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.

In Which I Go On a Long-Winded Rant

(Bear with me. I'm kind of just going to go with my stream-of-consciousnsess so it'll probably wander.)

I don't blog much anymore because life has been keeping me fairly busy. Around the time I stopped posting semi-regularly, I got into graduate school and a teacher credential program. I was once again consumed with being a full-time student who was basically working for free, and that was seriously the hardest thing I ever had to do. Then I got my first teaching position, and THAT was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

Now I sit here, one week into my summer break after an amazing year with some amazing people and kids, spending my time on BuzzFeed, YouTube, Tumblr, or writing in my Pokemon fanfiction. I eagerly await my camping trip in a month and know I will at some point have to start preparing for the next school year since we go back in early August.

But there is something else I feel I need to write. In my work, I've added a little bit of political backstory that is sort of a caricature of what is going on in our actual reality. Because what is going on is freaking ridiculous. We have as a frontrunner for president a man who has alienated nearly every group of people in this country aside from rich white people or the poor, uneducated ones who fear anything different than them. The world literally laughs at us. What is more frightening is the fact that, up until recently, he was standing a good chance of winning because Bernie-or-Bust assholes believe the lies spoonfed to them about "Shillary" (it's not even an imaginative insult, ffs). Some are coming over, even though he still hasn't ceded the race (get out already, old man). If anyone thinks for one second that Clinton is as bad as or worse than Trump, then you are mistaken. Voting for a third party in system such as ours (where, at the district level, we award votes in a winner-take-all fashion) is pointless. Sorry, Libertarians and Independents, but that's just how it is for now. If you waste your vote on a third party, refuse to vote, or write in Bernie Sanders, then you are ignorant and deserve what you get. Unfortunately, you assholes will take everyone else with you.

Brexit has shown us in quick fashion how dangerous this reactionary, "fuck the government and immigrants" nonsense is. It doesn't just affect them, either. Whether people like it or not, we live in a global society. The USA already tried isolationism once after the first World War. When Germany started conquering Europe and killing people, we shrugged and stayed out of it until it finally hit close enough to home. Sadly, war is what helped finish pulling us out of the Great Depression, which was brought on in part by the similar deregulatory practices of our current times. We don't call it the Great Recession to be cute. Speaking of WWII,  part of Hitler's successful rhetoric was to blame various groups (Jews, gays/lesbians, immigrants) for the country's woes. One of the best professors I had in university taught me the important lesson that everyone but my generation especially needs to be able to recognize those sentiments. When you dehumanize a group, you can blame them for everything and do anything to them. Due to the destabilizing of the Middle East (thanks, Bush and friends!), immigrants have been flooding into parts of Europe. Racism and bigotry was definitely a reason many voted to leave the EU. What do you think is coming out of the mouths of so many Republican politicians here at home? Ban Muslims. And people are literally throwing their fists into the air in agreement with this. Trump supporters scare me almost as much as the man himself becoming president.

While this didn't start off to be a political rant of that sort, but it does lead me into the point I was going to make. Those same talking heads warning us about the dangers of Islamic terrorism also want to make sure those same theoretical boogiemen can obtain weapons of mass destruction. I'm not meaning the ones Bush went to Iraq for (really it was just oil)- I mean the kind that really exist and can mow down a crowd in under a minute. Perhaps mass is a little extreme, but guns are a larger threat to this country than plutonium bombs and terrorists, and yet because they are enshrined in our constitution as a right, no one wants to do anything about it. (Although I applaud the Democrats for finally doing something in the House, even if the ruling party gave them the figurative finger, voted on something else, and adjourned for a two-week vacation.) When children were gunned down and nothing changed, I knew nothing ever would. Two terrorists even shot up a holiday party in my city, and all I did was shrug. I hate to admit it, but I shrugged over Orlando, too. It has just gotten so frustrating that these things happen on a regular basis and that all of the outrage and loss from people across the nation falls on ears deafened by the NRA.

Naturally, the pro-gun people (affectionately termed 'ammosexuals') came out right away, blaming terrorism because he was a Muslim. No, it wasn't his likely mental illness or the fact (now questionable, I guess?) that he was a closeted gay man who probably hated himself to a degree. (I blame his religious and intolerant father for this one.) This case I feel is a cross-section between the larger discussion on tolerance and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community and more effective treatment of and education on mental illness. I don't believe he even knew what he was talking about when he pledged to ISIS. Sadly, the LGBTQ+ community is already marginalized by the politicians saying guns = good. They are also stoking fear of the Muslim community, again.

