[squirrelkid]

How do I cut to the chase? My parents divorced when I was 6 years old and raised seperately myself and my 4 older brothers. My life would be great with the exception of financial difficulties on both my parents side as well as having an extremly difficult brother.
I am 21 now, and my brother is the same age. After my parents divorced I became a kind of 3rd parent (my mom had to work to raise us) which left me to help my brother in school. My brother was never really nice to me growing up--in fact I guess I would admit for the first time that he was verbally abusive....from about 12 years old and on calling me and my mom a *****, to f-off and every other name in the book. However, as family works, we forgave and forgot. However this past year my brother had spent 3 hard months in jail for a domestic charge filed by an ex. He wrote to us saying he had changed, how much he loved us and how hard he was going to work to put his life on track. I missed him so much when he was gone, everyone wrote and he was given our full support and love when hee was gone.
Now that he got out, the first month or so was great, no real problems but he hadn't found himself a job ( I know the economy is rough but COME ON, I have no sympathy..since high school (3 years ago) he has only had one single job that lasted like a month....he's just spoiled and was use to being handed everything). We had to just recently sell his car...which he never paid a single payment on so techinically it wasnt even his car. He got upset tonight, punched his fists into the wall. Called my mom and myself names and even pushed my mom around. he was trying to take her car to go out for the night. while my mom intitially said he could use her car she then said no once he became violent and yelling. well I pulled my mom and said let him go after he came pushy with her. He is very tall and strong and could easily hurt her (or me which I do worry about). He took off and the cops had to come. He is on probation right now and while he did return the car (otherwise he'd been going to jail and facing car theft charges); the cops however said he could still have a charge brought since he is on probation. I am writing this because I feel like my mom and I did the right think yet I always feel guilty when I see him in trouble. My mom has a PPO (protection order) against him so he wasnt even supposed to be around which was another issue. We kinda wanted to give him a second chance but he's proven us wrong. I want to try to understand this situation. I have lived in this kind of hell he has brought on for over 10 years and I have delt with inner depression that no one knows. life for me can become a daily struggle and I can't deal with his issues anymore, nor my mom. How do I go about keeping him out of my life for good? I can't forgive him anymore for the way he treated me, at one point I put it all behind me but his hateful words and threatening words and the way he acts like he wants to hit me has become too much. I dont want to get him arrested or see him arrested because of us but I dont know how to break family ties, if even possible. All I want is to be happy, I can't take this pain anymore or I will snap. I feel like a rotten person with a lot of hate, but no one (not even my parents) know the situations he put me in when I was younger. He's unwilling to get help for himself, and we're unable any longer to help him. I am afriad he's so unstable he might do something to himself and I'd feel guilty if it ever happened but please if anyone has a similar situation and can shed light on how they got through this or what they did I'd greatly appreciate it. I just can't go on living pretending to be happy with him in my life.
Much thanks.

[jerrymichele]

Sometimes we need to get tough and dish out tough love. His bad behavior is no one's fault. He clearly needs help and refuses it. We can lead a horse to the water,but we can't make him drink. If this was me I would make it clear that I love him, but I cannot take the abuse. I would then tell him to leave me alone until his behavior changes. If that means him going back to jail then that is what I would do. If your mom put out a protection order on him then you can really tell how scared the both of you are. He's just not safe to be around. If you think he will react in an abusive way telling him to leave then call the police. You shouldn't need to feel guilty for his poor behavior. He knows right from wrong. Besides the fact that neither one of you need to be put threw that. Take Care

[NuckingFutz]

i am sorry you are going through so much pain and fear right now. It seems like you are dealing with; your depression and his behavior. You can meet with a pdoc. You have power over that. As for your brother, if you can prove to a judge that he is a danger to himself or others, he can get court ordered help. Brother may have odd. Look it up on this site.

[Elysium]

Squirellkid....

Your situation sounds rough.

I don't know if you're willing to admit it or not but your brother is an abuser. From what you have written, you have described emotional, verbal, and physical abuse towards your mother and yourself.

The behaviors your brother is exhibiting sound similar to the cycle of violence where everything is great for a while and slowly the tension builds and then there is an explosion. After the dust settles, the abuser usually tells their victims they are sorry, it won't happen again, they didn't mean to, they love them, they can't live without them, and they may even buy them gifts to show affection to provide their victims with a false sense of security.

It sounds like you and your mom are caught up in this cycle. It also sounds like there may be some enabling and/or denial going on on the part of your mom as well.

What saddens me though, is to hear that your brother has got you feeling so guilty that you would rather cut yourself off from your entire family and break ties, then call your brother on his behavior and force him take responsibility for his actions and behaviors.

Your brother needs some help. Anger management classes, maybe more. The only way for him to get this kind of help, since he's not likely to seek it out himself, is to put his violence on record with the authorities and let them work with him. Courts can mandate therapy and anger management courses, but to get to that, you have to allow your brother to make his mistakes and suffer the consequences of his behaviors.

I hope this is not to harsh...I don't mean it to be. I just don't want to see you cut off everyone in you family just because of him. Sometimes this is called for, but you really want to make sure that this is what you really really want. If you let your brother break apart your family then he has succeeded.

It's time to allow him to learn about consequences......but you have to stop enabling his behavior to do that. This is not an easy task, I know. I speak from personal experience.

I'm always here if you need to talk.

Take care....