I don't really have family, at least nobody whom I talk to. I left my parents' house when I was twenty-one. I left no forwarding address.
I never intended to look back, but my older brother changed that. I trusted him, and yet he gave my phone number and address to my parents. His rationale was that they were worried about me. I felt that this was the feeblest of excuses. He could easily have told them that he had spoken to me quite recently and that I was fine. Instead, he dealt me the ultimate betrayal. I have never REALLY understood why he did this, and the topic was so painful to me that after the initial confrontation I didn't probe further.
Armed with the information that my brother had provided, my father started calling me on the phone. He even showed up on my doorstep. I can't tell you how stressful this was. I mean, I loved my father, I really did, but when I was a teenager, he made it quite clear that he supported my mother against me--even though she was quite obviously screwed up psychologically and was inflicting psychological abuse on me. So after I moved away, we got into heated arguments on the phone, during which I would completely lose it and my then-partner wound up taking over the argument and then hanging up in a fury. And when I opened the front door and saw my father standing there, I went into full panic mode. All the blood left my head, I started shaking uncontrollably, and I could barely speak. I was terrified. Since I left home, I have always had that reaction to him even if I was not face to face with him. He showed up at my job on several occasions. I always refused to see him, and I always went into a panic. My boss must have thought that my father was a serial killer or something.
My brother could not have known that this would be my reaction, of course, but HE was the one who kept warning ME to leave home as soon as possible for my sanity's sake. And then when I did, he stabbed me in the back. By giving my parents access to me, he exposed me to the entreaties of not only my parents but my other relatives. I received cards and letters from everyone. Because I felt responsible for their hurt feelings, I started vacillating and wallowing in guilt feelings. I think that if I had been able to make the clean break that I had planned, I would have been much healthier. But my brother opened the door, and (at that time) I didn't know how to close it again. My attempts to deal with my parents led me to my previous therapist, who (perhaps unintentionally) really messed with my head, after which I swore off therapy for life (or fifteen years, anyway). I obviously would have had to work through my feelings at some point, but I should have been allowed to choose when and how and whether to reestablish contact with my folks. My brother's actions skewed everything.
I didn't cut my brother off completely, but my feelings for him cooled considerably. Four or five years later, he let me know that he would be in my neck of the woods with his wife and daughter. He wanted to see me. I was excited but apprehensive. I agreed to see him because I still loved him and because I was thinking that we could have an hour alone and I could talk about the betrayal that still made me feel that I could not trust him. I have always felt that some betrayals are essentially unforgivable, but I also felt that since he was my brother, I owed him a second chance.
Well, our reunion didn't turn out the way I expected. He seemed to go out of his way never to be alone with me, and dinner turned out to be a veritable party with all of his old friends, whom he had not seen in some years. I wasn't treated as a sibling; I was lost in the crowd. I didn't even get to sit next to him at the dinner table.
This made me so angry that it was the last time I saw him. That was about twenty years ago.
After I came out this summer, I (perhaps inevitably) started reevaluating my entire past. I've reaffirmed that I cannot have any kind of relationship with my parents, but I am thinking of making contact with my brother again. I googled him and can reach him by e-mail. If I do write to him, I want to come out to him and tell him that he has a brother, not a sister. I want him to know how much pain he caused me, and I want to find out if he had other reasons for telling my parents where to find me. I'm not angry about that anymore, but I do still hurt a bit when I think about it because the ramifications were huge and completely shifted the direction of my life.
I suppose I'll talk to my therapist about this at some point, but I'd like some other feedback. I have no way of knowing whether I can trust my brother. If I do make contact, I don't plan to give him any information that my parents might find useful. I'll provide an e-mail address and nothing else. I won't tell him where I live, whom I live with, or where I work. I might even use a pseudonym.
I keep asking myself this question, though: if I feel the need to take such precautions, is it really worth it? I don't think of shared DNA as a good reason to have a relationship with someone. I don't believe in the adage that you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family--that is, I can't choose whom I'm related to, but I can darn well choose whether to have anything to do with those relatives. And yet I still find myself drawn to my brother, like a moth to the flame.
The moth has no choice, but I do. When faced with such a choice, I tend to err on the side of self-preservation. But maybe it's worth the risk. Maybe.
Insights, anyone?
