Trouble in paradise (Part 4)

(Before reading this post make sure you check out my first few posts.)
It was my mom’s birthday at the end of July that year. My brother was so wrapped up with Satan and his new living situation that he completely forgot her birthday. Three weeks later I finally decided to call him up and remind him. Satan was keeping him plenty busy. I didn’t think things were going to work out. At least I hoped they wouldn’t. 

There were things here and there that troubled me. For starters, every time I did see them together, my brother just seemed uncomfortable around her. He wasn’t acting like himself. I knew the relationship was new but it was strange. It was like he was afraid to be himself. My brother is shy with strangers but to those who know him, he’s actually quite entertaining. He’s a total jokester. In fact me and him both are. There was never a shortage of laughs when we hung out but now with Satan around he wasn’t his normal funny self. Even when she wasn’t around he was acting strange. I sort of started to avoid him. I tried hard not to make it obvious. If he wanted to hang out I’d tell him I had something else to do. Every time I was with him and she wasn’t around it was like he was in this trance. He’d be on his phone constantly texting her. You see Narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and even borderlines are all very insecure people. They cannot take when their victim’s attention is else where. Even when they aren’t around, they need to make sure they need to have your undivided attention at ALL TIMES. 
My mom caught wind of my avoidance of my brother and she told me it wasn’t right and that I should answer his calls and hang out with him. I tried to explain to her that every time I tried, I spent most of the time talking to myself, like this one time that he called me up on a whim and asked if he could stop over at my house. I told him I had some errands to run but he was more than welcome to tag along. He got in my car and right then I could tell something was wrong. Again he was staring at his phone the entire time and wasn’t talking much. I never before felt awkward with my brother but the awkward silence was bothering me and so I tried to fill it by making small talk. I would say something and either get no response or a short one word response as he stared at his phone, texting her. I can’t explain it but my brother just seemed to be in this constant state of anxiety ever since he and her started dating. We went to a few stores so I could pick up some stuff I needed for my son who was an infant, at the time. After about an hour or so of the uncomfortable silence, my brothers phone rang. It was her, Satan. I could tell by his short, one word answers and the multiple “whatevers” that something was wrong. 

He hung up the phone and shook his head and finally I asked what was bothering him. 
I think that was what he was waiting for because when I asked, it was like this sense of relief came over him and he started to spill the beans. He told a story about what happened that morning. Apparently Satan’s daughter went away to summer camp. She didn’t feel like doing her project for camp the next day which was to make a costume of some sort. Satan told her that if she didn’t want to do her “homework” that she better not wake up the next day and tell her she didn’t feel like going to camp. Satan and my brother had plans to spend the day at the beach, alone. Sure enough the next morning came and her daughter didn’t want to go to camp. That’s when my brother told me that shit got crazy. He said “Satan started flipping out. She was throwing dishes and screaming that they were ALL spoiled brats in the house and she was sick of EVERYONE.”. My brother had a few quick errands to run that morning and Satan tells the daughter that she’s going to have to go with him. My brother politely told her he didn’t want her to come along because he just wanted to get things done quick. Satan flipped out and told him everyone in the house is spoiled. They had plans to go to the beach when he was done but when he came back, she was gone. She left for the beach without him and she wouldn’t answer her phone. He was being punished. 
My brother started to unload. They had only been living together for a few short weeks and there was already some serious trouble in paradise. My brother told me that she would flip out sometimes for no reason. That her anger sometimes didn’t match what she was angry about. He said she was very moody and bossy, that she had him constantly doing stuff and when he was doing stuff for her, she would breathe down his neck and criticize him the whole way through and tell him he was doing it wrong. His exact words were that he felt like he was living with our father again. 
That was one of the few times I was with him and they were fighting. My brother was scared of his girlfriend, that was clear.

 Like I mentioned earlier, my mom wasn’t understanding my avoidance of my brother. She didn’t get it until one day when her and I were out shopping at Walmart and he called me to see what I was doing. My mom and I were going to head out to a diner after Walmart with my husband and son. My brother showed up at Walmart and walked around with us as we shopped. Again he was quiet and focused on his phone the whole time. We got back to my mom’s house where we met my husband. We all sat in her kitchen, shooting the shit for a while. My husband was trying to talk to my brother about the latest Yankee game and my brother was so entranced into his phone that he didn’t even respond to a word my husband said. My mom, my husband and myself all looked at one another like, “what’s going on?”. I positioned myself behind my brother so I could read his phone, over his shoulder. Sure enough he was engulfed in a text battle with Satan. 
We all decided to leave and head over to the diner. My mom went in the car with my brother and me and my husband went in our own car. On the way to the diner, we were talking about how odd my brother was acting and speculating as to whether or not they were fighting. Once we got to the diner he was still very quiet but he at least put his phone in his pocket. It wasn’t long though until it started buzzing. He got up and excused himself from the table, to go to the rest room. While he was gone my mom informed us that she had said something to him in the car. She told him that my husband was trying to talk to him and he was just ignoring him. He was taking a while in the bathroom and when he came back, he put his phone back in his pocket. 
Clearly there was trouble in paradise. It was sad my brother didn’t know to soak up as much time with us as he could, while he still could because in the days and weeks to come, things were going to change…..big time. 

