[Michael W. Harris]

I need to vent something. My brother has called me a few times since I have been back down here at the Domiciliary in Lake City. He called tonight.

My brother is a retired radiologist. He moved out to the L.A. area just for a change. He has three grown daughters and is divorced. Every call now he talks about some group trying to hurt him. It sounds very paranoid to me. I try to be logical with him. I told him to go to a therapist. He will not do that. I said he should keep his daughters informed of his situation to provide support. He said he would not talk to his daughters about this. I told him that I was worried about him out there by himself with no family. Two of his daughters live in the Atlanta area and one lives out in St. Louis while her husband attends seminary college. I cannot talk any sense to him about this idea that someone is trying to hurt him.

After a divorce in 1991, I realized that I had a dissociative disorder. I called it MPD but I may not have the classical case of MPD. I realized that I was doing and saying things that I did not remember. Tonight I was trying to explain to my brother that when I realized that I had a dissociative disorder, I got mad at my Dad, Mom, and brother. I was also mad at the world in general. My Dad died in 1993 leaving my mentally ill Mother alone. I tried to call her every day. I lived in Orlando and my brother lived a few hours away from Mom. He was also the executor over my Dad's modest estate. I could not take care of Mom as my career and life were not working out. I was trying to work and find a mental health professional who understood dissociative disorders. I never thought about how I was abused as a child until 1992. My Mom had programmed me to accept my brothers abuse as normal. But when I started trying to get mental health treatment, I thought about my childhood constantly. I deliberately tried to remember all the traumas that I had gone through. This was in an effort to convince the mental health professionals that I had a dissociative disorder.

I had no support system in Florida and never developed one. That is why I desperately needed help from a mental health professional. Inevitably my Mom and my own personal life problems started to crack me up. I would binge drink and get angry. One time I called my Mom and made some threats. I threatened my brothers children. I cannot explain that. I will only say that I had been constantly telling my Mom that I was trying to get mental health treatment. She would play emotional head games with me on the phone. It caused my emotional pain to escalate to unbearable levels. I believe that I was trying to make her take me seriously when I told her that I had multiple personality disorder and was mentally ill. It only hurt me. My brother now throws that up to me. I got baker acted for that.

But tonight we got into a discussion about his abuse of me. He totally denies that he abused me and tells me that I am lying. His abuse was constant. It never stopped. In 2001 when I was at my Mother's house in Buford, Georgia, some of the women who lived by us when I was going up, told me that they tried to get my Mom to tell Dad that my brother was abusing me. Mom told them that my Dad was under too much stress from being a doctor and she would not do it. (Mom watched a few times as my brother beat me up. Mom began telling me that it was normal for older brothers to "pick on" their younger brothers when I was two and one-half. Mom always had this weird look on her face while these fights were going on like she got some kind of thrill out of it.) After I gave Mom one of Dr. Colin Ross's books to read, she admitted to me that my brother abused me. She denied abusing me. She also said she believed that he may have been hurting me in the crib. Mom even told my Sister that my brother constantly "picked on" me. But even telling my brother these things, he still totally denies the truth.

This makes me hate every thing. I cannot find a mental health professional that will even admit that dissociative disorders are a real mental illness! My own brother cannot admit that he was obsessed with tormenting me and could not keep his hands off me! I admit that I eventually started to cry even when the physical abuse was not that bad. But it was the emotional pain that he caused me, not the physical abuse, that caused me to cry. I got no peace in my own home!

I told him that if he truly does not remember our childhood relationship that maybe he also has a dissociative disorder. He did have a very bad car accident his first or second year in college. He got a very bad head injury.

But it still makes me extremely angry that he cannot or will not admit he abused me. He claims that I was "passively/aggressively" trying to get attention from Mom and Dad. I told him that I never got attention from Mom and Dad! He always started the fights. It was this personality that was out most of the time when these fights occurred so I remember clearly.

So there is no impasse for our relationship now. I did enjoy hearing from my brother. I wish I had some family that I was close with and had regular contact with. But we have agreed to not talk anymore. I am also estranged from my sister. It hurts.

[Crypts_Of_The_Mind]

I don't know you or your family personally and it sounds as if it is two exact opposite memories of a past event. Generally, from things I have seen in my own life, when that happens, it's because the original points of view were different. You were both children when the event occurred too. So, your original point of view is skewed to a child's perspective, them time wears it down too. Could be one is lying. Could also be neither are lying but the truth lies uncovered buried under the memories of you both and time and additional pain has clamped those memories closed.

If your brother was emotionally abusing you back then though, the likelihood he will repeat now is high. So if you believe he abused you, unless and until he can admit it, it's best he stays away.

I understand the desire to be close to your family. I feel the same. Sometimes though, we just have to accept we cannot control what family we were given nor the choices they make. All we can do is take responsibility for our choices and take care of ourselves.

Be good to yourself.

*hugs*

[kecanoe]

It is very common for abusers to deny that they were abusive. It sounds to me like your brother is doing this. It is sad indeed that he can't own his stuff.