Should I try to connect with my brother

LegacyUser

Hi everyone. This might be a long one...

I'm 28, female. I have an older brother in his mid-thirties. When he was around 11 he was taken by Social Services for 3 weeks due to anger issues and also some incidences of him doing inappropriate things, but they would never allow him to return home. We visited every so often but sometimes he refused to see us, and sometimes we couldn't make the journey so as it turned out I kinda nearly forgot about him.

For the past 7 or so years he has been trying to reconnect with us. He is unemployed, lives alone and is very, very lonely. As someone who grew up without much attention from my family and practically no friends this breaks my heart. I hate the thought of ANYONE being lonely. On FB he tags himself on holidays and in pubs or restaurants and it makes me feel so guilty knowing that he is most likely alone. No one even comments/likes most of his statuses. He calls my mam constantly and she is worn out dealing with him. The obvious solution here seems to be that I SHOULD reach out to him but it's complicated for a number of reasons.

He is an angry, angry person. He's mostly angry at my dad (who he blames for everything, mostly that he was "sent away" even though my mam keeps telling him it was her) and my brothers (who used to make an effort with him but have cut him off now). He constantly and I mean CONSTANTLY sends us FB messages/emails/texts talking about how much he wants to put the past behind him and start fresh with us and not only that, we have received messages from old neighbours, from distant relatives and from complete strangers and even a PRIEST who contact us on behalf of my brother, begging us to talk with him. He has clearly told them a lot about our family troubles but my brother's version and our version are night and day. There have been times in the past where I have tried to have a normal, friendly conversation but he either brings up the past or insists on talking about family members who have passed on. He also talks about my dad and other brothers, trying to turn me against them. We keep telling him that we can't keep having the same conversations again and he always says he wants to move on and stop talking about the past yet constantly still brings it up!! It is very taxing on me emotionally as I have anxiety issues and have struggled with depression. But at this point I don't know which is worse, the guilt that he is lonely or the stress and anxiety of talking to him! I don't know what to do. There's more to the story but I'll leave it at that for now. Any advice is welcome, I feel like I'm being torn in two.

LegacyUser

This is a difficult one, OP. Initially when I read about how he is trying to contact you I thought, well if he wants to contact you and move on then of course you should meet him. But then I read the rest of your post. This is one where you have to look after yourself. And you have to make choices based on what's best for you.

Your brother clearly has very many problems, and it's ok for you to admit that you are not qualified or in a position to help him. If he wants to maintain some sort of contact with you, the he has to accept that he needs to be doing everything he can to make himself better. But, the difficulty there is if your brother suffers from mental health issues the it will be almost impossible for him to see that for himself. And, as seems to be happening, he will always have reason to be angry, and there will always be someone else to blame. I feel sorry for him because he obviously had a tough life. Nobody actually wants to spend their life so angry and bitter. Its something, as a child he had no control over, and now as an adult he isn't able to manage it.

It's not his fault, as such. But it most certainly is not your fault either. Have you been to speak to anyone? Do you see a counsellor for your anxiety? This is something that you should try trash out with a professional who can help you make sense of exactly how you are feeling. But whatever you do, you need to accept at this stage that your brother is unlikely to dramatically change. So if you get in contact, you are getting in contact with the person your brother is now. Not done fictious character who you'd like him to be.

Maybe your brother brings up the sane topics all the time because they are the only things/people he has in common with you. He doesn't know what else to talk about. It's like going to a school reunion 20 years after leaving school and the only thing you can all talk comfortably about is your time in school. Because it's the only thing you all have in common now.

It's a very difficult situation for you. And I can see why you are torn. Talk to someone, and figure out if you are emotionally strong enough to deal with your brother. Would there be the option of strength in numbers? Are your other siblings / cousins in any position to join with you in meeting up with him? Taking the burden off one person. If you didn't have to shoulder the responsibility yourself you might be more comfortable with it.

Hemerodrome

Initially I would have said maybe talk to him and see how you get on, but as I read on I changed my mind as clearly there is no reason to believe your relationship with your brother would progress any differently to the relationship between him and the rest of your family.
I can understand why you feel bad for him, but you shouldn't feel guilty, his life is not your responsibility. He is an adult now, he can take responsibility for his own life and if he can't behave in a way that is conducive to a healthy relationship with you, that's not your fault.
I think that at best you might be able to have a very, very arm's length relationship, keep in touch by messages, infrequently enough, not meeting and not letting him into your life. I think any more than that would be a strain on you and potentially affect the rest of your family who have already had to cut him off. That takes discipline though, so if you can't manage it you might be better off not even trying that, but you can let it go knowing that you'd be doing nothing wrong. Look after your own head first, don't worry about anyone else's.

athtrasna

Have you tried putting yourself in his shoes, it must be a very lonely place.

It sounds to me like he needs professional help to come to terms with the past, if he can do that then maybe he'll become easier to deal with but it seems cruel to cut him off because of who he was as an 11 year old.

LegacyUser

athtrasna wrote: »

Have you tried putting yourself in his shoes, it must be a very lonely place.

It sounds to me like he needs professional help to come to terms with the past, if he can do that then maybe he'll become easier to deal with but it seems cruel to cut him off because of who he was as an 11 year old.

The OP has put herself in her brother's shoes, that's plain to see from the fact that she feels guilty and appreciates his loneliness, something she is quite explicit about. It's also clear she's not questioning how to proceed because of how her brother was at 11, it's because of how he has behaved since then each time he has had a chance to re-establish relationships with the rest of his family, chances he appears to have messed up with his behaviour as an adult.

