I tried to post this under a new account – but maybe it was too long & the account was new – I don’t know and I don’t care. I wanted privacy, but I need feedback more. SO if you see this twice – under two names, that is why.
This is going to be long. It is regarding my FOO.
Over the summer my DH and I discovered that my brother had been using heroin. We thought it was fairly new issue. We called over my parents to talk to them and formulate a plan as a family on how to address it.
Growing up my brother and I were really close, we continued to be close. When I had my DS I had horrible baby blues, and my brother was the only person who seemed to find the right words to make me feel like things might be okay again one day. He means a lot to me.
When my parents came over, I happened to mention that they should not let him handle their finances anymore, because he might start stealing money from them. When I said this, it seemed the flood gates had opened. My Mom started mentioning strange things regarding their finances, how my brother insisted on paying everything, handling the accounts, handling their paychecks (he had them get physical ones). So we started doing research and discovered that there were no accounts in their name, their retirements had been cashed out, their savings accounts had been cleared out & their home had gone into foreclosure a couple of years ago, unbeknownst to them. (I can explain how this happened without their knowing further, if it seems important). Basically, what we thought was just a budding problem, went back four years.
Truth be told, we knew there was a problem. Just did not know what it was. When my DS was born, I was very hesitant to let him be around my brother without supervision. I think it was just an instinct, that even if I didn’t know what it was that something was wrong and I would never forgive myself for letting my brother be alone with him. I didn’t want my DS to be alone in my parents’ home and this caused a lot of problems between me and my parents, because they didn’t understand & I didn’t have any words to explain myself. I am so glad I did not let him go there, because when my brother left (explained in a second) my parents found a whole bagful of used needles under their bed! At the time my DS would have been crawling and definitely was a curious George. Also, all around my brothers room and the house we found random pills when we finally cleaned it out. My parents noticed strange behavior. Unfortunately, as family we didn’t want to assume the worst without “proofâ€. My parents are immigrants, and so some of the things they noticed, that perhaps parents who had grown up in the US may have identified as drug paraphenilia, my parents just never were able to figure out.
We decided that we had to do an intervention and contacted a company. We did the whole weekend and got my brother out to a rehab in California. After he left, my DH and I were left to clean up the mess that he had left behind. The stuff we have discovered about my brother since that day in July is unbelievable. I thought I knew my brother, but really he was a stranger walking around in a familiar body, using that familiarity to manipulate everyone around him into giving him what he wanted. I have grown very afraid of my brother.
After my parents left I had to see some of the most horrible things in my life. Things I have worked really hard to never have to witness. I saw my parents hearts break. They had not only lost everything they ever worked for, but also discovered in excess of 100K in debt – they have to declare bankruptcy. They lost their car because we found out he had been arrested in that car a few months before we discovered his use. My mother had to sell all her jewelry – on the day my brother left for rehab my parents had $500 dollars in their pocket from uncashed pay checks. My DH – God Bless this man – really stepped up and helped. While I could have acted unilaterally I would never do that to my marriage, he supported me in purchasing a new home for them and a new car. We have arrangements with them for payment plan, not only to help pay back the debt, but also for their own dignity and pride.
Things seemed to be getting back on track for a while – I should have known something was up, it was almost too perfect. My brother was in treatment and sending regular communication that things were tough but okay. Then one day, I contacted his rehab and was told that he was asked to leave one week after arriving because of drug use. Basically, he was lying again. We discovered that he had found his way back to our home state and was not in treatment, jumping from house to house, obviously back on drugs. This was the last straw for my DH and I and we CO’d him.
My parents could not do the same. Since then my brother has been arrested, gone into another rehab, been kicked out and been arrested again. Every time he screws up my parents call me in a panic about what to do. He continues to manipulate them and ask for money. I have asked them countless times not to call me about him, I want to pretend like I do not have a brother – it disturbs me and I feel satisfied that as a sister I have done everything I can to help him out, I feel no regret in my actions towards him. I do not want to worry about that which I cannot control! They want to give him money, and bring him into the home we purchased for them. I have no illusions that they will do what I tell them to do. The only limit my DH and I have put on them is that they not bring him into the home we bought for them, because we do not want to be connected to him in any legal way – we suspect he was dealing drugs at one point, if he continues to do that and deals again and gets arrested, we might lose the property and our names would obviously be connected to this mess.
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Yesterday – again – my parents called me, and my DH (because I didn’t pick up right away) about how they contacted his newest rehab and discovered that he was not there anymore. Where we live it is very cold right now. They were worried about my brother being out on the streets, dying of the cold, etc., their normal hysterics whenever this happens. This morning they discovered that he had been transported to a hospital due to a suicide attempt. He stated that he felt hopeless and wanted to put my parents out of their misery (obviously he’s very reasonable you see).
I am a social worker, so I know to take any suicide attempt as serious. The thing is, yes, he was desperate enough to do something that could have led to death. However, his means were non-lethal and he picked a method that he is very intimately familiar with. In addition to using heroin, he used a a lot of sleeping pills. He is aware of how much his body can handle. He used sleeping pills to try to commit suicide. When his rehab tried to wake him in the morning he did not wake, they came back two hours later – upon discovering a note (which they seemed to miss the first time) they called 911. My brother knows how many sleeping pills to take, in 3 hours he would have been dead.
I feel that he is desperate to get back into his old life. I think the work he has to do in the life he is living now does not seem worth it. To him the risk of dying was worth it because either way it would have worked, either he would be dead, or if he survived there is NO WAY my parents are not going to give into his demands. He wants money, he wants to be free to do what he wants to do, and he doesn’t want to be questioned anymore.
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I have made clear to my parents that they can do what they want. I do not want to hear about my brother, they need to turn to family, friends, or their therapist (I have also suggested nar-anon) for support. I have my own feelings about this and I cannot handle theirs. Yet they continue to contact me. On the one hand I want to know – because well who doesn’t – but I know it makes me miserable and takes me out of my life. I don’t want to even know something is going on, that way I won’t be curious. They are addicted to him and I want off this roller coaster. The last few times this happened I told them I would not talk to them for a month – I followed through.
Now I think they are going to want to bring him into the house again. I have made clear – as stated earlier – that he cannot move into the place we purchased for them. They will have to move out. I am just so angry that they might be considering this – they implied as much to my DH when he talked to them about this issue today. I mean, is it time to CO them too if they do this?
I just don’t know, I feel so jaded that they would put me and my marriage through such hell (and while DH has been supportive, this has been fucking stressful on my marriage – we are finally starting to feel normal again, since we CO my brother) and will just throw it all away like this. I just feel like they are choosing to have a dysfunctional relationship with my brother and I do not want to be a part of this. This roller coaster is never going to end if they aren’t willing to like be tough and say the only way he is going to have a life worth living is going through the hard work of rehab. Right?
They are amazing, BEYOND AMAZING, gp to my son. My son loves them so much – all day long he asks to speak to his Nanu (my father) on the phone and wants to seep pictures of himself with them. Not at all boundary stompers, so loving and attentive – outside of my brother my relationship with them is really important and special to me. I just feel like this problem with my brother will never end and they will get further sucked into it – there won’t be space for the parts of the relationship I love with them. Please provide feed back – I just need some objective perspectives.
I am sorry – this is very long.