irredeemable in Struggles with Addiction & Depression

Some people are just too far gone for saving. I’ve known that was the case for my younger brother since my teenage years when he proved himself to be a relentless sociopath who delighted in the suffering and mistreatment of others.

Some of my earliest memories of this kid involve long family road trips through the mountain forests of British Columbia with my youngest brother and I sat on either side of him. He’d punch my younger brother Brydan, blame me for it and then revel in the fury of my father or mother who would spin around and discipline the two of us on the edges for expressing our annoyance while he smiled wickedly between us.

One memory forever burned into my mind was the afternoon I discovered I was missing the $20 bill I kept tucked away on my bookshelf inside a copy of one of my favourite Dragonlance novels. I knew this particular $20 was mine because it had been torn in half during a previous argument with my difficult brother and now sported a generous scotch tape bandage holding the two halves together.

I knew he had taken it. My youngest brother knew that the other brother had taken it. I’m sure my angry and abusive father also knew in his heart which of his three children was the likely culprit and liar in this particular situation. He still locked us all in the basement and beat us with the leather strip he kept hanging in the kitchen for this - and only this - purpose every hour on the hour “until it was found”.

My psychopathic younger brother maintained his innocence throughout the several vicious beatings the three of us endured that day until the moment I pulled my folded and taped up twenty dollar bill out of the cartridge slot of the Nintendo game system in the TV room where he had attempted to hide it.

Today I woke up to a string of text messages from Brydan who has just returned from an all inclusive trip to Mexico with most of the rest of my family. I declined to go for reasons that are pretty clear to almost anyone who knows me and I feel total vindication in my choice to stay home now.

My scumbag brother apparently punched the woman he was with in the face, nearly breaking her jaw. He would be rotting in a Mexican jail this very moment if not for the quick intervention of my mother, who can always be counted on to defend him and save him when he fucks up. I’ve told her so many times how her behavior just enables him to continue to be a destructive and awful force in the lives of every person unfortunate enough to come into his orbit.

This is a white man in his 30s with the most embarrassing catalog of homemade faux jailhouse tattoos I’ve ever seen, disgusting dreadlocks that nearly reach his ass and a face that is a ruin of acne scarring. He is always rude, racist and disgustingly cruel. But between the two of us my mother would definitely consider me the failure.

The kid should never have been born. He had a stillborn female twin. I think that’s the primary reason he has floated through life with my Mother and Father pretending like everything he did was rooted in beauty and kindness. I often wonder how different my life would have been if I could have had a sister instead of a monster for a sibling.

He was dead to me already so I just hope this wakeup call helps the rest of my family see just how sick and depraved he is so they will finally stop making excuses for him. I’m not going to count on it of course since they saved him from the punishment he definitely deserved and sent him back home.