bipolarguyaz

[bipolarguyaz]

I’ve actually been thinking a lot about this lately:

I only have one full-blooded sibling, my older brother, but I have 3 younger half-siblings.

I grew up with my older full brother who is two years older and my younger half brother who was born when I was about six years old. His dad was my stepfather and he is my mom’s third and final child. His dad (my stepdad) died when I was 20 years old and my little brother was about 14.

My older full brother lives in a different state now and I haven’t seen him in 5 years although we talk on messenger quite often. We fought and argued a lot growing up, but we’re semi close now and we always have a great time when we get together…although that isn’t very often anymore. He’s hoping to come visit in December, and I’m excited because we haven’t spent any time together since 2018.

The younger half brother I grew up with lives in the same city, and I get to see him about three or four times a year. We’re both married and have families now, so we don’t spend as much time together as we would like but it’s always nice when I get to hang with him at birthday parties for our kids and that sort of thing. Overall, I would rate my relationship with my older brother and my immediate younger brother as being very good: They’re both very smart hard-working guys and they both have a wicked sense of humor.

My birth parents divorced when I was about three, my dad basically dropped off the face of the Earth until I was almost seven and then came back in my life albeit on a very limited basis. My dad remarried in about 1988 and in 1990 my youngest half brother was born. I was 11, my brother was born three months premature and nearly died several times…most of us were pretty sure he wouldn’t make it, but he defied the odds and is alive today and just turned 33 years old.

Then my half sister, my youngest sibling, was born in 1993. Their mother, my stepmom, an amazing woman who loved me like I was her own child unfortunately died of cancer in 2004 when my brother was 14 and my sister was 11.

This is where things get dicey, and why my relationship with the two of them is weird to say the least:

Immediately after their mother’s death, my dad tried to take care of his two youngest but he was dealing with severe bipolar disorder and substance-abuse issues so he couldn’t even take care of himself. He still can’t, but that’s an entirely different story.

Long story short, my little brother and little sister went to go live with a guardian who was their mom’s best friend. This lady is a real piece of work, I could write an entire article about her as well, but suffice it to say my sister got herself kicked out when she was 13 and my brother continued to live with this lady until he was 18.

Once again, my dad tried to swoop in and take care of my sister, but that went South immediately and my wife and I recognized that whole situation was not going to be healthy for her. We ended up renting a place from my in-laws and becoming her guardian right around the time she turned 14. I should note that my sister and I had had a very close relationship up to that point, and that continued for several months after she came to live with us…but she ended up bringing baggage that I did not know how to address, especially since I myself was only 28 at the time, and my own child had it not yet been born.

I would love to say that my wife and I built this caring, nurturing environment and we were able to raise my sister effectively, but that would be a lie. I did not know how to handle that child, I did not know how to parent my youngest sibling, we got her counseling after I found out that she was on drugs but the counselor was completely useless. We ended up both resenting each other, and she moved out right when she turned 18 just a few months before graduating from high school.

As for my younger half-brother who was born premature, he continued to have significant developmental delays despite being an incredibly intelligent kid. He has ADHD and autism along with some motor impairments, but he was able to sporadically keep a job now and then. The guardian he was living with (the same one who took my sister out) wanted to enroll him in a skills program after he graduated High School and put him in a group home so that he would have someone to continue to look out for him, but my dad once again in the midst of one of his bipolar mania episodes decided he was going to get off disability and use his aircraft engineering knowledge to apply to Lockheed Martin in Palmdale California working in the F-22 program and take my brother out there with him to live

Well, they get out there, everything is going fine until Lockheed finds out about a DUI that my dad failed to report. He doesn’t get the job, they end up stranded in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, somehow or another they ended up in Utah staying in the backyard of an old girlfriend of my dad’s and my poor brother nearly froze/starved to death of there while my dad wallowed in his deep bipolar depression. This went on for a year or so, we had no contact from them at all. By the time we heard from them again, they had made it down to Phoenix, and were using their disability income to rent a place.

