Reaching Out to Our Brother

by Charity

We have two younger brothers.  The other night, when we were feeling so terrible, we called the older of the two.  We tried to explain the enormity of what we've been dealing with, but it was hard to make it clear.  Our brother believes in finding practical solutions.  So it was hard to explain that what we needed most was to have our feelings heard and validated.

So we talked for a short while, but as the conversation progressed, I felt more and more helpless to make my needs clear.  Finally, I said, "read the blog."  He already had the link.  The blog can make clear what we can't make clear when we try to talk to people directly.

After that we hung up.  We mentioned to a Twitter friend how difficult the phone conversation had been for us.  She empathized, and this helped, but it wasn't the same as getting support from someone close to us.

Our brother called us back the next evening to let us know that he had read the blog, going back to June, and that he had a better understanding of our situation.  We were relieved to hear him say this, because we'd just about given up believing we could turn to him for the kind of support that we need.  And we continued to talk for a short while.  He even asked if we would mind giving him a system list.  :-)

So we provided an updated version of the list.  We haven't heard from him since.  I hope that this will pave the way toward our being able to talk more about what's important to us.  Our life is still hard; I still have the same issues and pain, as do the others with me.  But this is a start.