My little brother has been living in Poland for a long time now with his Polish wife and their children. This particular brother of mine made it to my 'he can go fuck himself before I will talk to him again' list right alongside Dawn after his response to me when Dawn kicked me out. Rember that?
Recap - I was living in Vanuatu, COVID was brand new, Peace Corps made the call to evacuate all volunteers back to the United States, and within three days of getting the evac order I was back state-side with no car, job, housing, and a couple of thousand in the bank account from the evac allowance.
My sister Dawn took me in and then kicked me out. My brother John decided to chime in with his thoughts on my perpetual state of perceived victimhood. After that, in my life, they can eat shit and die for all I care.
Fast forward a couple of years and now we have the invasion of Russia into the Ukraine with massive refugees going into Poland. My other sister Kat sent me the text to let me know that John and the family will be going back to the U.S. You know, in case I cared about my poor, dear brother in his moment of plight.
Yes, poor John. He has to evacuate out of the country he was living in, fly to the U.S. and because of the short notice will not have a job, housing, or car waiting for him.
Gee, I wonder what that must be like?
It's weird how Karma can manifest. Sometimes it is poetic justice and other times it is very literal. A word of advise folks, be careful of how you treat others because one day you may be in the same, shitty situation looking for a little love and help. Do you really want others to treat you the way you treated them when the roles were reversed?
Apparently he will be moving in with Kat. All I can say is, hope Kat treats John better than Dawn treated me because his kids don't deserve Dawn's style of 'sisterly love'.
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If your interested in the conversation that broke a sibling relationship, and my perspective on what I think of his comments, see below!
John:
Uhhh wtf
What’s wrong?
Me:
Dawn had an anger meltdown in the car yesterday and took it out on me. Screaming at me. She won’t talk about it and I’m angry about it.
So today she told me to drop my attitude or pack my shit and leave. Sorry I was called out on my bull shit.
John:
Jesus Chris when will all of you stop this poor me fucking acts? No no please tell me. It is a fucking joke. You flipped out over Walmart and fucking plastic bags? Do you not know where you come from? You are 40 fucking years old. What do you have to show from it Janel? I’m sorry but grow the fuck up. I built three lives on two continents. And fucking did it with hard work.
Me:
Fuck off
John:
You sound like a tump supporter fake news. That is the fucking problem. Tell me to fuck off all you fucking want. But screaming over plastic bags is insane. And you deserve what you get now. Quit your bull shit. Be happy for what you have and stop being a judgmental ass. And cry your ass to sleep.
And my point of view:
You flipped out over Walmart and fucking plastic bags?
There was no screaming or yelling about Wal-Mart or about plastic bags. Dawn loves to embelish a story especially when she needs to prop up her position of being right after harming someone else. At no point in the road trip did I ever raise my voice or throw a temper tantrum. That was ALL Dawn with her well known anger management issues and her need to scream.
Dawn has often said that she would scream at her children when they were small because it was the way she controlled herself from hitting them (like it was a good thing and she expects people to be proud of her restraint). This pattern of behavior of screaming as a way to regulate strong emotions has lasted all the way to present day.
Dawn screams at family, we all know this, but somehow on the re-telling she was trying to paint me as being the one who was abusivly yelling? And of course John just beleives her without even talking to me first? Hmmm... Almost like he was completely ignoring one persons pattern of behavior and grasping at an excuse in order to get in a few good hits at his favorite punching bag.
I built three lives on two continents. And fucking did it with hard work.
John likes to claim that his hard work is all that was needed to build, what was it again?, oh ya, three live on two continents! Wow, what an accomplishment! Talk about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps!
Except, didn't Mom pay for his IT certificate and gave him a free place to live, something few of us other children, and none of the daughters, got? Didn't mom give him money whenever he needed it? How many thousands of dollars in cash, goods, and housing has mom just given him? And just how much has his wife's family given him when he moved to Poland? Set him up with housing and jobs and money when he needed it?
Yaaaa, John did it all hisself with just his hard work (and handouts from family). Yet when I need help from my family, when I'm actually homeless because of a pandemic that to date has killed six million people, oh now I'm the one who needs to show a little hard work.
Now, before everyone wants to start saying I am disparaging John for accepting help from family, let me just say this. There is a difference between me pointing to the fact of him never owning up to the shit-ton of assistance he got from family versus me disparaging accepting and receiving assistance. He wants to claim he did it all on his own? Then I call Bull-Shit.
You are 40 fucking years old. What do you have to show from it Janel?
I'm not sure where this fits into me being kicked out by Dawn except, ya, looks like a pretty good attempt to present accusations so as to make the person your yelling at not talk about the real issue. Sure, I could talk about my degrees, honors, medals, world travels, and all of the other things that make up how I have lived my life, but John already knows this and doesn't care to acknowledge my accomplishments.
He doesn't care about the undergrad and post graduate degrees because he has a technical certificate. No shame from me but maybe a little penis envy from him? He never served in uniform, definately couldn't handle the discipline, so my medals don't mean anything to him because he has nothing that he can point to and say 'Mine is better!' And so on and so on.
What do I have to show for my life at, now, 42? Living my dream job, in my dream country, exploring said country, and learning all the fun crafts which I love to do. Like Japanese style indigo dying, spinning silk into thread, and hopefully soon how to weave. What I have to show is living my best life.
You sound like a tump supporter fake news.
Now, this is a pretty weird thing to say, until you figure in gas lighting and misdirection. I'm supposed to be upset over this comparision because I am the most liberal person in the family and he is trying to redirected me to focus on this unfair comparision. How many times has John yelled at me for being liberal? Too many to count. So to try and compare me to a trumper is a simple tactic meant to make me feel that I don't have a right to be upset over being made homeless for the grave crime of, if you beleive Dawn, yelling about plastic bags.
Be happy for what you have
Kids, if you have someone telling you this after you have just been shit on by people you trusted and loved, they are basically telling you that you need to accept being the punching bag. Accept being the door mat. Accept being the dumpster for other peoples emotional garbage. And the right response to that bullshit is FUCK OFF.
stop being a judgmental ass.
Ah yes, the old double standard. You can sit there and yell and judge me from accros the planet but I'm the 'judgmental' one? Sure, John. This is just more emotional abuse programing from our childhood and how we continue to treat each other as adults. If one person is emotionally or psycologically abusing another person the abused is supposed to just take it. Because if we don't then it might make the other siblings around us question the abuse they receive and give and whether or not it is justified. For the record, the abuse from Dawn and John is not justified. And the really 'fun' part is where now they start to scream victim from 'abuse from me because I said the thing out loud; I named the abuse. Too. Fucking. Bad.
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