For some context, me and my boyfriend have been living in my moms house while she is currently living elsewhere for work. I rarely get to see family outside of Christmas holidays once a year due to everyone living in different parts of the country. My brother has been struggling with severe depression and anxiety lately while in the army.
This past Christmas, my mom and brother came to visit for 2 weeks. I learned he had just started a new antidepressant medication a couple weeks prior to visiting, so he was not his usual self. I made sure before everyone got home that the place was thoroughly cleaned, everything put away and tidy. Apparently this was not enough for my brother. Each day he would clean for hours, scrubbing at walls, constant vacuuming of everything in sight for hours, climbing the ladder to clean lightbulbs, etc. I would hear him making comments to my mom about how lazy we were, how disgusting we had left the house and throwing out everything he deemed not important because we are becoming “hoarders”. He never used to be like this before so it was hurtful. I hate confrontation and he knows this. My mom was in agreement that his behaviour was too much and the house looked perfectly clean to her, but we should just put up with it until he leaves.
Finally, everything blew up after he told me I need to clean the bathroom because it’s the least I could do after all the cleaning he has done so far. Although it was already clean (essentials like the toilet, sink and tub), I made sure to scrub the floors/baseboards, dusted off the lightbulbs, essentially a thorough deep clean so he would stop complaining. Not even that was enough. The next morning (the day he was leaving), I hear him vacuuming again probably around 7am for an hour. After that, he came upstairs banging on my door telling me I couldn’t even do the one single thing he asked, which was to clean the bathroom. He goes off swearing at me, telling me if I’m so lazy I should hire a fucking maid. At this point I start crying and my boyfriend goes off at him telling him to back off as he’s making me upset. My mom comes out telling everyone to stop and there’s nothing wrong with the bathroom, but that only fired him up more. He starts pointing to dust on the lights that is literally not there, stains on the baseboard that can’t be cleaned, screaming at me the whole time. I started having a panic attack and hyperventilating, and my brother literally threw one of his antidepressants at me telling me I need to chill out then packed all his things and left for the airport. Since then, I’ve been struggling mentally with what happened and have been having nightmares every night about him screaming at me.
Fast forward to yesterday when he sends me an apology text saying he is sorry and feels bad about how he left and things went way too far, he didn’t realize that I was so bothered by it and he has now stopped taking the medication. He is hoping I can move past this and forgive him. I want to be able to forgive him but I am still struggling with it. The aftermath of his cleaning left me with dozens of garbage bags full of stuff in the garage and every time I look for a kitchen appliance/tool/book that I realize he has thrown away, I get upset about it all over again.
TLDR: over Christmas, my depressed brother got upset that the house wasn’t clean enough and was swearing and yelling at me, causing me to have a panic attack before he left for the airport. He sent an apology text yesterday.
How should I move on and fix my relationship with him, should I just forgive? I am having conflicting thoughts. Any advice with how I should respond to his apology text?
3 comments
Either the medication caused your brother to be obsessive & he wasn’t in his right mind, or he has developed an obsessive disorder.
Whichever is true, I don’t think your bros was wholly responsible for his behavior.
In that light, forgiving him becomes less difficult.
Forgive him quickly. I didn’t forgive my younger brother for his bad behavior related to the war on terror and PTSD ~ didn’t speak to him, he died a bit over a year ago, his body was alone so long in his apt there couldn’t be an autopsy. Forgive him. He apologized.
Forgive him quickly. I didn’t forgive my younger brother for his bad behavior related to the war on terror and PTSD ~ didn’t speak to him, he died a bit over a year ago, his body was alone so long in his apt there couldn’t be an autopsy. Forgive him. He apologized.