7
7WatersDaughter
Guest
I am the middle child in a family of three siblings. My sister is five years younger than me and my brother is two years older than me. My family and I live an eight-hour drive away from my parents, and my sister and her fiancé live a sixteen-hour drive away. My brother and his wife live in the same city as my parents.
My dad was raised in a very dysfunctional, at times abusive setting. he had some major emotional issues – mainly anger – and he would also drink, and when he drank, he got very mean and nasty and would be verbally and emotionally abusive to my mom and us kids and also would be physically threatening – I can remember a few times my dad pushing and shoving my brother around.
While my dad is by NO MEANS perfect now he hasn’t drank alcohol in a very long time, and he doesn’t blow up or explode on anyone anymore. He can get pouty and mad, and can be a handful for my mom (he recently right before Christmas last year went through a heart attack and a stroke and that really mellowed him out).
Anxiety disorders run in my family, and I definitely think that what I went through as a child contributed to my struggles with anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression (that I have thankfully come through after faith in God, hard work at cognitive behaviour therapy and medication!), but as part of my healing I have put that all in the past. I am VERY close with both my mother and my father,
My brother was such a wonderful older brother growing up, but then in high school he got into this super brainy crowd and became a self-professed atheist and started to change.
He eventually met his now-wife, who was a practicing Wiccan at the time, and went from being an atheist to a Wiccan/Neo-Pagan, and now he is basically just an agnostic who still likes the idea of the pagan Celtic religions. I tried to be accepting of that (while praying for him), but he has been blatantly disrespectful of my family’s religion. We always say grace before eating at my parent’s house, and one year after Christmas dinner this is what he tweeted: “Forced to eat cold, overcooked turkey and bow my head to a cowardly God of a week religion… Christmas at the family’s.” It really hurt, that he would be that rude (he also complained on twitter about the “sh!tty” presents my parents gave him) when we have always been accepting and loving about his choices.
Once I was eating at his house and I asked him if we could say a prayer of thanks quickly that my dad had been released from the hospital after his stroke – he looked me dead in the eye and said no. I was hurt, because I had even worded it to a “creator” so he wouldn’t feel like I was trying to push my Christianity on him.
My brother said that he wishes my father had died of his stroke, rather than come back and be a “jerk” (never mind that recovering from a stroke is a very emotional time for anyone!). He also said that he is going to tell his kids (he is expecting his first) when they are like five that our dad is a “horrible” person and my mom is a “coward” for staying with him – and that he won’t let them have anything to do with the baby. He always says mean things like my dad is an a-hole and my mom “doesn’t have a brain in her head”.
He carries around a big hunting knife ,and once he was at a dog park and a dog came up and tried to bite his own dog, and he said that he had the blade at the dog’s throat and would have slit it had the owner not come up and controlled his dog – thankfully the owner did not see
My brother refuses to help my parents with anything, and yet any time he needs to borrow my parents’ truck or needs them to watch his dogs, he expects it. My grandma, who lives a two-day drive away, just had a heart attack and stroke and my mom had to leave my dad to go be with her. My sister is staying with my dad, and my brother said that was good because he wouldn’t bother helping at all when mom was away (dad is still recovering from his stroke and he doesn’t have his driver’s license).
he is also really rude to his wife, who just takes it. He was carving a chicken for dinner once and his wife asked if he needed any help and he said “no I don’t need any f@*&ing help, get the f$&*k out of the kitchen, woman!” and she backed up a bit and he looked back and said, “I thought I told you to get the F$%*k out of the kitchen?!?!?”
When my mom was about to fly out to help my grandma he said that she was an old bat and he couldn’t imagine having a mom like that (this is my mom’s mom not my dad’s mom), even though my grandma is wonderful. He went to visit her last summer (I think just to be in the will – she is a wealthy woman), and she said she hoped to see him again next year, and after he closed the door he said, “dream on, you f*&(ing old bat”.
What can I do??? It’s so hard to hear all this horrible things coming from his mouth (I hear them second-hand – any time he tries to talk to me like this I end the conversation).