I even read this one comment on a BF article (a powerful video about growing up a Millenial under the shadow of mass shootings) that partially inspired me to rant tonight. She said the one thing these shooters have in common is that they have been on SSRIs and other drugs for various mental illnesses. I'm, like, duh? Unstable people do unpredictable things? I thought that was obvious? That's why they're on drugs, so they can function. Here's where it turned. She blamed the DRUGS for making them unstable and for messing with their mind. She proceeded to rant about Big Pharma and the chemicals in our food (a sad testament to the lack of science education in our country...everything is a chemical., anything can kill you in the right amounts, and poor people in the developing world don't have the privilege to reject non-organic, non-GMO food because they're too busy starving). As someone who has a brother living with bipolar disorder, I know firsthand what not treating that disease looks like. He hasn't been on his meds in months, and some days I really have some horrible thoughts about what should happen to him to get him out of my life. (Sidenote: I also likely have some form of anxiety disorder and should get it checked, but I am total hypocrite on this right now, I freely admit.) When used properly, these drugs save lives and let people function, have jobs, and even have families. If the Church of Scientology agrees with your opinion, that should be a red flag that you are WRONG.

I was watching a YT video where Piers Morgan was interviewing a pro-gun supporter on GM Britain. Somehow, the conversation devolved into comparing guns to Kinder Eggs. (We had something similar here called the Nestle Surprise, but they disappeared a while ago.) Those eggs are banned here because they pose a choking hazard to children. I thought, 'So if we can ban candy, why can't we have reasonable restriction on guns?' That's basically what Piers was trying to get at. The asshat actually said that choking is a common cause of death for children and avoided Piers' question totally. Then he brought out how many deaths a year from gun violence are suicides. This is sadly true. People who are at the darkest of dark places and want to end it all will find a way to do it. But guns make that much easier. There is also much less of chance to screw up. Guns are more permanent. Just yesterday a mom in Texas snapped for whatever reason and killed both her daughters. People started arguing in the comments about how she could have stabbed them to death so let's ban all knives!!!11! They also brought up that mass stabbing in China in 2014 (there were multiple stabbers, though, and it was not as deadly if divide the 33 deaths by the 4 men). Plus stabbing someone involves getting their blood on your body, feeling the metal pierce their flesh and fat and organs. It's more personal and thus harder. Pulling a trigger is way easier.

Last point: we regulate female reproductive organs more strictly than we do guns. Same goes for birth control, which leads to fewer abortions. I thought that was the goal but guess I am wrong? (I read the story of a couple whose child would not survive and had to go through hell thanks to the 20-week ban in Texas. So sad and so maddening.)

So...here I am, at the end of my thought train. I feel mentally tired after all of this, but it also feels good to get it out there in written form. Now, someone might ask me what am I going to do about any of these things? And the answer is I don't know. It feels like nothing can be done, which may sound like the so-called typical millenial apathy my generation is famous for. We rant all we want on Tumblr and Facebook but don't actually get stuff done (one reason why the Occupy Movement fell flat).

I want to be able to change the world. I want a place where people love who they love and we can click 'like' FB wedding announcements equally. I want a place where people aren't afraid of science so we can use it to grow food sustainably for more people, so we can understand, prevent, and cure disease. I want a place where everyone can worship their god/s and I don't have to hide my atheism from anyone. (I'm not militant, I promise. Those people are assholes.)

There is so much I want for this world, and I could go on and on for a while. What I want doesn't matter because it isn't a reality. But it can be. Right now, the best place I can be is teaching the next generation. If anyone is going to get things done, it's them. My generation screwed it up. Or maybe we're all just fed up with the huge debt of student loans and credit cards, a menial job even with a Bachelor's, the unobtainable goal of owning property, of the crushing reality that we'll have to work forever before we retire and that SS may not be there, that healthcare is still largely unaffordable. Worst of all, when we bring these concerns up, we're mocked by the generation that led us down this path. That is a rant for another time, though (maybe).

For the most immediate future, though, I'm going to write some more in my Pokemon fanfic, listen to my playlist, and get lost in a world I can control.

Peace.