Justmehere
Sponsor
My father is a rage-aholic. He's been drinking like a fish to self medicate it away. I was the target of his abuse as a child. My brother not so much. He has validated the abuse for years, and his status as the golden boy and mine as the black sheep. I'm the family scapegoat. I was the first to react, I was the first to set boundaries as a teenager, I was the first to say enough, and my father held it against me. My brother kept validating the abuse over and over... and my struggle with it. I haven't always handled it well, but I have changed. I used to just freak out being around my father as a kid... I dunno. It's complicated. I haven't handled it all perfect as an adult but the mistakes I made were more than 15 years ago. I was very young. Everyone in the family recognizes my mental health is ok enough now, whatever that means. All the same, my brother said out of the blue 7 years ago that he felt like he had to pick my father or me. He picked my father. Again and again. We used to be really close until he started doing that as an adult. My door has always been open. And broken.
Someone in our family died young of alcoholism and my brother was here to visit for the memorial. It was strange to see him after 7 years. He spoke to me, and eventually after two days of family gatherings, and seeing he was acting really strange about my father... we got a chance to talk. Just the two of us. He seemed really down, thousand yard stare, shakey. I chit chatted with him about life, his kids, all that... just to reconnect. He had been making remarks to everyone about our parents being a handful, so I mentioned if he needed help with our mother, I'm here. Just a phone call away. He then disclosed to me that he became the target (his word) of my father's rage recently and cut him off. No contact. My parents used to watch his kids daily all day. Now? My father can't be around them and my mother only gets a supervised walk for 30 minutes once a month. She's safe when she's away from our father, she's just unwilling to to stop him. Good boundaries by my brother. They make sense. He said he understands why I responded the way I did to our father.
Meanwhile, my father is being really weird, trying to be friendly to me when usually he won't even admit I exist. Oh yeah, my parents are here. Holy moly...
It's now just my mother and father out here (with various extended family members). They leave tomorrow. I spoke briefly with my mother. We were being cordial and I was giving a tour of my city to extended family they were all inside a store while we waited outside.... and we had a quite moment to ourselves. I told her I talked to my brother and I was concerned and I hoped our father would get help, like counseling. My mother only commented she would work on helping these men get along. "No mom. He needs help. He needs to stop scaring everyone. This isn't we all need to just get along. And when I set boundaries you didn't try to make anything ok, you told me to get a new family. That's really hurtful to now say you will try to make this all ok. You can't. Dad has to get help. He won't if you keep trying to make it all ok all the time."
She shrugged it off as she always does... my brother lamented about this too...
That's the context of the situation.
Here's the thing:
After talking and then leaving for the airport, my brother's sister in law emailed me - I haven't connected with her in 7 years... and she said she was very thankful we reconnected and that their young kids ask about me.
My question I could use feedback on:
Any thoughts about how I respond to my sister-in-law's email?
Someone in our family died young of alcoholism and my brother was here to visit for the memorial. It was strange to see him after 7 years. He spoke to me, and eventually after two days of family gatherings, and seeing he was acting really strange about my father... we got a chance to talk. Just the two of us. He seemed really down, thousand yard stare, shakey. I chit chatted with him about life, his kids, all that... just to reconnect. He had been making remarks to everyone about our parents being a handful, so I mentioned if he needed help with our mother, I'm here. Just a phone call away. He then disclosed to me that he became the target (his word) of my father's rage recently and cut him off. No contact. My parents used to watch his kids daily all day. Now? My father can't be around them and my mother only gets a supervised walk for 30 minutes once a month. She's safe when she's away from our father, she's just unwilling to to stop him. Good boundaries by my brother. They make sense. He said he understands why I responded the way I did to our father.
Meanwhile, my father is being really weird, trying to be friendly to me when usually he won't even admit I exist. Oh yeah, my parents are here. Holy moly...
It's now just my mother and father out here (with various extended family members). They leave tomorrow. I spoke briefly with my mother. We were being cordial and I was giving a tour of my city to extended family they were all inside a store while we waited outside.... and we had a quite moment to ourselves. I told her I talked to my brother and I was concerned and I hoped our father would get help, like counseling. My mother only commented she would work on helping these men get along. "No mom. He needs help. He needs to stop scaring everyone. This isn't we all need to just get along. And when I set boundaries you didn't try to make anything ok, you told me to get a new family. That's really hurtful to now say you will try to make this all ok. You can't. Dad has to get help. He won't if you keep trying to make it all ok all the time."
She shrugged it off as she always does... my brother lamented about this too...
That's the context of the situation.
Here's the thing:
After talking and then leaving for the airport, my brother's sister in law emailed me - I haven't connected with her in 7 years... and she said she was very thankful we reconnected and that their young kids ask about me.
My question I could use feedback on:
Any thoughts about how I respond to my sister-in-law's email?