A Lifetime of Resentment
Dealing with the brother I never wanted
Disclaimer: I take edibles occasionally for pain. They sometimes make me introspective. This is one of those times. So, I apologize in advance for the literary word vomit I am about to subject you to. It’s a lot. But, I need to get it out and be done with it affecting me.
I was adopted at birth. My parents couldn’t have children but wanted them so they turned to adoption. This was before IVF and what not. My mother grew up in Kansas and met my dad at Wichita State University. Her family doctor knew of their desire to adopt and had a young patient that was pregnant and unwed which was a big no-no back in 1969 so she wanted a loving family to be my parents. I was born in June and they took me home from the hospital. I have an amazing birth mother story which I will go into in a future post.
I had so much love and attention. I was the first grandchild on my mom’s side of the family and we lived with my grandpa (my dad’s dad who had a stroke) in Illinois for my first couple years so family was always around and I was the center of their universe.
My dad worked for Union 76 and was transferred to Minneapolis in 1971 when I was 2. So here we are in Bloomington MN with no family as my grandfather moved to Colorado Springs to be near his daughter’s family - my aunt and cousins. Life was blissful. I, as a toddler, had no idea that my parents were looking to add to the family. It isn’t as though my mom was pregnant for 9 months and we could talk about the baby that was going to join our family. That would have been a common transition and I would be happy for a new baby brother and sister.
Instead, my parents got a call from Catholic Charities because they had a birth mom that had requested a Catholic family and they were next on the list. So, at six weeks old, my brother David was brought home. No easing into it for almost 3 year old me. More like….Here is a baby and he is going to take up a lot of our attention so you better get used to it. I firmly believe this affected me. On many levels. The main one being loss of my mom’s attention.
Image: Jade Brookbank
My brother became her everything. Her favorite. The boy who could do no wrong. And I was left to fend for myself. Thank goodness I was a daddy’s girl. My dad, until he passed from lung cancer in 2015, was my world. I have such vivid memories of my childhood and my dad. I have very little of my mom. All my memories of my mom include my brother David. I never got to hang with my mom - just the two of us. But my dad and I did everything together - bike rides, fixing the car, yard work, and office work.
Nothing I did made my mom proud. If it did, she never told me. I had to fish for compliments. Ask her if she was proud of me, etc. I only existed when the family had to do something. My brother and I were never close. He was an annoying brat that was always around bugging me and I was always the one getting into trouble when he did. My mom was a housewife. So, she was always the one dealing with my brother and me. When my dad came home it was always “Jodi did this…Jodi did that.” My dad, never once got on my case about it. I think he knew and understood the situation. Example: I was 8 and my brother was 5. He came into my room while I had a friend over and he peed on my bed. Right there next to us because we weren’t paying attention to him. I remember it well. It was horrifying. And gross. I was so embarrassed. Ashamed really. I spent the rest of my childhood playing at other homes and outside so I didn’t have to deal with him. I was a friendly kid. I would introduce myself as “Hi I’m Jodi and I’m adopted!” I was proud of it. Mostly, I didn’t want people to think I was related to my brother.
When I was in Jr high school, my mom decided to sell oil paintings with a company called Home Galleries. It is like Tupperware Parties only it is art that is sold. She was always driving to the home office or parties. She loved it and was good at it. But that meant many afternoons and evenings where she was gone because she was hosting art parties at people’s homes. So, my brother and I were left to fend for ourselves a lot. We were Latchkey kids. My dad would work late or go to his home office after dinner and my mom would be doing her new thing. This led to my brother getting into trouble. First, with little things like stealing from neighbor’s garages. Later - drugs and alcohol. The only time I spent with my mom was doing unpaid work for her new venture.
1985 sucked. My brother’s summer CCD teacher, Colleen, was cute, 19, and in community college. She groomed and molested my brother. She was a senior in high school when I was a freshman so I knew her! This woman would call our house and ask to speak to my brother all the time. Why is his CCD teacher calling him? I knew it was weird. Wrong. And I told her so on the phone. I told my mom and dad. No one listened. My parents even agreed for him to go on a ski trip with her as the “chaperone” and a couple of his 13-year-old friends. And no one thought it was strange that they ended up spending the night at a hotel because “something happened to her car.” His buddies were in one bed and he was in bed with her. This came out because his friends told me.
I threatened her after that. I told her I would take all the information to the authorities and church if she ever contacted him again. I also said if I ever saw her I would kick her ass. I should have done it anyway. She quit CCD teaching and disappeared with her husband.
My brother hated me more than ever after that. He knew I had done something. I pretended like I had no idea what he was talking about. Years later, it all came out in family therapy. I was proven right but I was vilified by my mom for letting it happen. She said I should have done something. I think that was the trigger that turned my brother’s psychological switch. Cooked his psychiatric brain. Turned on the crazy.
At this point, our whole family was in therapy. I was 16 and my brother was heavily into marijuana. Which I find hilarious now that it was such an issue. It is organic, it helps me with pain and I believe it shouldn’t be illegal. But back then in the 80s and 90s, how many kids do you remember that went to rehab? A bunch. My brother was one of them. Rehab just made things worse. He was mad at them. Home life turned into constant shouting matches. My mom let David take it out on her and his words were so hateful. My dad defended my mom while she defended David. Circle of life in our household.
