Hanging on by a Thread

I cut ties with my handicapped brother, Lost, today.  I've tried for years to maintain a relationship with him in spite of his bitter and relentless hatred towards my mother and anyone else that refuses to "take his side."

Lost has cerebral palsy.  He wasn't born this way.  He fell in a pool when he was two and nearly drowned.  There was a law suit.  He was supposed to be taken care of, financially, for the rest of his life.  Unfortunately, drugs, alcohol, sex and the desperate need for acceptance has led him into a dark place filled with the kind of people determined to take advantage of him and take him for all he is worth by any means possible.  3 years of this behavior has resulted in a marriage to a stripper with a criminal record, including assault and battery of a police officer and a "friendship" with a man who was imprisoned for sexually molesting a 9 year old boy.  These are vicious people that are evil to the core.  After only a year of being married to this dreadful woman, my brother's funds had almost completely diminished.  We all began to fear that, if something terrible didn't happen to Lost in the process, he would eventually find himself in a state run facility for the disabled, as my mother does not have either the money or the physical strength to care for my brother on the level he needs to be cared for.  Realizing that Lost would not listen to anything she had to say, my mom eventually had to step in, involve the courts, have him deemed incompetent and void the marriage.

Since this has happened Lost has gone on a crusade against my mom, alienating everyone around him and remaining completely incapable of listening to reason on even the simplest of levels.  No matter how hard I've tried, I can not talk to him and everything that is said turns into a fight.  Even the simplest emails, just an "I love you" or "I'm thinking about you" has transformed into some form of ammunition.  Its been an endless source of sadness and frustration for everyone that knows him.  I have watched his life crumble like a mountain of sedimentary rock, falling down and turning to dust right before our eyes.  I've felt myself lose my balance at the top of it and fall slowly and painfully, waving my arms in the air, desperately grasping for solidity.  This man is my older brother, he was my mountain at one point in our lives.

The last straw was yesterday when I went on to Facebook to discover a fresh post written by Lost about the recent death of his dog.  It was not a long post, it was initially about his dog, but somehow turned into 3 raving sentences about how it is my mom's fault and how she has ruined his life and all his chances of happiness.  I tried to respond with love but it was no use.  My words were immediately under attack.  This is not my brother.

For 3 years I've tried to remain in his life on some level.  I've tried to remain neutral.  I've asked him to leave myself and our other siblings out of his problems with my mom and dad, but in the end we have always been dragged back in.  He has told me on more than one occasion that if we were not with him, we were against him.  The powerlessness of it all could kill me on it's very own.  I can do nothing, literally, nothing.  It's awful; to watch someone suffer and know you can't reach them.  With all solutions exhausted, feeling both indignant and heart broken, I decided to write Lost my last letter:

Dear Lost,
this will be the last letter I ever write to.  After this i will never try to contact you again.  There are some things I need to say to you before I cut ties with you completely.  I would like to start by saying that I am sorry I have made you feel like I have constantly yelled at and talked down to you.  I would like to remind you that I have repeatedly asked that you leave me out of everything and allow me to remain neutral.  It has only been at the times that you have pulled me in against my will that I have reacted with anger. 

I need to remind you that you did not leave mom's house voluntarily, you were kicked out.  She specifically told you she didn't want you there anymore and that she didn't want to be in charge of your trust anymore because she was afraid it was coming between the two of you.  When you got your own place and asked Brad and Phil to take over your finances, she was the first to support it.  She talked extensively about what a great decision it was, that she was proud of you, that she felt it was important that you had your independence and that she was grateful she would no longer have to be in charge of your trust as it was becoming a source of animosity between you and her.  She encouraged Brad and Phil to go through with the decision and did what she could to help in the process.

It has only been in the past 3 years that she began to worry about your well being.  Your funds were quickly diminishing and she was worried you would wind up in a home or someone would hurt you in another way.  For a year I watched her weigh out her options and talk to everyone she knows about what the right thing to do was, as your mother.  She witnessed behaviors and actions being taken by others that seemed dishonorable and dangerous to you.  She was sick with worry for years and felt like she was a bad mother for not doing anything about it.  She knew that as the years went by, she would no longer be able to take care of your physical needs and was terrified that you would have to go to a state run facility if you continued to run out of money to care for yourself.  She was also worried that Kasandra and Raymond were taking advantage of you.

When she decided to go to the courts about the situation it was through much consultation and a greatly broken heart because she knew it would result in you hating her for the rest of her life.  A a mother, she had to choose between you hating her and you being physically and financially safe.  She chose your safety.  Please remember that she specifically requested to the courts that she have nothing to do with your money.  She asked for a financial guardian to take care of your trust instead.  She neither wanted the weight of the financial responsibility nor the consequences of you feeling as if she was in it for the money, this is exactly why she told them she did not want to be in charge of it.  Whatever you may think about her decision or her as a person, her intentions were never to take your money from you. 

I know you are angry and feel betrayed.  I would too.  But this a battle no one will ever win.  There are no sides and you are fighting an invisible enemy.  She did what any mother would have done for the sake of your health and well being.  She has done nothing bit desperately try to be a good mom to all of us, even if we have not always liked her decisions.  Every decision that was ever made in regards to you was a result of various facts she had collected from numerous people regarding your home life and how your money was being spent.  No adult ever completely agrees with how their parents raised them, but almost anyone can look back and know that they did the very best they could.  You had food, shelter, luxury and love in your life.  Neither mom or dad ever molested, abused or neglected us.  We were fortunate to grow up in a home with so much love.  There are moments where that love may all we have to go by but we know in our hearts that it was there.  I believe we all get to an age where we absolutely have to make the decision to stop blaming those around us and take responsibility for our lives or live in misery and die alone.  Those are each and every person's only options. 

Your family will always love you and will always be there for you, that is a fact I wish you would acknowledge on a deeper level than what you think you might see in front of you.  But we, as your family, do love and care for you, to the point that decisions have to be made that could greatly hurt us on an emotional level.  The biggest sacrifice mom ever made was to contact the courts.  Every moment of that sacrifice left her in absolute agony over the outcome.  She desperately wanted you to be safe and financially secure.  I wish with all my heart that you understood that.  The anger that you carry with you is not healthy.  I wish I could just make all this go away but I can't.  There are things about all of this I wish you could see but you are in too deep with your resentment and I know I can't do anything about it. 

Again, this is the last email you will ever receive from me; the last time I will ever try to contact you.  Whatever war you are waging in your own heart is not one I can or want to be a part of.  Please do not respond to this, as I know it will be with hatred.  I am asking that you let me go so that I can live my life without the pain of knowing you.  I can no longer call you my brother; I don't know you at all the way I once did and, sadly, I don't think I want to.  I remember adoring you and looking up to you as a little girl, I would give anything to have that back but the path you've chosen is not one I can take with you. 
I will always love you,
but please stay out of my life.
A

Sadly, I found myself checking that thread on Facebook every few hours throughout the day today;  wondering what others are saying, how he is responding; reading the other confrontations and arguments; observing the dire attempts of my dear friends and family members to give Lost some sense of reality, or at least a different perspective.  I hung on to that last thread knowing that it was the only thing I had left to tie me to him; my last thread of hope that he might see even just a fragment of the truth through the words of others or that I might see in him the person I know that he is.  I suppose all I can do is let go.  Solid ground is a little painful to face at times and not at all where you would find my brother, but it's where my feet are, where I find the people I love, where life feels real.  I would rather be here, than up there hanging on by a thread with him.  I will still keep my eyes open though, just in case the universe hands me a rope ladder.