Susie. I loved your post about your brother. I just loved it. You are a born writer. I felt I was reading a novel, or a memoir. Your brother sounds like just a fascinating person. And he, so blessed to have you, your capacity to understand; not to mention your parents, who seemed to do EVERYTHING right.
So many questions came up for me, with relation to my son, and also regret because your brother had options, and made them, my son will not take. But most of all reading this gave me perspective. How we look at our kids through our own cloudy lens, which may have worked for us to some extent, but in all honesty was only one way to live a life, and had its downsides too.
Your brother had some attributes, capacities that my son does not (self-starter, willing to take on responsibility, to take a job, many jobs, as long as his style is not cramped, for starters.)
Seeing how your parents "bullied" him to finish college" validates me, because this is where my battle with my son is the most intense and bloody--my insistence that he do something for himself, anything, constructive and productive--in order to be living with us or in a space that we control. Black belt in martial arts. Acolyte in Zen Buddhist Center. Hit the road, and see the world. Service.
So he says, college, and I say.
Fine. That cannot be manifested as only an idea or a word. It requires sustained action. Where is it? And this is where we keep dancing and tripping up.
I do not know how your parents won this battle with your brother. I mean, he could have easily dropped out.
I too encourage my son to travel. We have traveled and lived abroad extensively. When he was 18 he decided he wanted to visit a girl in Brasil, got a Christmas job in the men's apparel department at Macy's, bought the ticket and went alone. Something happened there. He lost all his money and ended up sleeping on the beach, and bereft. Sometimes I think he may have been sexually preyed upon. We have tried to get it out of him.
Your brother. How I loved reading of his adventures. To me, the way he lived his life was amazing. Honestly. Men who went to work on Madison Ave in gray flannel suits (the Gregory Peck movie) fall into alcoholism and perpetrate domestic violence. One might as well be meeting Sir Edmund Hillary, while you're at it (not to in any way trivialize domestic violence.)
He had a big crisis in his early-mid 40s
What happened? It sounds like something got his attention. What triggered this? Or do you think it was developmental, in the sense that the way he was living no longer met who he had become?
I so wanted my son to go to the military, but it came out along the way that he had been born with Chronic Hepatitis. This was disqualifying. (And then, his dealing with his illness, and how he had gotten it from his birth mother, because a huge and defining issue for him--and that I think was the catalyst for so much of his existential despair).
And I became so despairing along the way I WANTED my son to go to PRISON, because believe it or not, prisoners socialize new prisoners, and hold them to very strict behavioral limits, with very strict reprisal. I wanted my son to be schooled in this way. But my son (that I am aware of), fortunately or unfortunately depending upon one's outlook and goals, is not criminally inclined.
having my parents tell him to go live on what he earned was a very good thing for him.
I did this, when my son was not earning anything. He had blown off his job.
Actually, I betray here, my continuing unwillingness to take in his mental illness. This component it seems, your brother does not have. And I am aware that my own denial is very much an issue in the struggle my son and I have. But then, how does this change things? Being mentally ill does not exempt somebody from doing what is required to deal with it: treatment, rehabilitation, self-care, habits and activities that reinforce socialization, address symptoms, encourage functioning. See. That is my point.
Nobody is saying he has to work at a job: he just needs to do things that foster his "working" as a person, in the way that he can. That this is his responsibility. And that is what your brother did.
Of course, part of the reason we see this, is because we have the whole story (to this point) to look back on. (Thank you again, Susie.)
My son is very strong-willed. And he has the desire to be dominant. More and more he is manifesting this directly, not passive-aggressively (good.) He is not violent although he has destroyed property (which sounds contradictory, but I stick by it. More and more I see his not building a life as RESISTANCE.
More and more he seems to be getting the concept that my way of thinking has merit, and makes sense (about doing something for himself.) But the process of implementing it, he drags his feet. (As I keep repeating like a broken record.)
The thing about my son is he wants to be near us. He would prefer living with us. He wants to work with us. Which is a major miracle after all of the conflict we have had for such a long time, and is deeply gratifying to me.
And all of this wanting to have our lives integrated, in itself, I would not see as so problematic, if I saw him doing some things that defined himself and his life through activities and involvements and commitments that were personally constructive, as did your brother.
My son has had (and still does) deep interests: languages (he speaks fluently 3 and can communicate in another 3), brasilian martial arts, and he plays a percussive instrument in Samba, Buddhism, History...(but he sees history and politics through a very troublesome lens of cabals, and false flags, and an extremely disturbing point of view about Zionists and the Rothschilds (I am Jewish) among other things...)
But all and all I see things as getting better, and try not to freak out about the weird stuff so much, trying to see how it functions for him, in developing and differentiating from me. But it is hard to keep my eyes on the ball.
I am still bowled over at how your parents prevailed by their bullying in keeping your brother in college. We are wearing my son down, but I am being worn down at a faster rate, as my endurance and stamina are far less.
Thank you Susie. This was as enjoyable and provocative post as I can remember reading.