years later I managed to patch things up with him. He was in jail, and I sent him $600 to pay a fine to get out of jail. Eventually, he got mad again and called me to tell me how much he despised me.

At one point, he ended up in a federal prison hospital where he was being treated on a psych unit to enable him to stand trial for charges that he destroyed property at a VA hospital. While he was there, we wrote to each other, and I bought him some things he needed and put money on his books. He sent me letters and pictures. He said the federal prison gave him the best care he had ever gotten. He seemed a lot better. Of course, that didn't last.

It was around that time that his court-appointed attorney told me that my brother was a lost cause and was destined to be murdered on the street some day. He advised me that my efforts to help my brother were probably wasted.

My brother seemed better for awhile. His legal matters got settled. Then, one day, he called me to say he never wanted to see me again. That was about ten years ago. I heard he was moving around the country because he contacted a family member a few times, looking for money. In over 5 years, nobody has heard from him. Nobody knows what became of him.

I realize he was a very disturbed person. I realize that the way he treated me was not due to anything I did against him. It was due to him wanting to blame someone for how bad his life was. He always saw himself as a victim.

Now I feel like I'm losing another sibling. What makes this seem similar is that it seems like I'm being blamed for committing some awful offense. Both of these persons are prone to really delusional thinking. I mean really psychotic ideas that I couldn't even go into here. A few years ago, my sister told a lie about a family member that was just awful.

I have to let go of trying to fix things that I probably can't fix. Yesterday, I wanted to call my sister and say, "Are you mad at me?" I decided not to do that. But I worry that I could lose her like I lost my brother. Maybe I already have.

I have things to get done today, and that's what I should be doing. I want to have something to look forward to. There doesn't seem to be anything. I'm sorry for going on like this.