They made it down here to Phoenix right before my sister graduated from high school in 2011. The three of them had various living arrangements in which sometimes my sister would be shacking up with random people, and then the three of them would live together for a brief periods of time. Mostly, it was my dad and my brother living in terrible roach-infested apartments they could barely afford while my sister would sponge money off of them. My brother would get a job delivering Grubhub and my dad would drive for Lyft. The problem is, my dad is a scary and terrible driver, so he frightened too many passengers to be able to continue doing that and destroyed the brand new car he got.

oh, and my dad is a disabled veteran, so at one point they got a VA loan and bought a brand new house in Sun City West. I’m sad to say I was absolutely enraged because at that point I was finishing grad school and working two jobs to support my disabled wife and young daughter and I had never owned a house in my life, meanwhile their lazy incompetent asses get to move into a brand new one?

Anyway, what happened there was my dad didn’t make money for several months due to his bipolar depression and mangled car, my brother can’t pay for anything, and they get kicked out of the new house. No, I didn’t feel good about that, I felt horrible

As toxic as all of this sounds, I assure you it’s much worse than what I’m putting here. I’m leaving so much out.

My sister moved up to Seattle to get away from them, and they ended up following her a couple years later. They lived together briefly up there, but then my dad had a stroke. She tried to step in and help but the toxicity of their dynamic was too much for her and she moved out and took her income and resources with her. As for my dad and my brother, they lost their apartment.

My sister had a motorhome parked on the property of some dude she was sleeping with, my brother lived there with her for several months and they all ran out of money while his health suffered tremendously. My dad ended up in a family group home paid for by Medicaid, and my sister ended up dumping my brother off at a homeless shelter where he has been for 10 months now.

All three of them have severe mental health challenges which make relationship maintenance very difficult, so my feelings about my brother and my sister are tainted by that. My wife and I have done a tremendous amount of work with my brothers social worker to reestablish his public aid benefits, and try to get him out of there, but the problem is he’s comfortable and doesn’t want to leave . So there we are. My sister drops in on Facebook every now and then, but most of the time I have no idea where the hell she is.

people with siblings: how do you feel about them?

[bipolarguyaz]

Well, that’s infuriating

For the first time in a very long time, I happened to come across a page that was posting bad stuff.

Reeeeeaaaally bad stuff.

I did the standard procedure of reporting the page: I clicked through the options and selected “Harm to Minors” and selected the tab that says the page may contain suspected child abuse materials.

I get to the screen where the URL is listed in the “content you’re reporting” section, I give a brief description, I click “submit and block” only to get an error message that says something to the effect of “you must provide a url of the content page, blog etc.”

umm…you mean the one that auto populates into the form? The one that is clearly visible on the form I’m trying to submit?

Suffice it to say, I didn’t understand what they were asking and so therefore I could not submit the form. Yep, congratulations Tumblr; congratulations on making it harder to report bad illegal stuff and therefore encouraging it. I’m sure the pervs are super happy right now. Dumbfucks.

[bipolarguyaz]

Therapy

I need therapy. I’ve tried to get it, I’ve looked, I searched but can’t find it. All the same, I need it.

I want to get better, I want to be healthy, I don’t want to die and I don’t want to ruin my life like my dad ruined his.

I don’t want to hurt myself, I don’t want to damage my relationships, I don’t want to accidentally hurt someone and scar them like I was scarred.

More than anything, I want peace. I want my thoughts and actions and motivations to be innocent, pure, constructive and positive…because so often they are the opposite.

[bipolarguyaz]

It's your fault

What is?!? Vague much?

