The Shifting Punishment Between Siblings – Mad Chaos: April 20, 2003

Adjusting To Household Changes

Hiccupping my content as a low-fat meal of fish recharges the mind, the chronological archeologist continues at his funneling dig, happily preoccupied but aware of the world in his surrounding environment. 

I settle down from a chaotic weekend, where some time was spent with the negative and jasper jamming a full studio sound at his house.  Some time was spent at home, adjusting to the new reality that is my brother and his girlfriend now. 

Change happens frequently in this house, and its speed sometimes jars me because my anxieties are forced to cope.  I was only getting used to independence with the fridge some weeks ago until my brother showed up on the twelfth.  While my nerves were given time to settle in this forced therapy, in entered his pregnant girlfriend to add a new dynamic. 

Loathing Dad Since He Ridiculed Me

I have coped surprisingly well however, as dad was the only rotting apple in my eyes, and deserves to still be the person most ignored.  I loathed him ever since he confronted me for disturbing him during my anxieties, when only for his self-interests; he insulted me at my bedroom door. 

“Blah, blah, yeah,” he would ridicule, teasing me as his voice made me out to be a baby. 

All this ridicule because he was ignorant and fed up with my coughing. 

I knew because of this and because of his chosen ignorance toward me that there was a red herring in the way my brother suddenly turned up unannounced, because dad doesn’t have a sensitive bone in his body.  So there had to be some opportunist reason for why he accepted my brother and his counterpart into this family fold.

There was always something suspicious about my brother turning up on the twelfth, because for a month or two you would never hear the phone ring or my parents talk.  Usually some sort of grapevine would keep me informed.  But in this case, my brother just turned up.

What upsets me the most is that I wouldn’t have been so bitter about it if my parents had included me as part of this family and had consulted me about it. 

Feeling That Dad Had It In For Me

I believe dad is a manipulative con artist and I hardly mince words.  Ever since we started butting heads some months back about my freedoms in this house, and ever since my silent treatment to shut him out, he started his road to retribution.  He would complain about the volume on my television at night when ordinarily it never bothered him.  He would complain predictably too, annoying me with goading attempts of authority after being paid no attention to for five days. 

I had no time for a father who only spoke to me when it suited him.  I used to get frustrated always being the person to say hello or to do the acknowledging, either because he was uncomfortable around this son or because he felt that it was owed to him.  I resented dad because he was never proud of me or happy for me.  In the ways he treated me, it felt like his acceptance was so hard to gain.  In the end, it wasn’t worth trying. 

Dad’s Habit Of Refusing Me

I remember when I allowed dad the benefit of giving me driving lessons for example.  We would drive around.  I would abide by him to please him.  But at the end of the day he denied me the dignity with hurtled abuse at my learner driving.  I lost his support in a storm because he didn’t have his own way, because he saw me as a child incapable still, and because he wanted to do the ordering. 

Dad never extends me any courtesy, so there is no point in asking anymore. 

I remember even asking once if he had an edge-filler when my parents had just laid the new lino and the downstairs fridge newly arrived.  I wanted to seal the huge gap that removing the old lino had created because it was an access for cockroaches.  But dad chose that moment like all others to deny me. 

Even yesterday he never let me borrow a spare kettle of his for downstairs simply because with his property he could say no.  For this reason I have avoided asking for anything that involves his favor, but unfortunately, he found ways around it.  Dad once again found methods to treat me with contempt, as he denied me a place in family decisions, whose outcome ultimately affect us all.  He has plotted this critical indignity when my brother’s appearance surprised me, and so ambushed my easing anxieties at a whim.

The Shifting Punishment Between Siblings

Dad has resented me for months now because of my rebellion towards him.  He sees it as an affront to his status in this household.  In my opinion, while it may not be the prime reason; he introduced my brother back into this house because he knew it was the ideal way to dominate. 

I assume that dad has grown insecure in his authority lately over months because of our relationship.  So to counter that and put me in my place, his resent for me allowed the punishment inflicted on my brother to cease, and punishment on me to begin. 

Dad knew he could never throw me out of the house for the mere sake of my rejecting him, so he manipulated a situation instead to best suit.  Like the true chess champion he is, he managed many effects out of his one decision, his ultimate gambit. 

For one, dad played the card of my brother against me to sabotage the complacency found at the cost of ignoring him.  He knew there were some old psychological damages involving my brother, so he forced those anxieties back onto me. 

Dad’s Decision Affects Everybody

Dad sabotaged back a sense of control too with mum because she had more reason to fear my brother, when he used to enter her room and bash her countless times for no good reason.  I think dad wanted to dominate mum as well because of his insecurities and because he knew mum would behaviorally change once my brother arrived. 

I saw it the first moment my brother turned up in how imposed the optimistic smile was on her face, then at night, when she grew restless for three hours in her bed because she was adjusting to the heightened anxieties that our friction and this new friction posed. 

