Been a very, very long time since I wrote anything here, despite how I often check the app for breaking news. Naturally, living through the Trumpster fire has got me down. And tonight, I’ve been brought even lower. My dumbass brother. Who’s pushed my liberal ideals about charity and being helpful to the very limit. And now I think I’ve been pushed beyond them.
Some background. Been a decade since he’s legally become an adult, and four years before that, our mother suffered a stroke and our father suffered back injuries after losing his job, leaving me to drop out of college and pick up the slack for quite a stretch. While I struggled to keep it all together, he would be a narcissistic ass and fly into rages and do stupid shit, threatening to upend everything I was working toward. For a long time, I hoped that by setting an example, he would come around and be a responsible adult. Instead, he keeps hitting rock bottom, has physically attacked me for trivial shit more than once (one time, me demanding money back), and needing help from the rest of us. Whether a place to stay rent free or co-signing for a car or the aftermath of TWO brief stints in jail. All while acting like he’s so smart and capable, and insisting he never gets quite enough help.
So now, a year after we all moved apart for good. and after me throwing about $25,000 at him over this stretch of time, he calls again. I more or less cut him off a couple months ago after he stiffed me on some money lent to him again, but now he says he hasn’t gone to his job (which he’s only had a few months) in a week, he’s got no food, and the car that I co-signed for (and PAID OFF when he kept insisting he needed help with payments month after month and I got sick of his excuses) is all busted. He claims he’s got employers needing drivers coming to him, and things will be better if it’s repaired, but I’ve heard such promising stories before. It seems to be an endless cycle with him. Oh, and his politics… He claims he’s so enlightened and can see all sides, but seems to always take up Fox talking points lately. To the point he opened up in tonight’s call with bitching about the unfairness of Kavanaugh’s accuser smearing him, and how it compares to one of his arrests. And he’s brushed aside things like the shitty disaster response in Puerto Rico, claiming Puerto Rico took advantage of the rest of the country for years.
Am I justified in saying enough is enough? He’s saying he’s suicidal, but he’s pulled that card before, and he shows all the signs of Trumpian narcissism so I have to assume it’s a ploy to some degree. He claims he needs mental health and not getting it keeps him from holding a job, but knowing him, whatever suggestions I give or resources I point him towards will be rebuffed. The only solutions he tends to accept is my parents and I expending time and money on HIM, while he’s hardly ever offered up help the few times he was in a position to lend it. I consider myself a liberal and believe help should be given to those in need, but he’s burned me again and again, and there’s nothing to show for it. My finances aren’t that great, and the pattern over the years with him is clear. If I do leave him to his fate at long last, do I get to still consider myself progressive?
EDIT: Wow, such outpouring of advice and support at this late hour. Thanks so much, even though I mostly lurk! And yeah, for tonight I shut off my phone, and if he calls tomorrow I’ll direct him to some mental health resources and tell him to look into government assistance. The latter which he’ll refuse, of course, but I’ve given all I can.