#he was acting so entitled and imposing and overly-familiar and spilling all his 'problems' hes having with me

[britneyshakespeare]

re: my last post rambling about my siblings: i also realize of course that not everyone who has siblings has as good a relationship to them as i do, and that can be for any number of reasons, can have any number of resolutions, including just begrudgingly accepting that your sibling(s) are never gonna be the closest people in your life. i talked about how the bond i have with mine is akin to a commitment, because all of us prioritize each other, but i don't mean to make it sound idyllic or like it should be the universal standard. i am lucky but i am not naive. not everyone gets the siblings they would most wish to have, or some people just aren't that close to them and i don't particularly have a blanket judgment to make of that in all cases. however...

that guy i made a bunch of personal posts over the summer about because he was an emotionally abusive friend that i had to cut off, who asserted way too much control over my life, who was guilt-tripping and manipulative and sought to silence me etc etc etc he really was just never very accepting of me for who i was, never expressed interest in anything about me that didn't have to do with him, etc etc etc just that JERK guy who i still have nightmares about a few times a month. it took me a long time to accept that he wasn't just "depressed" and "anxious" but that he was actively using people; he wasn't accepting of harmony but always wanted control over others and their narratives, etc etc etc. there were certain sides of him i didn't see much because i got to know him in a rather isolated way. we had mutual contacts but i never worked with him or had a class with him or really even met him a few times before he started spilling his heart and soul to me privately and said i'm his best friend and i'm the only one who understands and supports him and basically pressured me to make him my project 24/7 and was incredibly disrespectful towards me whenever i asserted my own independence from him or just. wanted to see someone other than him or even just wanted to be by MYSELF. jesus. what a nightmare that guy was. IS, because i know he can't have changed and he probably never will.

THAT guy has a sibling. he has a little brother four years younger than him, and that guy was about two years younger than me. so his brother turned 18 this year. he graduated from high school. his brother is YOUNG, all things considered. and as much as he would constantly pour his heart out and gripe about every person he ever came into contact with (and as much as i now distrust a lot of the information he told me because i know he'll only ever say flattering things about himself and never speak forgivingly or with any nuance towards someone he labels now as "bad", including me)... the only time that i didn't really know how to listen with as open a heart was when he would start talking about how awful his little brother is. i'd be like, ok, so you had terrible friends in high school. all the people in your classes are shitty to you. this person has done you wrong and this person is awful and your parents and your family suck and this and that and this. no one has ever been good to you in your entire life except me? ok.

the ONLY time i was like "i don't know if i can take this at face value, i think you're being too harsh..." is when he would talk about his little brother. because i was like, well, from everything you're telling me, his problems sound like something he can very well grow out of. he'd be like oh he's PRETENTIOUS. lol ok. he's a senior in high school, of course he sometimes acts like he knows everything. why do you act like he's a lost cause? i could also tell that there must've been some personal jealousy in there bc his brother was kind of the "more accomplished" sibling, did better in school, that sort of thing. i don't know what it's like to be an older sibling or to feel like you're living in the shadow of a sibling, especially a younger one, because i've always kind of been on a different path than any of my siblings/there hasn't really been a sense of competition between us. i would try to give him the benefit of the doubt and be like "well i guess i really don't know what that's like" because you CAN'T assume. i give EVERYONE the benefit of the doubt and i try to take people, especially when they're being vulnerable with me, at their word, which is exactly how i got so involved with this guy and ended up being so used by him and under his thumb. horrible. he's a monster. anyway.

and whenever i'd be like "well he's just a kid" to every negative thing he'd say about his little brother, that's when he'd dismiss the subject and stop talking about it. and this isn't something that came up a couple of times but came up a LOT. he'd shit talk his brother to me at least several times a week, always unprompted, because why would i wanna hear someone badmouth a teenager? and it'd always be the pettiest shit. one time he even told me that he noticed his brother didn't come home last night and he didn't know where he was and i was like "oh my god is he ok? that's terrifying" and it's like he did that just so he could tell me "no i don't really care honestly. the two of us aren't close." it's like he wasn't just not-close with this kid but he was obsessed with hating him.

not only did his reasons never seem to satisfy me, but he never seemed to acknowledge that his little brother shared all of the traumas and adverse experiences he grew up with, the discrimination he faced and the familial trauma and the structures of abuse he would tell me about from his parents. he would mention how these are all the problems and the reasons he can't trust people and why he's so fucked up but he didn't seem to have any patience or empathy for someone younger than him brought up in the same exact environment. it's like he wanted his brother to always just fuck off and die.

none of this made any sense to me, it was if anything the BIGGEST sense of confusion i had with him for a long time because i dismissed all the ways he was cruel to *just me* until i started picking up all his patterns and realizing this all WASN'T just how he treats me. HE is the problem; HE is this entitled and controlling and nasty and manipulative towards everyone; HE has no self-awareness or regard for other people. it's not just ME not having the guts to stand up for myself when he made me feel uncomfortable or when i'd feel disrespected by something he said to/about me. he would know when he was saying something unacceptable or losing his temper; he did it with other people all the time. but he isolated and then lovebombed me so hard that i didn't see that this WAS how he treated everyone, but he made me in particular his prey because i was a trusting and trustworthy stranger, rather than someone who had seen him behave in such a way towards other people and could make the informed choice to stay away from him. it was never JUST ME but how could i have known that?? how?? i didnt know anything about his life except what he'd tell me, and he was actively sucking me away from all parts of my life he wasn't involved in, and/or forcing his way into them. there was no space between him and me; my life became his because he hijacked it and then forced me to do all his emotional labor and solve all his problems so i'd hardly have any energy to face my own.

anyway. yeah. it all made MUCH more sense when i realized HE is the problem between him and his brother. that didn't stick out as a red flag because again i'm trusting and i accept all these hypothetically broken or damaged familial relationships people have. HE really wanted me to hate this teenager for no good reason, like he wanted me to hate everyone else in his life that he'd ever decide to cast as a villain. i never understood why the teenage boy. never understood it. i'm like he's just a boy. OH but you're an awful horrible jerk who can't get along with anyone for longer than 2 minutes before you try and take control of everything about them and then lash out if they try to assert their independence. OOOHHH ok i get it now that makes sense. because that's what you've been doing to me all this time ohhh i get it.