Dad meanwhile remained unaffected by his decision because he knew my brother felt indebted to him.  After all, it was dad that kicked him out all those years ago, and dad was the only one wielding authority to bring him back in, so my brother too was in a way controlled by the decision my father inflicted on us all.  One has to wonder when knowing the lack of sympathy he affords to decisions, whether he allowed this for the good of himself or for the good of us all. 

“Whom did he do it for,” I keep thinking, because he certainly never involved me. 

Maybe the decision to invite my brother back home was a compassionate move.  But then again, maybe he gave precedence to my brother over all of us because they enjoy a better relationship, and dad values him above me.  Maybe dad did it to salvage back dignity he lost from me, as he indirectly advertises his resent. 

Reliving Childhood Traumas

I don’t think my dad cares for much but himself (and revenge is like nectar that propels the redemption of his pride).  After all, he swindled his way into my mum’s life and became the loafer he has since been, observing mum as she worked thirty years to purchase a house, and then abusing her for another ten until someone like me finally stood up for her. 

As he sunk into alcoholism he turned a blind eye to the year or so my brother had altercations, until I stepped in again to see him turn on me, until that fated night in the backyard where I stood up for myself and lost. 

No wonder why my dad has felt like a stranger all along.  The only time he ever extended me any courtesy was to kick my brother out, and even while it was his executive decision, both of them always blamed me. 

I feel guilty now because my brother wants this room to house his own fatherhood in nine months.  I wouldn’t have been too upset about moving rooms had it not meant that dad would notch up a further victory. 

If he is as conniving as my words make him out to be then this plot is the perfect way to unsettle me, to move his grateful son into this house and to remove his ungrateful son along.  This would be the perfect dissent by an imposter father whom never tried to like me because of my opposition to him. 

I sometimes believe that mum must have had an affair to have me because it sickens me to think we are related.  Well maybe sicken is a hyperbolic influence of emotional exile, but if deep in that mind of his my dad really did have these ulterior motives, then he really is dead to me, worthless, as worthless he thinks his son is.

The reason for this deep dissent is because of these suspicions held of dad, but we may never know what he thinks because like the calkin heel, a manipulator is hard to convict.  Only good judgment can expose those cowards who do not flinch. 

Researching My Own Anxiety

Regardless, in this vortex twisted, the day moves on, and in the celebration of moving on, today has been a fair feud of archeological dig.  With the backdrop of avoidance my father has enjoyed and with this new addition to the family set, I remained in my room mostly sifting through anxiety histories, where once again the reads were enlightening. 

I observed some important findings, like how the questioning of my behavior became louder over years, recognizing patterns of anxiety and phobias in my actions in times passing until the figurative use of those words turned literal. 

I used to be full of poor decisions that increasingly made me anxious.  Like the New Years I visited the city alone or my first experiment with prostitution on the following Christmas Eve.  I knew of my insecurities but it took many instances of events like these to accumulate the evidence to isolate an issue of anxieties within, and it took many years until eventually it was informative.  I am certainly evocative now however, and the more light than shines on anxious ambiguity, the more empowered it will make me. 

Understanding My Pattern Of Anxieties

I already have started to guide my anxious condition with control, but you could put that down to many issues, like this detestation toward dad boosting my resilience, perhaps these pills, this exercise and diet regime instilling confidence, or maybe the contribution of searching in these memoirs to grant me inner peace. 

I even find that tea settles both the morning anxieties and those anxieties to sleep because boiling water down my throat exterminates the phlegm and soothes the nerves associated with my wet coughs.  A cup of tea has not failed me so far, but it has been a touch tedious to substitute it for milk in mornings and juice in evenings. 

Nonetheless, the pattern of understanding anxieties is everywhere, as the pattern of its besetment slowly disappears.  Of course it may be premature to think this but the more one knows about something, the more comfortable one around it is.

How I Procured Insecure Self-Skepticism

As my eyelids settle to drowsy themes two hours into the morning night, and as a final cup of tea beckons with my name on it, there are a few more loose knots to tie about my studies into the histories.  Some observations come with no surprise, but some reactions to some of my memories certainly did surprise me. 

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  If that is the case, then my strength of character today is unique.  I sit back and laugh at the differences in my psyche from years before, being blind and hopeless to what women were trying to tell me but often getting away with saying the lamest things.  I was ingratiatingly optimistic to not see how people truly felt or reacted to me, whereas these days it would be easy to estimate the appearance of how people come across. 

I guess we all are naïve on our road to maturity however, until that optimism decays and our rose-colored glasses break, until one constantly needs reassurance one never receives, because over time we procure insecure self-skepticism.  I can go on but we could probably save those results for another day.  So until the next message stick, adhere to this spot of appetizer and eat well.