ok, so this is what I've been going through a bit, and I had to get it out there so that others will hopefully take it and be kinder to others.
Every day it's the same routine. Well, there's some variation, depending on if I'm in school or at home. But no matter what, the moment he walks in, the day changes.
I sit on the couch in our living room, avoiding being noticed, avoiding interaction with others. It doesn't always work that way.
"Hey," he says in a neutral tone. I glance at him to show that I've acknowledged him, but make no other move to communicate with him. After all, I don't want to say something to have it backfire and then get him angry. I don't like it when he's angry.
Usually, I have my phone on me, scrolling through some site or another, and hope that he won't make any move to get mad. My hope is crushed when he throws a pencil at me, just to get my attention. I throw it back and ignore him again. He finds something else and throws that at me, and then throws the pencil too. When he finds another small thing and throws it at me, I look up, frustrated, and ask him if he can stop.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you're being a jerk."
"Wha- I'm not the one who keeps throwing things at people!"
"But you did the first time."
"That was one time so that you would stop."
"You're being a jerk." He insists this at me again and again and again." Jerk, jerk, jerkity jerk."
"No, I'm no-"
"Jerk."
"I'm not the jerk. If anybody is, it's you."
"Nope. I'm being the nice one. You're the jerk."
"That is such a lie."
"I don't ever lie."
"Oh yeah? And what do you call what you just said?"
"That was truth. I always tell the truth; it's you who lies all the time."
"I don't lie. Or if I do, I do my best to not lie again."
"Nope. You're a jerk."
"What does that have to do with anything?!"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because you're a jerk."
"Ok, just stop it already, please."
"Stop what? Telling the truth?"
"Whatever." I get up and start going to my room. "I can't take this anymore." As I'm leaving the room, he calls out after me:
"Oh, so you're going to cry now? What a baby." By this time I was frustrated and was done replying to him. "Ohhh, the little baby is gonna go cry in her room now."
"Yeah, so what? You got a problem with that?" I wasn't anywhere near crying but I was done with him. He stops talking to me as I go in my room until dad calls me in for dinner. I am a little slow getting up, as I was finishing a paragraph that I was reading, and I was still in the middle of a sentence when he walked in my room.
"Get up lazy. It's time to eat dinner."
"I know, I know. I'm finishing up this paragraph and then I'm coming in."
"No, you take forever, and I'm hungry. Come on."
"Are mom and dad even in there yet?"
"Well, dad went back in his room and talking to mom right now."
"Dude, chill. If dad's talking, it'll be awhile before they come in. I have time to finish my paragraph."
He walks to the kitchen before coming back to my room. "Oh look, they're coming."
"Ok, fine, whatever. I'm finished with this paragraph now anyways. See, I was almost done."
"No, you weren't. It took you five hours to finish!" I give up and just look at him, before getting up and going to the kitchen. When I get in there, mom and dad are still talking in their room.
"Uh huh. 'Mom and dad are coming' right? Where are they? Whatever happened to 'I never lie.'?"
"I never said that."
"You were saying that earlier!"
"Guys, enough." By now my sister was agitated. "Look, they're coming now." Now my parents really were coming in.
"See, told you so." My brother says. "I didn't lie. I was talking about the future." I roll my eyes. My parents come in and we ate dinner.
Now, this seems normal, and probably a little comical to you, right? Well it's not. It's really frustrating to me and to others. I'm sure you also think I'm acting really childish, both me and my brother. This is the same brother who usually gives me great ideas for stories and does pun wars with me.
This is the same brother who used to be my best friend.
What happened to that friendship, you ask? I'm not sure, but our tolerance for each other has been decreasing over the years, and has especially gone down this year.
Of course, you probably don't care about my sob story, and just want me to get to my point for this already, am I right? Don't worry, we will soon enough.
