Knowing when and if you are helping or not

[freemickey]

Hi there,

 

I'd like to get some of your feedback on a pressing matter,

 

I have been procrastinating about calling my brother after completely terminating my communication with our parents. I want to extend an invitation to talk if he would like, about why I will not converse with our parents any longer and what effects their parenting has had on me. I want to share this with him because he is a new father, and I fear he will unknowingly pass our parents abuse and neglect on to his daughter. He knows our father is abusive but he would not call it that, but our mother is completely off the hook and works hard to maintain her ignorance. We have talked about my recent experience finding myself,  taking the time to think about our past and the strong emotions that I unearthed, but he maintains it's not worth thinking about and I can predict will become more deflective if I get off the topic of myself. 

 

From what I have worked hard to understand, and using my own personality as indicator, my mother was neglectful and apathetic to me. She has an almost complete lack of empathy towards me and is passive aggressive and manipulative which I was able to observe when I tried to re-connect with her several times over the phone (I live on the other side of the country) and put my self in a very vulnerable state. The conversations each were subject to her denial, minimizing, criticising, demanding forgiveness, disowning any responsibility and then aggression in text messages followed by complete disrespect towards me and a simple request to stop texting me and to call me instead.  I was expected to move on and go back to the "way it was before."  I now believe she was a functioning alcoholic as I remember most evenings there would be a wineglass in her hand.

 

I have no memories of her companionship when I was a small child, although I know she was around the home. I can remember feeling alone for a very long time, and empty rooms... It was painful writing this line and I am continuing to process everything with a councillor. 

 

Our dad sucks. I'm sure his parents were terrible as my mother will state and he will admit that his abusive parenting is all he knows. He is very sadistic in that he creates dependent victims which he can abuse. I am just seeing it wholly as I read more into psychology and unravel my history but I get that he feels impotent and seeks power over others. Verbal abuse is commonplace with him ever since my brother and I grew larger than him in our mid teens even though we were skinny as twigs. He is quite short, thank god for that. He claims he sacrificed his whole life for us. I've once herd him speak of how much he despises us to an absolute stranger when he thought no one else would hear.

 

Thats a basic profile of the negative aspects of my parents....but onto what I would like to hear your feedback on,

 

 

My brother is 27. He lives across the country. His to be wife just had a baby girl in November of 2014. 

 

He is completely enmeshed in my father's business and is dependent on my father now for his livelihood. My father put the money down for the house my brother bought. My brother works for my father managing a fast food restaurant. My brother's to be wife I can't say I know much about, avoids eye contact with me. My brother experiences tremendous migraines that render him immobile from time to time. I am not aware of how frequent they are now but he does refer to them as still being present. He had a brain scan several years ago and it was diagnosed as not a physical ailment. 

 

I am implying that he has experienced similar trauma growing up from our parents and is unwise to it like I was. I think my relationship with my brother is worth salvaging or at least attempting to salvage but  I could not handle this knowledge under the circumstance he is in.  I cannot pretend there isn't a high risk he will continue the cycle of abuse if he remains unaware. I am torn because this sounds like the attempted rescue which can't be done. Any serious conversations we have about family are met with deflection or topic changes. I am finding it hard to act on this presumption that a child I have never met can have a better life because I do something or share something with her parents. I think it's worth trying so but I don't want to miscalculate my intent. I want my brother to be happy and experience the joy raising his daughter can provide. I think there is another way to approach this other than what I am hesitant to do, which is to just tell him to let me know if he wants to talk about it, because I think he already told me he doesn't. But I think that is all I can do.

I would appreciate hearing what you think on the matter.
 

 

 

[shirgall]

The point of DeFOO is to separate yourself from people that continually cause you emotional pain. It sounds like your parents still say and do things that harm you, but you did not describe anything your brother did to harm you and that, in fact, he seems to be suffering from something that you could help with.

 

If you think you can keep your brother in your life without frequent reopenings of old wounds, it's probably worth trying to save him. His avoidance of painful topics, however, makes it sound like a challenge to push for therapy and peaceful parenting as his cure.

[AynRand]

I am so sorry to hear of your abusive childhood. Is your brother pursuing a relationship with you? I would imagine that your relationship would be very tense as a result of rejecting communication from your parents who sign your brothers paychecks, and as a result he may take the side of your parents. I of course don't know the intricacies of your relationship with your brother, and could very possibly be entirely wrong.

 

I do think if you can find value in having a relationship with your brother then you should contact him, and if you can inform him on peaceful parenting then I believe you will have done him and his daughter a great service. Hopefully this will have advantages for you as well.

[freemickey]

Still trying to get a skype call going with my brother. It seems like he is creating excuses to avoid my attempts to contact him now. I'll keep you posted.