Letting it out

I’ve been debating with myself for a very long time about whether I should put this up here. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I’m going to, no matter what the consequences are going to be. I need to write this down for myself, but I also feel I have as much right to give my point of view as my brother has. I’m sorry if this post seems chaotic, but I’m not able to do this any other way.
 
My brother is leaving for Ireland tomorrow (Thursday). He’s going with the family of a friend of his and he’ll be away for about three weeks. This is excellent, because it’s quit nice to be the only child at home for some time. But I also think him being away for some time will do us all some good. It’s not that the actual time that we normally see him will differ very much, though. He spends as much time as possible away from home, mostly with this one girl. “Is she your girlfriend?” –“NO, she’s NOT my girlfriend!!” “Okay, chill. I’m just checking, ‘cause… you know, you spend an incredible amount of time with her (some days ago he staid at her place from 13.00 in the afternoon till 6.30 in the morning) and she is one of your former sex partners, so… And I mean, she’s a very nice girl, so we wouldn’t have a problem at all if she was your girlfriend.” “- I really don’t understand why you people think she’s my girlfriend, because she’s not!” “…” So no, she’s not his girlfriend. They just act like they’re a couple and spend more time together than some real couples do…
 
My brother doesn’t seem to understand what he has put my parents and me through during the past year. A lot has been going on, too much to simply explain it all. It’s been an enumeration of small and big things. But one of the worst parts has been and still is the telling lies. He is constantly telling lies which has had the logical effect that we no longer trust what he tells us.
- Saying he’s going to J’s place, while he’s going to K’s place.
- Saying he’s going to K’s place with M, while he’s going alone.
- Saying he’s going to university, while he’s skipping classes and going to the cinema.
- Saying he’s going to do an exam and telling us, when he comes home, how difficult it was, while you find out later that he didn’t take the exam at all.
- Saying he doesn’t have his grades back, while they’ve been up on the internet for over a week.
- Saying he has a 5 for an exam, while he received a 2.
- Saying he didn’t take whatever food is missing again, but finding the packings in his waste-paper basket
- Saying he got his new dagger as a gift from a friend, while his bank account tells otherwise.
- Saying he’s done something my parents asked him to do, while he obviously didn’t.
- Saying he was home at 02.00 at night, while we all heard him come home at 05.30 in the morning.
 
These kinds of situations didn’t just happen one time. No, they happened over and over and over again. He even has the nerves to be angry with us when we no longer believe everything he says. And why? It all comes out sooner or later, so why? It’s one thing to say that you took the exam and it was difficult, so you don’t expect you’ve passed it, but it’s another thing to keep up the lie once you’re caught. It’s a simple fact that if you’re posting at forums (those that give you the exact time someone posts) you can’t be doing an exam at the same time. But in stead of accepting he’s been caught and just telling the truth, he keeps it up and buries a deeper hole for himself. “That’s not true! I did take the exam!” “- Your first post was at 09.06, so you can’t have. Or you must have left after 10 minutes.” “That’s not true! I staid for over an hour!” “- Well, your posts and the facts say something else” “It’s still not true!” Then some weeks later when the results for the exams come back, it says NV for this particular subject. ‘Niet Verschenen’, that is: hasn’t shown up for the exam. So what was all the denying about? All the lies make us not believe anything he says and it frustrates everyone. Especially the fact that he never admits that he is or has been telling lies. So now, we just shrug when he tells us something. ‘Whatever… it’s probably not true anyway.’
 
It’s not just the lies, but also the disrespect towards me, but especially towards my mother and father. Total disrespect towards whatever they ask or advise him or any rules they set him. He has long stopped caring about anything they say, and probably just entirely stopped caring about them. He’s officially a grown-up, so what can you do as parents? They don’t want to drive him away even further then he has already done himself. But by now they do understand that something will have to change soon, because else our family will fall apart. We’re all under a tremendous amount of stress, particularly my mother. She’s very close to having a breakdown and it’s very difficult for me to see it al happen and not be able to do anything about it.
 
Reading the things he says about my parents at the internet is incredibly painful. He explains the situation and everything that has happened entirely different from how it really is and blames everything on every one, except himself. He doesn’t take any responsibility for his own actions and doesn’t seem to get the fact that it’s just about all been his own doing. He should really consider himself lucky with the parents that he has, because I’m quit sure a lot of parents would have kicked him out a long time ago.
 
This entire situation is very twofold. He’s my only brother; I love him dearly and I truly care for him. But I’ve also started to dislike him more and more because of everything that has happened and because of how he treats my parents. So let’s just say I’m grateful the next few weeks will be a lot less stressful. And hopefully when he returns from Ireland he will finally know what he’s going to do from September on: work, study or stay at home. But I still believe there’s an even chance that one of these days he will simply step on a plane heading towards the United States or Canada. Something will have to happen, for better or for worse, because things can’t go on like this.
 
This post doesn’t even come close to covering everything that’s been going on.................