The Empire Wishes It Could Strike Back

I may gripe about my brother a lot, but I really do have good reason to. I honestly hope he gets kicked out soon. He makes the lives of everybody in this house hell. It’s absolutely horrible. This is my younger brother, by the way. I have two older brothers who no longer live at home.

My younger brother is dreadful, however. Financially we’re not so fantastically well off, just like everybody else, but he’s constantly eating all of the food in the house. We can’t afford to keep buying so much food. On top of that, he has his friends around all the time and let’s them eat chunks of our food too. This happens nearly every night. We really can’t afford it. He also takes all of the cutlery and plates and cups into his room… so we never have anything to eat off. If you ask him to bring them down to be washed, he’ll have a go at you. In fact, he’s pretty much verbally abusive about it. Even when you ask him to clean up etc. There is a fine example in the fact that he’s just watched me clean the kitchen – again. He then went through the cupboards to find things to eat and made himself a coffee. Ben doesn’t make coffee like a normal person. In fact, he pretty much douses the worktop in it. So I know that I’ll be facing coffee stain city when I return to the room. I told him that I hoped the kitchen was still clean. His response was, “F*ck you.”

He also, then, proceeded to tell me that I should get an effen job and that I didn’t matter because I’d dropped out of uni. He only figured this out last night. I didn’t want him to know because he constantly has a go at me about it and brings me down about my state of things at the minute. The truth is, I wasn’t enjoying the course as much as I should have been (and if it’s for the rest of my life then I should bloody well enjoy it, don’t you think?) and I wasn’t doing so well on the maths side of things. To be honest, I want to be a writer. I always have wanted to be a writer and I always will. Eventually I will be. I’m deadly determined to make it in some way. Even if I really do die trying. At least I’d be being true to myself then. So I’m searching for a job whilst I write & get better at writing & learn everything I need to learn to get into the industry. My brother won’t see this. My brother will just use it as another way to take pot shots at me. He always does and has already started.

The funny thing is, he doesn’t have a job. He gets all of his money from our parents who are scrimping and saving etc. He gets £20 a month from my mum and on top of that they pay for his contact lenses. I don’t get either. I have to sort things out for myself. I’m the responsible one and I’m also the one who gets all the sh*t for everything my brother does or does not do. I get all the flack for the house being untidy ALL THE TIME, even though I try my damned hardest to keep it clean.

The truth is, my brother wears me down that much that he pretty much makes me depressed sometimes. It’s that kind of depression whereby you agree with the people who put you down and believe you’re worthless. To be perfectly honest, I’m thinking of talking to my doctor about seeing if they can test me for bi-polar disorder. I don’t think I have it full blown, if I do have it… but there are a lot of members of my family who have suffered from depression. The thing is, I don’t get depression. I get random highs sometimes. I also have patches where I can’t sleep very well but I still manage to be quite energetic etc and my thoughts are running so fast that I can barely keep up with them. It leaves me feeling exhausted and wishing I could turn it off, but that never seems to happen. Then I have days where I’m really down. Generally it’s for no apparent reason. In fact, it’s like somebody has just flipped something inside my head and pretty much nothing I do will make me feel any better. There’s only been a couple of incidents where I’ve considered harming myself (I wouldn’t do so please don’t worry. I just think about it and then I think about how it would hurt and then I’d wimp out because if I was going to kill myself the whole point would be that I didn’t have to feel anything any more. A huge explosion of pain before the end, therefore, would not really be ideal).

I actually have no idea why I’m typing this out. It’s quite morbid reading. I’ll find a cheery picture and end with that, just to lighten the mood a bit. Ha ha.