Some Embroidery And A Family Powwow
I've been working away on the embroidery on the Elizabethan cap I've been working on, and now that I've sat down and forced myself to work on it for more than an hour I'm finally starting to get into the zen of it. The simple pattern helps; I've managed to get the lengths of thread down to enough for a repeat, and reloading the needle doesn't break my concentration on the pattern the way it did when I first started. It's still not my bag, though. And I've got enough hobbies. I can't wait to get to the bobbin lace portion of the exercise.
So here's more family drama. If you're not into it, skip this part.
We all sat down yesterday, Mom and Cathy and I, and talked about what to do about my older brother now that he's decided to come home and rearrange my mother's life after not even giving her the time of day for forty years. She's agreed to go to a lawyer. We're going to make that happen. I've gotten the locks changed. We've discussed an order of protection (much more difficult to get for infliction of emotional harm, because that's harder to prove. If she had bruises, we could get one with no problem.) From here on out, it's up to Mom. She's the one who has to tell him to leave when he shows up and then call the police when he refuses to leave. I'm hoping the lawyer will give us some mechanism for dealing with this kind of abuser, and Cathy's going to research elder law to see if she can come up with anything.
From everything I've read about this type of abuser, he's not going to change; he's doing this for our own good. And he's never listened to anything any of us have said, and he isn't going to start now. He's always been smarter than anyone else, Mr-I-Am-Too-Smart-To-Finish-College Boy. My presence or Cathy's presence here isn't going to help, it's just going to give him more targets.
He's always been terribly jealous of me, but he would never discuss any such thing with me; to him, I'm the one with the problem, not him. As a kid, I internalized this; if Chuck thought I was stupid, well then, I must not be very bright. And I still find it very difficult to deal with him. Mom just shuts down; Cathy said that at one point, Chuck brought her over to Cathy's (they were out shopping for something) and Cathy said Mom never spoke a word during the entire visit. Mom herself has said that she just stopped answering him when he'd ask her a question because he didn't listen to anything she said anyway.
I suppose Chuck will use this as an example of Mom's senility. He's started back into the whole put her in a home thing per Cathy's boyfriend; he's the only one who answers the phone when Idiot calls. He's also been trying to phone my niece, who also doesn't answer the phone when he pops up on her caller ID. He hasn't even tried to call me.
But then, I commited the heinous crime of going with my Dad when he asked if I'd like to go for a walk. Chuck righteously turned him down because parents are stupid. And I graduated from college, unlike Chuck, who didn't do that because diplomas were so Establishment and were just a piece of paper. Idiot. He did go back and finish about ten years ago, but only because it was a condition of keeping his job. Duh.
Oh, I'll go on. More later.
So here's more family drama. If you're not into it, skip this part.
We all sat down yesterday, Mom and Cathy and I, and talked about what to do about my older brother now that he's decided to come home and rearrange my mother's life after not even giving her the time of day for forty years. She's agreed to go to a lawyer. We're going to make that happen. I've gotten the locks changed. We've discussed an order of protection (much more difficult to get for infliction of emotional harm, because that's harder to prove. If she had bruises, we could get one with no problem.) From here on out, it's up to Mom. She's the one who has to tell him to leave when he shows up and then call the police when he refuses to leave. I'm hoping the lawyer will give us some mechanism for dealing with this kind of abuser, and Cathy's going to research elder law to see if she can come up with anything.
From everything I've read about this type of abuser, he's not going to change; he's doing this for our own good. And he's never listened to anything any of us have said, and he isn't going to start now. He's always been smarter than anyone else, Mr-I-Am-Too-Smart-To-Finish-College Boy. My presence or Cathy's presence here isn't going to help, it's just going to give him more targets.
He's always been terribly jealous of me, but he would never discuss any such thing with me; to him, I'm the one with the problem, not him. As a kid, I internalized this; if Chuck thought I was stupid, well then, I must not be very bright. And I still find it very difficult to deal with him. Mom just shuts down; Cathy said that at one point, Chuck brought her over to Cathy's (they were out shopping for something) and Cathy said Mom never spoke a word during the entire visit. Mom herself has said that she just stopped answering him when he'd ask her a question because he didn't listen to anything she said anyway.
I suppose Chuck will use this as an example of Mom's senility. He's started back into the whole put her in a home thing per Cathy's boyfriend; he's the only one who answers the phone when Idiot calls. He's also been trying to phone my niece, who also doesn't answer the phone when he pops up on her caller ID. He hasn't even tried to call me.
But then, I commited the heinous crime of going with my Dad when he asked if I'd like to go for a walk. Chuck righteously turned him down because parents are stupid. And I graduated from college, unlike Chuck, who didn't do that because diplomas were so Establishment and were just a piece of paper. Idiot. He did go back and finish about ten years ago, but only because it was a condition of keeping his job. Duh.
Oh, I'll go on. More later.