4. Brotherly Love

“The younger brother must help to pay for the pleasures of the elder.” – Jane Austen

My brother is 2 years older than me almost to the day and has had his own colourful life, but that’s his story to tell. What I can do however, is tell the story of our personal relationship and how things played out between us.

As thick as thieves…

When we were little, we spent most of our spare time together, we slept in the same bedroom and we enjoyed doing the same things. Usually, it would be drawing a large picture on a sheet of wallpaper that my Mum would give us, running around outside, riding our bikes or just playing with toys in the house. There was always the older brother paradigm where he ran things, controlled things but it was never overly intrusive in my life. In the days of primary school, the lad who punched me in the back of the head got a good old taste of brotherly love when my brother found out, he grabbed him over a wall by his hair and threatened him for touching me. Sadly, as we got older, we became two very different individuals with different drives and goals.

Enemy in the camp…

As my brother got into early teenage years his attitude changed dramatically, he became more unstable, untrustworthy and selfish. I was now his plaything and was to be abused, used and above all else embarrassed. He would state ‘nobody could hit my brother, other than me’, it was his tagline for defending me which in hindsight is probably one of the most controlling things he ever did. My brother was a fighter, he was good at it, and was respected by his peers, I was the opposite and he knew this. He defended me in high school all the way until he got expelled (he had a fight with a teacher) and was moved to a different school, I was on my own at that point, the first of many let-downs.   

Why do you do this…

Please allow me to set the scene of our lives at this point, we both smoked, we both had questionable thievery issues in our shop, and we had both changed.

If he thought it would cause him gratification, he would tell my parents that I had cigarettes and they would search me. If he was being truly kind, he would kick my bedroom door open to catch me masturbating (I was a young teenager, what else do you do with your free time?) and mock me for it, and also tell people. If he was being kind to me, then something was wrong, usually it meant he’d stole something from me and wanted to cover his tracks. He decided once to pull my shorts and underwear down in front of my girlfriend who I lost my virginity with, so I was on show, I was sleeping with her so I’m not sure what was achieved there but the intent was clear. He also turned to me and decided it would be prudent to tell me ‘I can take your girlfriend from you, whenever I want’. He bullied my friends in my bedroom, he gave me no peace and made sure I knew he was in control. By this point the attacks were daily and the constant intrusion into my life and privacy really affected me, it was just constant stress about when the next event will occur.

I thought I was glad you left…

At around 18 my brother was given his own flat, paid for by my parents and food delivered from the shop to his door every week, just to get him out of the house. At this point he was into metal music, and dressed as such; effectively making himself unemployable, with the ridiculous anarchist attitude of ‘I won’t conform to society’. His flat turned into what I could only describe as a crack den but without the crack (I hope). He would have over so many people that were his kind of people, the house was disgusting. I remember a morning where I told friends I could get some weed and proceeded to travel up the road to my brother’s.

I opened the back door and just walked in, the place stank of drugs, sweat and smoke. There were people asleep on the sofas, the floors and even in the bathroom. I blundered around with nobody waking and went to a draw I’d seen him use, inside was a large bag of weed. I skimmed some off the top and then I wondered where my brother was, I stepped over bodies in the hallway and headed to his bedroom. I closed the door and made a quick escape after seeing a naked woman, and my naked brother sprawled on the bed in a bedroom that looked like a bomb had gone off. I do feel sorry for whoever that landlord was when he left.

Invasion…

At the age of 22 I moved back in with my parents in Didsbury, Manchester, as I had nowhere else to go.

My brother at this time had not spoken to my parents for over 2 years and I was working as a master parts advisor for Toyota. I took it upon myself to re-connect them, I finally got my brother and my mother to speak on the phone and it was a happy moment as I watched them re-connect.

My brother and I did have one similar interest at this point that took up a lot of our time, fruit machines (gambling machines). This will all be covered in a future article though, as it was a big part of my life.

As my brother saw an opportunity to take, he built on that as was his Modus operandi for his life. He came around once when my parents were on holiday, my girlfriend and I enjoyed his company for the most part but there’s always a time for a guest to leave. My girlfriend and I were tired and just wanted to go to bed, but my brother wanted to stay. I turned to my girlfriend whilst he’d gone to the toilet and stated, ‘I just want him to leave’, he heard me.

At that point I was too far removed from being nice that I just started telling him what I thought, and he should just leave. His reaction was so him that he decided it was our parent’s apartment, and he had as much right being there as me. It ended in me being pushed into a corner and punched in the left eye, I still have the scar where the blood poured from my face as he showed just how much control he had. My parents were told the story that I was mugged at a cashpoint and hence I had a new cut above my eye.