Rekop dog

Has he been diagnosed with a personality disorder? If so maybe worth reading up on best way to deal someone suffering from whichever one he has.

Rubberchikken

has he ever gotten any professional help to deal with the issues he has?

he really sounds like he was dealt a tough hand. granted maybe he did things that are unacceptable but at the time he was removed from his home he was 11. that's just a child. i would hope he was given help to overcome the anger/inappropriate things so that life could have improved but it doesn't sound like it.

could you talk to him and encourage him to seek counselling?
until he deals with what occurred in his life he is probably going to keep revisiting things.
put yoiurself in his place. he has grown up outside his family. practically forgotten. i think i'dm be angry and upset if it were me.

maybe he deserves a second chance. only you and the rest of your family can decide that.
good luck

loalae

Hi OP,

Would you consider suggesting some form of family therapy? The reason I think it might be helpful is that your brother obviously needs professional support to address the issues that have arisen for him as a result if big removed from his family and for many people who were children in care they need an awful lot of support to come to terms with their history. The reason family therapy could be useful for you is that while your brother will be able to air his grievances there would also be another person in the room to stop your brother going round and round in circles.

Edit - what I mean is since you have done everything you feel you can to try to move him on from the same conversations, it could be beneficial for your emotional well being for there to be a professional in the room to facilitate conversation while also having the 'authority' to move on the conversation.

Ellie2008

It's not anything to do with you OP but how anyone could remove an 11 year from his family for anything, I literally can't get my head around how anyone your parents or social services could think that was in his best interests, it clearly wasn't & has scarred the guy as an adult. If he was behaving in an unacceptable manner at 11 your parents should have faced up to their responsibilities as parents and dealt with it, if they needed help from social services fair enough but to essentially abandon their own child! That's morally reprehensible in my book.

I don't see it as your responsibility of course, you need to look after yourself as well. I don't really know what to say to you tbh, seems like a bit of a Catch 22 you're darned if you do or if you don't do it you"ll feel guilty. It is admirable that you care about him.

LegacyUser

Hi everyone OP here.

Thanks for all the replies, it has soothed me a little that I'm not being purely selfish!!

I'm the only one out of my family (aside from my mam) that is even considering talking to him. It's for a very good reason, a few years back he spread some extremely vicious and serious lies on FB (namely that my dad had murdered our baby brother years back by shaking him - this is nowhere near the truth he died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). This was obviously very damaging and hurtful to my dad and to all of us, and was the point when everyone stopped trying with him. We have spoken to him before about therapy but he keeps lying and saying he has undergone/is undergoing therapy. He lies all the time to tell us what we want to hear, and we know through the people that he gets to contact us on his behalf that his version of our family history paints him as a victim and us as being cold-hearted. I don't even exactly blame him for this cos I know loneliness can warp your mind. Recently he's been calling my mam about 5 times a day crying, it's wearing her out as she can't really do anything - he keeps begging her to make us talk to him and begging her to meet up with him. She is reluctant to be alone with him as he is intimidating and always meets up with him in public, which she rarely has the energy to do. This is part of the reason these guilty feelings are coming to a head now - I feel bad for him, I feel bad for my mam and I feel bad that my first instinct is to find reasons NOT to reach out to him!! I even feel selfish that I'm pretty sure I'm trying to force myself to connect with him to make ME feel better and not him. I just keep picturing us getting a call to say he has killed himself (thank you anxiety!) and that then and only then will I regret not trying to help him.

Feelings are confusing

LegacyUser

Ellie2008 wrote: »

It's not anything to do with you OP but how anyone could remove an 11 year from his family for anything, I literally can't get my head around how anyone your parents or social services could think that was in his best interests, it clearly wasn't & has scarred the guy as an adult. If he was behaving in an unacceptable manner at 11 your parents should have faced up to their responsibilities as parents and dealt with it, if they needed help from social services fair enough but to essentially abandon their own child! That's morally reprehensible in my book.

I don't see it as your responsibility of course, you need to look after yourself as well. I don't really know what to say to you tbh, seems like a bit of a Catch 22 you're darned if you do or if you don't do it you"ll feel guilty. It is admirable that you care about him.

I understand what you mean but that's not the whole story. There was 7 of us in the family and 2 siblings passed away, my parents were struggling to cope. My brother was violent and angry - he carried knives everywhere with him, even to school, beat all of us and there was some inappropriate behavior that I don't want to discuss in detail. There were already social workers involved and my mam decided with them that my brother should stay in a social home for troubled teens for a few weeks for my parents to get a break and for him to get some help. But the social workers wouldn't let my parents even visit him for 3 months and after that they wouldn't let him leave (and at that point he didn't seem to want to). There were times we went to visit him and were turned away at the door. I spoke to a counselor recently about all of this and she was shocked about us not being allowed to visit etc - she said things are much, much different now.

LegacyUser

I literally can't get my head around how anyone your parents or social services could think that was in his best interests,

There were other children involved. Maybe it was in their best interests? It's idealistic and naive to think that under no circumstances should a child be removed from their family. I can only imagine it was a decision not taken lightly. It's was for people not in your situation, OP, to sit back and give opinion. It's easy for us who mightn't have family problems to advise you to reach out and do all you can. But people with good or "normal" family lives find it next to impossible to believe the problems that some families have. And I'm not talking about a tearaway teen, or a crooked aunt!

Unfortunately there are very real and very disturbing problems in some families. But, you as an ordinary person are not qualified to handle it. That's why, as suggested you need the help of a professional. Either personally, just for yourself, or as a family.

If life was easy and lovely for everyone there'd be no need for so many mental health professionals.