I got a job after school and on weekends at Kmart “The Saving Place“ because my dad agreed it would give me experience as well as money. Literally, the saving place for me. I think he knew I was suffocating. He got me a used car - a Mazda GLC - and I was responsible for gas and insurance. My dad was big on teaching me financial responsibility. He and I did the work on the car like oil change, tire rotation, etc. I learned a lot about cars from my dad. That car and my job at Kmart were my life raft. I had a huge social life and met lifelong friends as well as my ex-husband there. A story for another day. If you want to see me working there, here is a video. I am around the 57-second mark hiding behind a folder at the service desk.
I resented my brother for the fact I had to go to therapy. I hated him for the stress he put on my parents. I could see it affecting their marriage. It was embarrassing to me as well because news travels in our town. My mom made so many excuses for him. He has this way of lying that is scary. It is believable. I came across a file about my brother in my dad’s desk. I was cleaning it out after my dad died in 2015. It had copies of every letter my dad sent David with a check, a total of everything he spent on him and how much was to be taken out of his inheritance because of how much it was. One of the letters told him he was cutting him off. Also, included was a psychological evaluation and report from his first rehab. It said he had Antisocial Personality Disorder with Bipolar Disorder. He was diagnosed sociopath at 16.
Image courtesy of MDPI
We later found out his birth mother was a drug addict who had Schizophrenia and he had half-siblings and every one of them had psychological disorders and addictions. You can’t fight heredity. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I came from better stock.
I only have anxiety, depression, and ADHD.
Back to life in the 1990s - I only remember that all the attention was on David and his issues. I just did my thing including college and moving out at 21. I got a cute little apartment over a shop on a town square called Woodstock in Illinois. I got a great job with a company called Kemper Insurance. And I fell in love for the first time. I had zero relationship with my mom but got together often with my dad. My brother was still living at home and his problems were growing. He got arrested on the South Side of Chicago buying drugs in my mom’s Volvo. My dad and his neighbor had to drive and get the car - still intact. Let’s just say it wasn’t a great area to be in.
I am glad I wasn’t living at home at that time. I took every opportunity to reach some shred of humanity in him to stop doing this to Mom and Dad. I tried befriending him. I tried ignoring him - we didn’t talk for 6 years once. And my mom would defend him. She doesn’t see what everyone else sees. I don’t know anything about the conversations my parents were having. My dad seemed to listen to me but my mom always had her way. And my dad, bless his heart, always gave her the world.
David seemed to settle down a bit after that and never received jail time surprisingly My dad spent A LOT of money on attorneys for my brother. He married his high school girlfriend and they had a tumultuous marriage and 4 kids. In the mid-90s, my parents moved to Nashville, TN for my dad’s job. I stayed in Woodstock. I liked my sister-in-law and nieces and nephews. My sister in law was the niece of my best friend from high school so our families were very close which was fun at the holidays. I was not close to my brother but they were the only family I had in the area. He worked hard which I respected but he drank and did drugs and, later, I would come to find out he had slept with a bunch of women during his marriage. Not surprising. My brother has always had that sleazy dude way about him.
Fast forward to 2005. I am now widowed and living near my parents in the Nashville area with my 6-year-old son. I have a great relationship with both my parents. I love being near them. David is going through a terrible divorce back in Illinois and asks my parents for money and help often. He has lost his job and needs to go into rehab for drugs, alcohol, and sex addictions. But, he has no means to do so. My parents got him into a center in Pittsburgh, PA, and spent a fortune on it for nothing.
He has done it all but he loves pot and alcohol. He should have died from some of the things he did (supposedly). He has nine lives.
He gets better. It never lasts. Same old. Same old.
I don’t think my dad ever told my mom about what was in that file I found about my brother. I told her. Years later, after my dad died, my brother wanted to move here and I didn’t want that. I showed her. I explained everything and I had researched so much after I found it. She said, “Oh that was so long ago it doesn’t matter. He has changed.” “That was in the past.” The only time my mom and I ever have an issue is about David. And, every time I am around him, I play nice. For my mom. Still to this day. Because I am an idiot. I feel like I sell my soul to the devil every time I have to be around him. It is that bad. Everyone who meets him agrees he is creepy. Dare I say…evil? I am an empath. I know. And he is an energy vampire as well. And he has sucked the life out of my family. Literally.
I realize that this story has turned into a big whiny therapy session and I apologize. It feels good to unpack some of those dusty compartments in my brain and make some room up there. I have been carrying this weight around my neck like an anchor my whole life. I need it off.
Am I wrong for how I feel towards my brother?
Or is my anger valid?
There is so much more. I will do a part two as it’s very much a story of what mental health issues and addiction does to families. And where a lot of my stress comes from as well. This has been cathartic. Much love to anyone that made it to this point.
Hi Jodi,
This one I can empathize with you and say that I understand what you are saying. Not because I have a family member with this, but rather in my college years I was an assistant to a psychologist and psychiatrist dealing with these disorders. I also had an ex that was bipolar and another that had depression. I keenly am aware of the difficulties of dealing with these individuals and how they live their lives.
The only advice I would give you, which is just that, something you can take or leave as you see fit, is this. Forgive but do not forget. Release the resentment and go forward being your true self. If you ever need someone to talk to, you know where to find me :-).