It would take about 6 months until the truth came out, my parents were having a go at me about my brother and why I let him in the apartment. I screamed in my parents’ face about the scar and how when they’re not around I cannot control him. If he wants to come into the apartment, he will. I was truly between a rock and a hard place, I couldn’t win.

I got your back…

My parents had effectively washed their hands and wanted me out, they paid for a room in a shared house with an Albanian guy, 2 Spanish guys and 1 English woman who was sleeping with the Albanian.

It was the worst, I walked in and the kitchen was a bomb site, every possible plate, piece of cutlery and any other kitchen utensil was just left dirty on the side. The living room was just full of used glasses and plates. I spent a good hour cleaning everything whilst I was on my own in the house. The others came home and thanked me for cleaning, but it only took them a couple of days to return everything to the previous state, after that I wasn’t about to do it again. Living there was noisy, messy and kept me on edge all the time, I hated it. It didn’t last long however as I ended up having a fight with the Albanian, it was over my girlfriend at the time and I having a shouting match in the bedroom. After the small altercation I’d had enough, with the house, with my girlfriend and with the horrible people in my life; I proceeded to smash my head into a small window.

An ambulance was called at this point, where I was taken to hospital and received 14 stitches in my head. After I returned to the house I called my brother and told him what had happened, he was living in a bedsit at the time (own bedroom with a shared kitchen and bathroom) and he offered to speak to the landlord about me getting one of the bedrooms. A couple of days later I left the house and moved into the bedsit, my brother came to help me move to make sure nobody messed with me as I was leaving.

There are many things that happened during this period, but I do only want to focus on my brother for this section, but I felt it necessary to explain how I ended up where I did.

Ctrl+Alt+Del…

Things started off well enough, we cooked our food together, we played computer games together and we did our shopping together. I started noticing the hints of control appear as he would choose the food, he would decide when to cook and he would decide what was shared.

I was drinking a lot at this point, well as much as I could being unemployed. This brought on its own issues, as my form of escape, I would play music quite loud and draw pictures which would cause my brother to go into meltdown. It got to the point where I would have to try and sneak alcohol into my bedroom (I was in my 20’s) so he wouldn’t scream at me. I devised ways such as hanging an aerial cable out of my bedroom window so I could attach a bag to it downstairs, return to my room past my brother’s watchful eye and then pull the bag up through the window. Around this time, I was fully spiralling, my depression made itself truly apparent and the anxiety came along for the party.

My brother as with my parents just didn’t get it, he didn’t understand or want to, it was better to pretend that everything was fine rather than help me deal with it. I’d started on antidepressants around this time and my brother was not happy about that, he did attempt to stop me taking them, but I refused. My brother eventually moved into his own flat around the corner with the same landlord, so I had some respite from the control. As I could now distance myself from him it made our relationship easier, we’d often have a friend over to my brother’s flat where we’d smoke weed and play on the Playstation but there were always the underlying issues.

As I got older, we saw less and less of each other and when we did meet up or talk on the phone it always turned into an argument. Eventually my brother got into some trouble with a gangster and had to move down to London to stay with my parents, he then got enough cash together and moved to Australia. He’s now successful, married with children and I haven’t spoken to him in about 4 years.

He will continue to pop up in various articles along the way where I can go into more details about certain events.

My Emotions

I love my family in my own way, no matter the issues of the past. I am however surprised how little my brother and me not speaking bothers me. I do feel sad that things were never better between us, and disappointed that I’ll never engage with that side of my family. But not having my brother in my life also takes a weight off my shoulders, there’s to be no more judgement, no more control and no more threat. A part of me will always hope for better but it’s not something I can afford to use energy on.

What would I change?

With things the way they were, I don’t believe there’s anything I could have changed to make it better. He was always going to be who he was, and so was I. Most likely though, if something were to change, I would have probably tried to lose contact with him earlier, and just keep him out of my life.

Any Advice?

Sometimes it’s better to walk away from someone than it is to try and change them. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re being controlled by a family member, you must remember to stay in control, every answer you give should be focused and lack emotion, people like my brother thrive on conflict.

You should always strive to be true to yourself, and don’t change yourself too much to please someone else. And once the option is yours, you should decide immediately if you want to remain in any kind of relationship with the person, if no, then simply walk away and break contact. The pain of walking away from a family member will subside, but if you continue in the relationship because of that, the pain of staying in the relationship could be far greater along the way.