My sister has to go back home and my mom might not be back from being with my grandma yet, and my brother said that he was going to have to check on my dad every two days because he’s worried he’d “off himself” because after his stroke my dad got depressed. Once in the hospital he said he would be less trouble for everyone if he died or something, and I was upset and called my brother to talk about it, and he said he has “no sympathy” for anyone who would kill themselves or anyone who has a mental illness or disorder, which he said to my face – ME, someone who has been through anxiety, OCD and depression! He says they are “weaklings”…
My dad was raised in a very dysfunctional, at times abusive setting. he had some major emotional issues – mainly anger – and he would also drink, and when he drank, he got very mean and nasty and would be verbally and emotionally abusive to my mom and us kids and also would be physically threatening – I can remember a few times my dad pushing and shoving my brother around.
While my dad is by NO MEANS perfect now he hasn’t drank alcohol in a very long time, and he doesn’t blow up or explode on anyone anymore. He can get pouty and mad, and can be a handful for my mom (he recently right before Christmas last year went through a heart attack and a stroke and that really mellowed him out).
Anxiety disorders run in my family, and I definitely think that what I went through as a child contributed to my struggles with anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression (that I have thankfully come through after faith in God, hard work at cognitive behaviour therapy and medication!), but as part of my healing I have put that all in the past. I am VERY close with both my mother and my father,
My brother was such a wonderful older brother growing up, but then in high school he got into this super brainy crowd and became a self-professed atheist and started to change.
He eventually met his now-wife, who was a practicing Wiccan at the time, and went from being an atheist to a Wiccan/Neo-Pagan, and now he is basically just an agnostic who still likes the idea of the pagan Celtic religions. I tried to be accepting of that (while praying for him), but he has been blatantly disrespectful of my family’s religion. We always say grace before eating at my parent’s house, and one year after Christmas dinner this is what he tweeted: “Forced to eat cold, overcooked turkey and bow my head to a cowardly God of a week religion… Christmas at the family’s.” It really hurt, that he would be that rude (he also complained on twitter about the “sh!tty” presents my parents gave him) when we have always been accepting and loving about his choices.
Once I was eating at his house and I asked him if we could say a prayer of thanks quickly that my dad had been released from the hospital after his stroke – he looked me dead in the eye and said no. I was hurt, because I had even worded it to a “creator” so he wouldn’t feel like I was trying to push my Christianity on him.
My brother said that he wishes my father had died of his stroke, rather than come back and be a “jerk” (never mind that recovering from a stroke is a very emotional time for anyone!). He also said that he is going to tell his kids (he is expecting his first) when they are like five that our dad is a “horrible” person and my mom is a “coward” for staying with him – and that he won’t let them have anything to do with the baby. He always says mean things like my dad is an a-hole and my mom “doesn’t have a brain in her head”.
He carries around a big hunting knife ,and once he was at a dog park and a dog came up and tried to bite his own dog, and he said that he had the blade at the dog’s throat and would have slit it had the owner not come up and controlled his dog – thankfully the owner did not see
My brother refuses to help my parents with anything, and yet any time he needs to borrow my parents’ truck or needs them to watch his dogs, he expects it. My grandma, who lives a two-day drive away, just had a heart attack and stroke and my mom had to leave my dad to go be with her. My sister is staying with my dad, and my brother said that was good because he wouldn’t bother helping at all when mom was away (dad is still recovering from his stroke and he doesn’t have his driver’s license).
he is also really rude to his wife, who just takes it. He was carving a chicken for dinner once and his wife asked if he needed any help and he said “no I don’t need any f@*&ing help, get the f$&*k out of the kitchen, woman!” and she backed up a bit and he looked back and said, “I thought I told you to get the F$%*k out of the kitchen?!?!?”
When my mom was about to fly out to help my grandma he said that she was an old bat and he couldn’t imagine having a mom like that (this is my mom’s mom not my dad’s mom), even though my grandma is wonderful. He went to visit her last summer (I think just to be in the will – she is a wealthy woman), and she said she hoped to see him again next year, and after he closed the door he said, “dream on, you f*&(ing old bat”.
What can I do??? It’s so hard to hear all this horrible things coming from his mouth (I hear them second-hand – any time he tries to talk to me like this I end the conversation).
My sister has to go back home and my mom might not be back from being with my grandma yet, and my brother said that he was going to have to check on my dad every two days because he’s worried he’d “off himself” because after his stroke my dad got depressed. Once in the hospital he said he would be less trouble for everyone if he died or something, and I was upset and called my brother to talk about it, and he said he has “no sympathy” for anyone who would kill themselves or anyone who has a mental illness or disorder, which he said to my face – ME, someone who has been through anxiety, OCD and depression! He says they are “weaklings”…