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Living with a Brother Who Is a Drug Addict Made My Life Hard

At a young age I was forced to learn how to protect myself and my possessions. When I was only 7 years old my older brother moved back into my mother’s house, little did I know there was a reason for this. He was addicted to Heroin and had been kicked out of every other home he was welcomed into. Throughout the upcoming years I underwent many things no child should have to.

My mother is a teacher who doesn’t make a high salary. At the time she was supporting 4 people including herself. When I was in 3rd and 4th grade I didn’t qualify  for free or reduced lunch, so my father was responsible for paying for my weekly lunches. Every 2 weeks he gave me twenty dollars and my older brother knew this. He wasn’t capable of holding down a job. This lead him into a life of crime and theft. In the area lived in there weren’t pawn shops which made it difficult for him to sell off stolen items. When I was given my lunch money he would steal it, or make a deal “promising” to pay me back. There were days I went without lunch because of this. Eventually my mother bought me a jewelry box with a false back where I could hide my money.

When I was in 4th grade my older sister and brother both had rooms in our basement. Unfortunately in order to get to my sisters room you had to go through my brothers room. One day my mother told me to go downstairs to ask my sister a question. What the question was I don’t recall. As soon as I entered my brothers room he told me to leave but, at age nine all I knew was that my mother’s authority out did my brothers. When I went into my sister’s room, before I could even say a word I was grabbed by my brother. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged across the room and then thrown unto to stairs leading upstairs. This left my body burned and scratched, and my arm bruised and bleeding from my brothers nails. This finally pushed my mother to formally evict my brother from our home.

That year my sister went to college and I was given the basement. In the upcoming December my mother allowed my brother to move back into our home; this time with his girlfriend. I moved back into my old room but left a small portion of the basement still occupied with my possessions. To be courteous to my brother I severely minimized my time down there, meaning I would only go downstairs when he wasn’t home. One day I had left stuff I needed for school down there. When I walked in, I found everything that was once organized in tubs and bins scattered across the floor, as well as books ripped up that I owned. His anger worsened until once again I was abused by him.

Over the next three years my brother continued to live with us. He went threw, and stole things that belonged to me, my mother, and two other siblings. He also had stolen my bicycle and replaced it with a bike he had stolen from someone else. One day while riding “my bike” I was approached by a man claiming that I had stolen his bike. I was then pushed off of the bike by the same man, and reported to the police. I told the police that my brother had stolen the bike and given it to me, but the charges were dropped and my brother wasn’t ever arrested.

Going through this became apart of my life. I had become prepared for everything that had happened to me repeatedly. Until the day my Godmother passed away. My godmother suffered from Fibromyalgia, and and gone undiagnosed for over twenty years. There wasn’t one drug out there that could help her, so to protect herself she had stopped taking all pain medication in order to protect her health. The pain, and nausea lead her into a state of depression. My brother told her that heroin would be able to help her symptoms, and depression. When my godmother’s autopsy came back it showed that it was the first time she had done heroin and that her body was unable of handling the drug.

I haven’t spoken to nor seen my older brother in 2 years, and I now live in a new home that he is unaware of. For the first time in a long time I safe from him so to speak. The only positive aspect from all of the pain I underwent is that I have learned many lessons that will help me in the future.

 

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