The day is finally here. We're making a special trip out of town to go see a play. Which requires us to be cooped up in a car for maybe 3 hours with a break in the middle for bathrooms, stretching, etc. Which also means I get to sit next to my brother for 3 hours, and magically not argue with him at all.
The trip up actually goes well. We don't argue with each other, and we actually laugh together and make jokes, puns, and other crazy stuff. He lets me borrow his headphones for music because I forgot mine, and I am grateful for it, and he doesn't mind, even when I force him to listen to some of my music.
We get there, and go wait in our seats. That's when it starts. He goes crazy and starts "playing" with my sister. He grabs her neck at her pressure points, and won't let go even when she asks him to stop. He keeps putting his hands at her sensitive spots on her back so that she has to arch her back and twist around just relieve it. By this time I had noticed, and I ask him to stop, and he reluctantly does, but that's only because the performance started. It's fine during the performance, it ends well, and there were no further incidents.
Until we were deciding what to eat for dinner.
I wasn't feeling good, and maybe that was a factor in this all, but I wanted to just go to a gas station, convenience store, whatever and get something cheap from there. Everyone else wanted to go to a fancy restaurant and eat there, but nothing they suggested sounded good. But no matter what, every time I suggested the gas station, you know what my brother said?
"You're not important."
I kept saying back to him that I was too, and that nothing else sounded good, but he kept saying that. Later on, he claims he said that my opinion in the matter wasn't important, but I disagreed with him, because I know exactly what he said.
It bugs me when others say they know what I said, when it's completely different to what I actually did say. They tell me that they know what I said, and they're right. And I know I'll probably be called a hypocrite for this, but I know what I heard, and I also know that after an argument has been ended, my brother will try to save himself by saying something completely different, and denying everything.
But I digress.
Now, this happens all the time, so it shouldn't be a big deal. He's always bagging on me saying I don't matter and telling me that I'm stupid and that I should just go away. But, like I said, I wasn't feeling good, so that sent me over the edge when he told me I wasn't important. I sat in my seat, faced the window, and cried.
I'm not one who cries. It takes a lot for me to cry, so this was huge. No one noticed, though, because I stayed silent. Even though he tells me horrible stuff, I never get him in trouble. I guess it's my hope that if I don't get him in trouble, he'll notice and will be nicer to me.
It's the wrong way to go about things, I know, but that's the way it's always been. A truce, if you will.
Whenever I talk to my best friend from school about it, she gives me the best advice. Really, I talk to her about anything and everything, and she always has some advice if I really need it, which I have been needing lately. A lot.
"Sit your mom down and talk to her about it. The only way to take care of the issue is to get it out there, and let them know what is going on." This is what she usually says for this kind of thing. She also tells me it's okay to cry about it if I need to, to get it off my chest. And I would, if I was one who could cry easy.
Now, I'm not trying to tell you every single detail about my personal life. I'm not trying to throw a pity-party, or guilt-trip anybody. What I am trying to do is get you to realize something: bullying hurts. I've always been subject to a bit of bullying, whether in my family or not, physical and emotional. And there are others out there who are bullied even more than me, to the point of depression, and quite possibly suicide.
Look, I know everybody's situation is different, but that gives you NO RIGHT to go and make somebody else's life miserable to try and make you feel better, if that's what you do. It doesn't work, and I know this from experience. If anything, it just makes you even worse off.
Try and be kind to others. No, don't even try. Just be kind anyways. You don't know what all they're going through, even if they're like me and tell their best friend everything, because everybody hides a little secret, and doesn't let it come out, even to somebody they trust completely.
Enough with all the bullying and crap that is given to others. It sucks, and makes everybody unhappy. I've been on both ends of this, guys. Both times I was unhappy. And I'm sorry if you are offended, or feel like I overstepped my bounds, but I'm taking a stand, and finally following my best friend's advice: I'm getting it out there, and talking about it.
Because you never know who might be suffering from something, and still manage to smile and say, "Nothing's wrong."