Member-only story
I’ve Learned to Stop Being My Brother’s Keeper
I wasn’t respecting his truth
My brother stopped by our house a couple of days ago. He didn’t call because his phone is turned off. He didn’t Facebook message me because he hasn’t paid his internet bill.
I was surprised to see him. My brother isn’t big on socializing. He prefers to stay at home with his two cats he adores. As soon as I let him in, he was apologetic, because he needed to borrow money to catch up on his bills.
It’s not his fault. My brother is high-functioning, but on the autism spectrum. Our self-absorbed parents have done nothing to assist him in this world. Nothing. Our dad is sitting on a pile of money he holds over us like ransom, with the caveat that we have to put up with his verbal and emotional abuse. My brother and I have chosen to walk away.
Our mother has always been in denial about my brother’s difficulties in navigating life, since he was born.
“Oh, your brother is just spacy,” she’d always say, waving her hand with dismissal, as though his issues weren’t real. “I was the exact same way.”
She wasn’t the same way. Our mother certainly has her own issues, but being on the spectrum isn’t one of them.