[bipolarguyaz]

I've been an educator for 13 years; I've had to deal with the little puppy love crushes from students before, it's awkward but they always get over it. I'm better now about setting and maintaining boundaries with my young female students, I will give hugs but I don't allow anyone to sit on my lap (I tell them I'm old and my legs hurt). A couple years ago I had a very young female student kiss me on the cheek after giving me a long hug, it was sweet and I know she was just showing innocent affection but I gently informed her that was not appropriate and had a chat with her teacher about it afterwards. I've had older students flirt with me and make suggestive comments, I just ignore it and play dumb and they give up eventually. One time I was working with a middle school student and she began telling me a very private personal story...I immediately cut her off, I talked to the principal about my suspicion that this student was being molested by a family member and got cps etc involved. I felt terrible about it, but her safety and my own personal accountability were in potential jeopardy so I had no choice.

If you work with kids/minors or other vulnerable populations, it is your sacred duty to uphold their safety. If you are tempted, you are in the wrong job and need to put distance between yourself and them. Seek counseling or therapy if you need to, but do not put yourself in a position where you could take advantage of the people you are responsible for.

[bipolarguyaz]

I have 10 followers:

3 are real people

The other 7 are bots.

Is this normal?🤔

[bipolarguyaz]

I'm not a Democrat, but by default I'm mostly left-leaning.

That being said I would love to see New York Governor Cuomo removed from office and facing charges.

Creepy, abusive, predatory bastard 🤬

[bipolarguyaz]

Hello everyone,

Please note that I do NOT allow underage followers. If you are under 18 please don't follow me.

It's nothing personal, it's just that the optics are all wrong. I wouldn't want my preteen daughter following grown men on here or any other platform.

Even if the intent is perfectly innocent, it's just not kosher IMO.

Thank you for understanding.

[bipolarguyaz]

Bill Cosby's conviction was overturned, and now it looks as though Larry Nasser (the Olympic team doctor who molested dozens of girls) will walk as well...

Both presumably due to procedural missteps during the investigations/prosecutions of their crimes.

Unacceptable.😠😡🤬

This is what Rape Culture looks like, folks...and it goes all the way up to the highest tiers of the justice system. I don't buy the explanation provided, I think money and influence were involved.

Our children and our women/girls will never be safe until we as a society start prioritizing their safety.

My only child, my innocent little daughter, is starting Middle School next month...

And I'm absolutely TERRIFIED

[bipolarguyaz]

GrubHub driver is walking through the gravel up to my front door, I'm watching him through the security door (in the daytime it's opaque, he can't see me) when suddenly his gun falls out of his pocket and lands on the gravel with a metallic crunch.

I started laughing, then I said:

"Haha yeah might wanna pick that up!"

"Yeah, sorry" he replied, looking genuinely embarrassed "I hope I didn't scare you."

"Nah it's all good" I said.

"I've seen some crazy shit out here, though!" He says, hastily stuffing the pistol back into his shorts pocket.

"I believe that!" I reply "Be safe, man!"

"Thanks!"

......................

Gotta love living in the ghetto: even GrubHub drivers be STRAPPED! 😂

[bipolarguyaz]

Yep. My brain is still blocking a lot of it, I have huge gaps in my memory. Maybe I don't want to know, even if it would explain things?

rb if you didn’t realize you had trauma until years after it happened

[bipolarguyaz]

https://stopitnow.org/

It is the sacred duty of all of adults to keep children safe: safe from harm, safe from abuse, safe from exploitation.

I'm an educator and a therapist; I wish more people (including my colleagues) would acknowledge the prevalence of sex abuse and the rape culture that enables it.

If you see something, something that isn't quite right, or even If you just have a bad feeling about what's going on the life of a child or other vulnerable person...SAY SOMETHING!

[bipolarguyaz]

Oof. I felt that.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Look buddy, i’m just trying to make it to Friday.

[bipolarguyaz]

Right? Like omigosh it's the 21st century we send texts lol

People will straight up call your cellphone and expect you to answer

[bipolarguyaz]

That hurt. It's true though 😭

[bipolarguyaz]

Yes, and looking that deep into yourself is terrifying...

But sometimes it's also necessary.

Have you ever realized that something you’ve done your whole life is actually a symptom of mental illness yeah that’s some fucked up shit

[bipolarguyaz]

Often🤔

*talks* *immediately regrets it*