I’ve been thinking of this post for quite a while now, but had a hard time figuring out how to put it all. What has happened with the shootings in the states has made this post so much more salient. I’ve been wanting to tell you about my brother who is “bipolar with paranoid schizophrenic tendencies”. When I was a teenager I was terrified that my brother was going to be like one of the boys that shot up Columbine high school or like the guy that shot up Sandy Hill Elementary.... But let me start at the beginning.
My brother is two years younger than me but that meant little when we were kids. We played unicorns and monsters, cars and Barbie’s, Santa’s workshop, videogames, watched movies, etc. We would even have sleepovers in each other’s bedrooms. We used to tell each other everything, I don’t know how I would have gotten through childhood without him. We started to grow apart though shortly after he came to highschool in grade eight when he was thirteen and I was fifteen. He started hanging out with people that were weird and creepy.
When my brother was in grade nine on the anniversary of a school shooting in Montreal called the Montreal Massacre my brother did something stupid. He wrote “die, die, die” over and over on a computer, printed out numerous copies, and placed them in students lockers and teachers desks. He was expelled and over the next few years proceeded to get expelled from each high school in town until there were none left. At each school he learned a new addiction alcohol, magic mushrooms, cigarettes, and the worst of all, crystal meth. We are not sure if he has schizophrenia or if the crystal meth just made Swiss cheese out of this brain.
One time our house was broken into and everything of value stolen, including video tapes of us as children. We later learned my brother left the door unlocked to pay back a dealer. Another time after he had been kicked out, I was home with locked doors, he woke me up screaming that someone was raping me, broke through a window and stole stuff. Another time I was sick and he threw me across the kitchen. I’ve seen him face down in our driveway being handcuffed by police numerous times. More recently he brought out a huge knife from the kitchen and stated “this is a knife for a knife fight”.
One of my scariest moments with my brother I was nowhere near him. It was New Years Eve, my parents were at a party and my brother was out with friends. I was home alone as I had no friends. I got a phone call from a hospital in a town an hour away, my brother had been driving in a car full of people and they had gotten in a car accident. I was very calm until I hung up the phone, then I had my first major breakdown ever. I remember backing up until I hit a wall and crumpling to the ground hyperventilating. I was upset, not because my brother may have been hurt, but because it was at that moment that I realized he may hurt or kill someone someday. And there was nothing we could do.
I learned this lesson even more as the years have passed. My brother has been arrested numerous times, one time running naked through the streets (poor cops), one time because he lit a broomstick on fire and went into an abandoned house (many times for starting fires), many times for drunk and disorderly, etc. He has tried to kill himself numerous times. Yet, the medical system does nothing. For years he was in and out of psych wards, but because he wanted to leave, they had to let him, even if he was a stark raving lunatic.
Before my brother turned 18 the people in the system said, “wait until he is an adult, then there will be so much help”. But we found out then that there was none, they just wanted my brother out of their hair. Once my brother was an adult no one could force him to get well. My parents and I tried, we called numerous political bodies, government bodies, etc. until for a period of about three months he was committed. After those three months clean he didn’t want to get better, that is when I gave up on him. I shut him out of my life because I couldn’t take the heartache anymore. My parents didn’t though. My best friend became the last person on earth I want to see.
About a year ago the system finally worked. It was too late to fix my relationship with him though. He is in a facility that helps addictions along with mental illness. My parents say he is doing well. I suck it up every couple months and meet with the family in a very public space but only because my mom wants me to. I don’t want him near my children... or me... or my wife... I will never trust him, no matter how much better he gets, I don’t trust him.
Every time there is a school shooting I think of my brother. Of a family that had a child lose it and had no support from the police or government. Of a sister, a mother, a grandfather, who knew there brother/son/grandson was going to do something horrible one day, but no one would listen or do anything. I am also a teacher, I have taught from preschool up to grade twelve, I cannot imagine being in a situation like those teachers are put in. I am also a mother... my biggest fear is not my child dying in one of these incidents, but one or more of my children turning into a person like my brother. Maybe I will see it coming and know how to help?
All I know is the mental healthcare system needs to change. Society also needs to change and realize that maybe crazy people need to be locked up sometimes. I don’t know.
