I thought my brother would kill me when I was growing up

I already shared this in a comment section but I wanted to share it here too.

He was like an early version of the iPad kid. It started a long time ago with my mom‘s iPhone 3. She let him play on it sometimes, and he eventually started stealing it and found out the password. This went on and he kept finding out passwords and stealing her phones. He is almost two years younger than me and this started in our early childhood. But his electronics addiction wasn’t the only problem. He was violent. He was also just kind of evil, like cutting up my dresses in the closet just to be upsetting. He was always kind of defiant but it just kept getting worse. For some more background, we were a family of 3 girls and 1 boy at the time, so he was set apart by that already. My dad was usually out working and my mom had to deal with him more, but they both really struggled with him.

He was violent and my parents had to restrain him so he wouldn’t hurt us. He would also just say extremely hurtful things. My youngest sister was the main target, even after my youngest brother was eventually born. At this point he never fully potty trained, either. You may laugh but we would find his discarded poop or pee underwear in the house and the bathrooms were a nightmare. If he had his hands on electronics he just wouldn’t bother setting them down to use the toilet. And as he got older, electronics became more accessible. He also outgrew me and was able to overpower me by the time I was 13 and he was 11, so I became kind of defenseless against him. Around that time my mom left my dad and they had split custody of us. He continued to have screaming matches with my parents, especially mom, and his behavior and grades got worse with the divorce. Of course we all suffered at that time. He was just as broken as the rest of us but he was aggressive. He would scream and cry and yell and my mom would yell back. What else could she do? Even though he was completely insane and out of control, his wails always hurt me. He was my brother and I loved him. He could be nice sometimes, too. But it was bad enough that I thought he might grow up to be a murderer. In fact, I was scared he might kill me or one of my sisters, especially after he brandished a kitchen knife at me. His violence and feces did torment us for many years. Growing up, I was terrified of what might become of him. I couldn’t picture him not being detained or something. He was getting stronger and it was terrifying.

I wanted to get him sent somewhere where they could maybe help him, and my parents considered it too, but the closest place like that was hours away in Chicago. No way we could afford something like that anyway. He was in and out of psychiatric treatment (meds) at this time but this was inconsistent as his medications always just made him feel unwell so he wouldn’t take them. He had to do 6th grade twice and was still out of control. As he grew my mom couldn’t hold him back very well either, so my dad was the only one who had the strength to handle him. But they were separated by now, so if he lashed out at my mom’s house, it was bad news.

Eventually he decided to live with my dad full time once he started high school. For once he started growing out of it. Like, all of it. I think having a week to himself while we were at mom’s house helped lower the tension or something.

He’s 17 now and he’s a good kid. He still has bad days every now and then but he can handle it much better now. He has great friends who would never dream of him being who he was when we were kids. Him growing out of that almost seems like magic. We are good friends now and I still love him very much. I’m proud of him.

But this is why iPad kids scare me. I know how it is. I know how bad it can get. His crying and screaming stays with me. My older sister would laugh at his pathetic screaming ass but it always got to me. Even if I wanted to laugh I couldn’t really. I could hear pain in his cries even though he was just being insane. It was painful because I loved him but I was scared of him.