Yes, I am a name changer and I know all about Narniagate and other such things. Please don't out me if you recognise me, I just need to get some anonymous advice.
I wanted advice from the toxic parent group in particular and started this new thread as I don't think that my parents are toxic but you would know more than me about that. I am close to my parents and to me they are good parents, helpful and loving. They have their faults and I know they would of preferred me to take a different approach in some of my parenting and life issues but they have always tried their best to support me in my choices.
My brother has cut our parents out of his life and makes no effort to contact me and our sister. From what he has told me direct and from his friend's reactions to my sister and I when we visit him, he honestly feels our parents are against him & toxic and to a more limited degree he thinks the same of us. This is very hurtful and I struggle to deal with his rejection, he has never even met my youngest child (several months old at this time)
My brother is very intelligent gay man with loads of younger student friends, living on his own in a bedsit claiming the dole. He failed university despite five years of studying and three course changes. He was completely funded by our parents but he preferred to take drugs and drink rather than attend lectures. Now he is nearly 30 years old and has never held a job down for more than a few weeks. He says it is because he is ill/ disabled/gay/bullied. If you talk long enough to get the full story from him, it will turn out he was actually sacked due to his bad timing keeping, his back chat to a manager, doing the opposite to what a manager requested and in one case for smoking a joint in front of the office at lunchtime FFS. and many other silly reasons.
I recently found an article on the net which described him to a T, about passive aggressive behaviour. He has the biggest chip on his shoulder about how the world owes him a living.
He has been on and off the dole for several years and has decided he is 'too disabled to work, but to healthy for disability money' whatever that means.
His 'problems' vary depending on when you talk to him, at the moment he tells me he is disabled (no specifies for this one yet), autism, lactose intolerance and IBS. But as he displays no symptoms of any of these conditions and neither has the doctor nor hospital found any proof, I remain highly sceptical of these claims. And trying to claim 'disability' makes me so cross I could spit feathers. I have a family member suffering from long term effects of MS and another friend who uses a wheelchair. How dare he try and put himself in the same category as these ladies
The last time we saw him as a family was over a year ago. He was given money to get a train to the parental home and money to buy a gift/card for our fathers birthday. He didn't set off until we rang him to find out why he had not turned up at the train station. Hence I had to run around cancelling our original table booking and try and find another place to eat for 10 people with no notice, for when he would be arriving a couple of hours later. He finally arrived in a car load of students, looking scruffy, hungover and didn't understand why my parents were not interested in inviting these strangers in the house for coffee, when we had to leave straight away to make the new table booking.
We got to the cheap pub (rather than the lovely restaurant we had the earlier table booking at) The food was terrible, the service long, my toddler fell asleep waiting for food. I was forced to leave the meal early to take my hungry, screaming over tired child home. My brother said he had forgotten it was our father's birthday so had arrived with no present or card, I guess he spent the money we sent him on beer. Then he moaned about his current illnesses and how he never had any money and he hadn't been abroad for a holiday for 5 years and how horrible my parents were to be upset for him failing his degree. I wanted to slap him, he had done nothing but laze around, drink and smoke for years, what could he possible need a holiday from ?
I bet it sounds unlikely after this long post but I do love him and want an adult relationship with him but I don't like his childish attitude towards life, work and his actions towards the family over the last few years. I started to dread attending family events as I knew he would turn up late and cause bad feelings with his snide remarks about poor him, whilst my mother tried desperately not to cry, pasting on a fake smile and trying to jolly everyone along. But when I see him alone or with just our sister, he is very nice to us, which I find very confusing.
Is there any reason to think my parents are being toxic to him ? As I can not see it, from my position he is the one that isn't behaving normally. But he keeps insisting that our parents are terrible people and awful to him. The only thing I can see, if that our parents have struggled with him being gay (it was how they were brought up) but they have been to counselling, attended gay support groups and welcome his boyfriends into their home, what more are they meant to do ?
But it is not good enough for my brother, nothing ever is good enough and it is always someone elses fault/problem. He thinks everything is about him, after the birth of my youngest, he started chinese whispers around the family, claiming I have fallen out with him because of the names I gave my new baby FFS
Is anyone being toxic here ? Can I do anything to mend bridges or am I fighting a losing battle ?