Open Letter to My Brother (that he may or may not see)

You may rant about you friend, but you will never know what it’s like to deal with someone who truly has issues and refuses help. Neurotransmitters are no joke. They are not a conspiracy by big pharma. Sometimes people’s brains suck and don’t make them. My anxiety has shown this to me first hand. Mom and Dad both had depression and took pills that worked at various states in their lives. Oftentimes people don’t have family, insurance, or both. Mom may be gone, but you always had her, and you still have me. You also have the luxury of living in California, which provides you healthcare. You have support and access to treatment, and rather than compromise and look for something that works, you still put me through the ringer even after we agreed to do each other better. Yet here I am. Just last night you were telling me how grateful you were for me not giving up, how you loved me. Then tonight you get irrationally angry at a dumb joke, and I snap in frustration. I’m sorry. Yelling is immature, and I should never yell unless its Charly grubbing for food. If you think back on it, the last time I yelled was a month ago. I am trying so hard, and I’m sorry I slipped. But rather than meet me halfway, you shut down and then you sped off in your car with no insurance and that is not registered, putting yourself at risk of a cop having a boring/shitty night. You made me cry because yet again all my efforts felt worthless. I wished so hard for Mom, but she is gone, and I am left to live with and try and help you alone. On the bad days, it is crushing, but I persist.

I need to say some other things to try and make you understand all that has happened and that yet Mom and I both stayed and tried to help, that I am still trying no matter how sad and angry your actions make me. 

You’ll never know how it feels to be afraid of someone you love and afraid for them at the same time. I took it to extremes and cried and ran to Mom, but since she died, I have learned how she enabled me and how I was acting like a jerk a lot of the time. Still, you put so much stress on her and me, and I yet here I am. The way she always was.

You will never know how each bad episode gives your loved one a flashback and makes them experience PTSD. Last year, when you cut yourself on New Year’s and ran off and were finally taken to the hospital, Mom and I had terrible anxiety. Every sound we heard made us jump, made us wonder if you came back. We cried to each other and both finally fell asleep sometime after 3am. Mom didn’t even want to call you for the first day or so because she was so traumatized. Yet she cashed in her saved, special quarters so you could call us. She drove me to see you, and she finally relented along with me when It was time to pick you up. We bought Taco Bell and brought you home under the agreement of new beginnings, of listening to each other.

We persisted. Just like when we came to see you in Chino Hills at that one place back in 2012, I think. I went to work having no idea where you were and was worried because a girl called the cops that you were threatening to harm yourself with a bag. We wouldn’t know for two more days until they allowed you to call us. We came. We brought clothes. We saw and talked to you. We promised to bring you home. This was where you were first diagnosed. Looking back on the signs and symptoms, Mom believed you had been bipolar since high school. She felt it described your negative behavior like stealing, being influenced, and your strange yet amazing drawings. She felt so bad she had never looked into it before, like she failed you somehow. You were her son. She could never fully give up no matter what happened.

You may diagnose you fiend with your affliction, and I feel badly for her if she has it. But you need help, too. I have agreed. I have tried. But the flip flopping and the getting angry and the shutting me out hurts. Grandmom is getting up there, and Uncle Rob and I have never been terribly close. You are my flesh and blood brother, the only other one who shares half of Mom and Dad with me. I just wish there were words I could say that would make you see where I am coming from. Nothing I have written here was with the intention to hurt you. I simply want you to understand, to truly try and be better. You were in a manic episode yesterday based on your energy level and how much you got done. (Yeah, I’ve been a sloth. I know there’s stuff I need to do, and I promise I’ll do it.) Then today you were down and slept all day to recoup that energy. Based on your mood, I’d say it was also a depressive day. I have bad days, too. I recognize when you have them because you do have normal moods. But your unregulated moods kill me emotionally and spiritually. Again, I just want you to know. I am not making a declaration or anything. If we truly are to get along, to be better, then I felt like I needed to let you know all of this. If we aren’t honest with our feelings, then nothing can be better. Just please read them and try to understand. Be rational when you discuss any points with me. I just want to be normal.

RIP, Chester

"I will never know
myself until I do this on my own
And I will never feel
Anything else until my wounds are healed
I will never be
Anything 'til I break away from me
And I will break away,
And find myself today."

--My feelings, high school/early twenties. This band impacted me in several ways, and this quote is a good example of how. May he rest in peace. May his family find comfort despite the loss that he was adored by fans, many of whom whose lives he impacted and even saved. I'm so sorry he lost his battle. Hopefully we use this as a talking point about mental illness. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it affects people any less than something more physical.

Anti-vaccine Rant

Normally I don't engage assholes on Facebook about vaccines. My own brother is an anti-vaxxer (likely due in in part to his untreated bipolar disorder- he's always been  prone to conspiracy BS). But I got ragey about his lady who posted her sick daughter who was unable to get the chicken pox vaccine due to a kidney transplant. She's a nurse and just wanted to bring attention to the fact that her daughter's life-threatening condition could have been prevented. She wasn't even on a soapbox or anything. She just wanted to tell a story.

But the jerks came out in the comments en masse, talking about autism and vaccines causing death and disabilities (which they can though this is very rare). Plus poison and mercury and Big Pharma and the corrupt CDC. Citing articles from the 90s as support of the autism link (which is big fat  BULL SHIT and any normal human being would realize saying all cases of autism are worse than death is scumbag behavior. 

Fuck these people. They are scum. They are scientifically illiterate and a danger to society. Personal freedom ends when your behavior affects someone else. In the mood I am in tonight, I hope one of these fools gets arrested and convicted for the death one of them will inevitably cause someone else who could not be vaccinated. I hope that sets precedent. Fuck them and their ignorance. 

Below is my unposted comment. I won't post it because there is no arguing with idiots.

"Except thimerosal is different than the elemental mercury that has been proven to be harmful like the kind found in old thermometers and energy-saving light bulbs. Basic knowledge of chemistry would help you understand this. Remove/add an atom or group of them and it changes the way our bodies receive something. Also, vaccines don't contain this ingredient anymore anyway thanks to fear mongering. It was removed as a precaution thanks to ignorant fools like you. Honestly, if you think everyone at the CDC is bought and paid for, you're gullible as hell, and I have a vaccine antidote to sell you that will cure you of your idiocracy. I would rather have an autistic child than have that one that dies from a disease previous generations were severely affected by. When the polio vaccine came out, people stood in line FOR HOURS to get vaccinated because they saw the damage this disease did. Forget how smallpox decimated the Native Americans because they had no immunity and how many were left blind, deaf, and sterile from mumps, measles, and rubella. But no, no one would contract these diseases so why do we have vaccines? I'm a huge proponent of letting people live their lives their own way, but people like you are a parasite on the social norms we as a civilized society agreed to. By not vaccinating yourself or your children, you are putting people at risk, even though you are so far removed from fact-based reality to understand this. Honestly, myself and many others would chip in to buy all of you liked-minded folks an island so you could live out your pathetic anti-science lives and leave the rest of us the fuck alone."