Insanity Laughs...

Bad Dreams Every Night

I either dream about my brother directly, or about people doing drugs and then getting killed.

Fuck off subconscious. Seriously.

I don’t get it.

Maybe this is childish or bitter of me, but let’s lay something out for you.

ME: A+ student my whole life, never got in trouble once, never had a detention, took all enrichment classes, praised by my teachers, used to go to church every Sunday with my mom, did chores around the house, volunteered on my free time, and when I moved away, got a degree, a career worthy job, and am ready to buy a house.

MY BROTHER: as a child he was a terrible student, always in trouble, suspended, detentions, skipped all the time, then as he got older he frequently stole, lied, started using cocaine, never held a job, frequently goes missing, committed bank fraud, has physically assaulted my father, verbally abusive to mom, and puts them through cycles of hell of going missing for periods of time, then showing up begging for help, then stealing from them and going missing again….and this has been going on for almost 10 years now.

WHY DON’T THEY EVER LISTEN TO ANYTHING I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS SITUATION OR REGARD MY FEELINGS AS VALID? My dad tells me to shut up about it when we try to talk about it, because he doesn’t want to hear it. He always tells me there’s no point in being upset about things and to just calm down.

So, despite the fact that I have the same opinion as everyone else who knows the situation, I am wrong, I need to stop trying to help my mom and dad and stop feeling upset about it.

And they continue to baby him and let him do whatever he wants.

HE’S 28 YEARS OLD, HOLY FUCK.

I actually hate my brother, and the way my parents baby him so goddamned much. I feel like I’m the bad child, I feel like they always get all negative on me and he gets no consequences for any bad thing he does, and they cook him dinner every night like some fucked up happy family.

I am thisclose to putting an ultimatum on the table - him and his drugs, or me.

When are you going to learn?

When are you going to learn that this action, letting that dipshit of a son of yours/brother of mine move in again, never leads to any good consequences? How many times are you going to allow yourselves to be emotionally abused, and robbed, before you realize that enough actually is enough?

“Well, it’s pretty hard, isn’t it?”

YES IT’S HARD BUT YOU HAVE TO DRAW A LINE SOMEWHERE!

It’s the most frustrating thing in the world to do everything you can to protect your parents’ feelings, and they don’t listen, and get hurt again. I feel like I am totally helpless every time this shit happens.

All he does is cause turmoil and long-lasting damage.

I HATE HIM. I HATE HIM I HATE HIM I HATE HIM. He is going to end up putting both of my parents into early graves due to the stress and heartbreak that happens over and over.

I called my mother to wish her a happy Mother’s day and this is the news they throw at me instead.

FUCKKKKK.

You and I.

We’re nothing alike.

I respect our family, you do not.

I have morals, you do not.

I care who I hurt, you do not.

Who the FUCK do you think you are?

You’re gone, mom and dad are depressed/hurt/disappointed/angry. Now I’m worried about them, and about the fact I can’t be there for them except over the phone.

I actually think you might be the most useless, braindead, selfish, inconsiderate twat on the planet. I actually think I hate you at this point.

There is no love left…any emotions I feel are toward the situation and mom and dad, not about you.

Don’t come back this time. Nobody wants you to.

Atheist Challenge Day 9

Even though you’re an atheist, have you ever experienced a moment that could be called “religious?” Like an epiphany about the world or complete peace?

Well, the following blog is probably going to make me sound crazy. I’ve told very few people this story, because I’m afraid people will think I’m looney, and here I am publishing it for the world to read. When I was in grade 12 (when I was still floating around somewhere between sort of religious and agnostic), we were in the midst of all sorts of problems with my brother. He had gone missing for about a week, and my parents were distraught, and my ability to be the strong one for both my mother and father was starting to crack.

I was in my bedroom, crying rather extensively. I felt completely helpless, and the amount of pressure I felt to be the glue that holds my family together was too much. I was only 17. I had never really prayed for anything too seriously, at this point, at any time in my life. I felt like, at that moment, all other options were explored and I said what the hell, and prayed.

And I prayed hard. I cried and cried as I did it, concentrating as hard as possible. I did it for I think at least an hour, I stopped keeping track of the time. All I wanted was for my brother to come home. I begged and pleaded with God. “Please let him come home. Please let my family be normal again. Please let him come home. Please don’t let him be dead. Please bring him home again.”

The next day was Sunday, and since I was still a Sunday School teacher for the nursery class at my church, in I went with my mother. She went upstairs, and I went to the hall underneath the church where the nursery room was. I was tidying up the mess that had been made by the Girl Guides that use the same space during the week, and the last thing I went to remove was a paper on the floor. I started to crumple it, and realized the texture wasn’t paper. It was a photograph. I picked it up, and there, in the middle of the church hall, was a baby photo of my brother and I.

Let me tell you, my heart nearly stopped. This photo, as far as I knew, should have been in that photo album in my mother’s closet covered in dust, beneath some shoe boxes. I’d seen the photo before, I knew that was where it came from. I had never brought it into the church for any reason, that I could remember. I showed my mom at the end of the church service, and she cried in the car. The feeling of finding this picture after the evening I’d spent the night before, was overwhelming. It was confusing, it was frightening, it made me question everything.

My brother was found and came home the next day.

It scared the shit out of me, and I became a bit more devout for a period of time. But then my uncle died, my mom’s best friend died a slow and painful death of cancer, my aunt got breast cancer, and all along, my brother’s problems got worse. He went missing for six months. Don’t think I didn’t try praying my guts out for him to come home again. He didn’t. The tears that flowed through my house, the amount of chaos and depression, was far worse than it was when I prayed that night in my room, my family’s life was in shambles. No help was offered.

It made me realize, despite how odd and coincidental all of those circumstances were at the church that day, it wasn’t God that reached down and stole that photo out of my mother’s photo album, to place it on the floor. I remember having it out of the photo album when I was in middle school a few years prior, because it was such a cute picture, and I remember bringing it to school to show my friends. I certainly could have brought it to the church, too, to show the other SS teachers or classmates, and just couldn’t remember when the overwhelming confusion set in when I found it.

If God cared so much about helping my brother, why does he still have those problems 7 years later? Why didn’t he help me when I prayed for anything else? Why didn’t he save my mother’s best friend, or my uncle or prevent my aunt from getting sick? Because, those prayers went unheard…just as the first ones about my brother were. There is nobody up there to hear them.

I think I did what any desperate person with a religious upbringing, would do, with the use of prayer. And, quite frankly, I’m glad this happened because it allowed me to question things, and really allow logic to work through the problem. There was no miracle that day, or any other day.

Some story, eh?

That awkward moment when you see the little girl you used to babysit talking about hotboxing on her facebook status.

YOU ARE A LITTLE GIRL, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?

YOU ARE ONLY…..oh wait. She’s a senior in high school.

The girl I used to babysit when I was in high school is a senior now?

I am an old woman.

That awkward moment when you walk into a room and Miley Cyrus thinks you’re Liam.