Childhood feelings of guilt towards my brother

[OtherOtie]

Hey everyone, I've been thinking a lot lately about my relationship with my younger brother, and one thing that's sort of stuck out to me is a few instances of bullying that occurred on my part. I never thought I was malicious, but looking back on it I feel regretful towards some of the things I did and said to him growing up.

 

I'm only five years older than him, so all of this was during my childhood as well. I remember playing the part of the torturous older brother. It wasn't a constant thing, but once in a while I would slip into that archetype. There were certain things that scared him (something from an episode of Spongebob, in particular) and I remember finding it hilarious to lock him in a room with that playing on the VCR and watch him freak out. I suppose it was funny to me because I thought it was silly how an episode of Spongebob could cause him to react with such fear, but looking back, it was really monstrous of me. On another occasion I got him to play one of those online maze games that end in a screamer, and he was traumatized for about a month (and probably longer), and I found it hilarious at the time. Again, really fucked up on my part.

 

Another time my cousins and I were playing with toys or something and since he was younger he kind of bogged us down since our imagination levels were a few years ahead of his, so we sort of excluded him. At which point we found him crying upstairs talking to himself saying "what did they do to me" and weeping. At the time we all found this hilarious and it was a running joke for years. Now when I look back on it I consider it heartbreaking and I want to go hug him.

 

I've also called him fat or chubby or insulted his weight during arguments when I was around 13 or 14. He's not fat at all anymore and is actually in more shape than I am, but that's incidental. I shouldn't have made fun of him for those things.

 

Most of the time our relationship was very close and we had many laughs and spent a lot of time playing and watching cartoons and so forth. But in the past few years we've grown distant and I feel this shame around him. I didn't know why until I started recalling all of this, and I feel that it may be part of the issue. 

 

I have no problem saying that those things were wrong of me, but the problematic part is the following... First, I'm not sure how much responsibility I could realistically take for the way my childhood self behaved towards my younger brother. After all, I was still quite young, yet I feel responsible. Second, I don't feel like I can really apologize because I don't know how much my brother actually consciously knows that I've wronged him. I feel that if I were to bring it up, he would basically just laugh it off and consider it just a series of funny jerkish things I did to him back then. But it's really more significant than that - I just don't know if he knows it, and he might not appreciate the apology if he's not even aware there's a wound.

 

Any thoughts? 

[dsayers]

Hello. Can I assume that your parents either abused your or allowed you to be abused? I think this is indisputable and yes, it would mean that you were limited in terms of responsibility. However, for you to present day be morally conscious of it, there is nothing wrong with apologizing to him and trying to make amends. If he accepts your apology, the two of you can explore how it came to pass and it might help him to process the abuse/neglect of your parents that the two of you shared. Yes it might be uncomfortable for him and he may even choose to avoid it all. It's not your decision to make though.

 

If you are motivated to repair the damage, I think you should act on that.

[Mike Fleming]

I had a very similar situation.  My brother was 3 years younger and there were quite a few times where I would bully him.  Mostly it was just trying to verbally aggravate him enough so that he would throw the first punch, and myself, always being bigger than him could easily overpower him.  It was basically a power thing, where I sort of showed that I had power over him.  It was because I was so powerless in the face of my parent's bullying fundamentally, more a reaction than anything else.

 

We didn't get on that great in our early 20's, the bad blood was still there, but slowly the relationship started to mend.  In the intervening years we have both helped each other out in very significant ways and are good friends now.  The subject of our childhood never was brought up until a couple of years ago where I told him that I felt bad about it and I was sorry.  He mostly just passed it off saying "geez, Mike we were kids don't worry".  Which is partly true, but I felt it needed to be said anyway.  What his experience of the conversation was I'm not sure.  Whether it meant anything to him or whether it was just "Mike is being a bit silly", I don't know, but we are better friends than we have ever been today.  There is no sniping or making fun at the other's expense, which is so common in the rest of the family.  So I feel in my situation I have come full circle.

 

I would say that just treat him how you yourself would like to be treated.  Apologise if you want to.  If he doesn't take it seriously there's really nothing else you can do.  

 

Is he someone you would like as a friend?  Forget the fact that you share some DNA, is he a person you want to spend time with?  If the answer is yes, then do what you can, invite him round, call him to see how he is going, stuff like that.  If it doesn't work out, it probably isn't meant to.  If he's not all that interested in seeing you or talking to you it may not necessarily be childhood stuff to blame.  Many siblings grow apart.  I've never really believed in the whole blood brothers thing myself.  The thing about myself and my brother is that we share so much in common, including anarchism (he was there years before I was) and so it's easy for us to want to be friends.

 

Also I've just thought, have you talked to him about your mutual experiences with your parents?  I mean REALLY talked about them with him.  In depth.   Parents often try to keep siblings somewhat seperated so they can't validate their feelings and experience.  The parents then are able to emotionally isolate their children.  Myself and my brother starting to discuss these things brought everything regarding my parents out into the open where before it was suspicions and me wondering if I was the one in the wrong all the time.