Peeling the onion…..(part 3)

Onions make you cry. Narcissists make you cry even more. I remember in my college acting class my professor told me about “peeling the onion”.  The actor needs to peel away each layer to reveal another. The same thing happens with a narcissist. This is why narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths alike must rush all their relationships. They must anchor you down before the mask slips. 

Slowly but surely, as an outsider looking into an unhealthy, rushed relationship of a loved one and a narcisssit, you will notice the layers slowly peeling away. You can also use that metaphor for the victims because slowly but surely their freedom, independence and autonomy is being peeled away. As an outsider looking in, it’s like watching a car wreck in slow motion. 

A little less than a year prior to meeting Satan (the Narcissist) my brother had gotten out of a 6 year long relationship. He was still vulnerable. He was still not 100% over what happened to him. His ex was cheating on him, with her boss, for the last two years of their relationship. He was still mourning the loss. He was still rebuilding himself. One of the ways in which he did so was by refurnishing the apartment he shared with her. She had moved out and he agreed to keep paying the lease. He purged. He redecorated their once feminine apartment and made it look like a bonafide bachelor pad. His ex had left almost everything behind. I guess her shame wouldn’t allow her to ask for things back. She packed her shit up in less than a day and was gone. She only took her personal belongings like clothing, jewelry and toiletries and left all furniture and housewares behind. 

My brother was nervous about cancelling his lease. He was hardly making the rent by himself. He was scared the leasing company was going to penalize him for breaking the lease early. Thankfully, Satan had a solution. She demanded that he contact his ex and tell her to pay the fees for the early cancellation of the lease. She made my brother call her and rightfully so, she told him there was no way in hell she was going to pay. As much as I disliked his ex at the time for what she did to him, human to human, I had to let my brother know that it wasn’t fair to make her responsible for his cancellation fees. All in all, he had agreed to finish out the lease. Legally I don’t know if his verbal agreement was binding but morally he agreed to finish it out. 

My brother was really nervous about having to come up with this extra money that he didn’t have. He also was a bit upset about losing his security fee but he told Satan he was going to cancel his lease anyway. Convieniently in the middle of him making this decision, he called me one day and told me he got laid off from his job. I asked him how many other people were laid off and his answer troubled me, “no one….. just me.”. He had to fill out his papers for unemployment benefits and I told him he needed to call his job and ask them whether he was laid off or fired. Any discrepancy in the paperwork could hold up his money. If he wrote he was “laid off” and his former employer said he was “fired”, it would cause him a huge problem and possibly prevent him from even getting his benefits. I told him to reach out to his manager and ask. It couldn’t hurt. Sure enough his manager emailed him back and told him the reason he was “fired” was because his excessive lateness to work in the recent months. He was warned about it in the weeks prior to his departure but he continuted to be late. My brother hadn’t been fired from a job since he was 16. Now at 36 years old, he suddenly cannot get himself to work on time? He wasn’t just 10-15 minutes late. He was showing up a half hour-45 minutes late everyday. 

There is NO DOUBT in my mind that Satan was behind this. I found the timing of his job loss to be waaaaaaaay too coincidental. Here he was, trying to decide if he was going to cancel his lease and move in to her house and he’s worried about money and fees and stuff. Satan called the leasing office at his complex and worked out a deal. So long as they can get the apartment rented within a short amount of time, my brother wouldn’t have to pay any penalties. If there was any doubts on my brother’s behalf about moving in to her home, she just erased them. Without a job he wouldn’t be able to keep his apartment anyway so it’s either move back home with mom, or sell your soul to the devil. He chose the devil. 

The one thing Satan has to back her up is money. It seems as if she has an endless supply. She sells insurance and while I think she probably makes a decent salary, I also believe she has other sources. One being her ex-husband. He’s an executive for a company that owns a popular ice cream parlor chain. He probably makes well into the six figure range. Well she’s no dummy. She made sure to get pregnant with his kid. That’s his one and only kid. He never remarried. Never had more kids. I assume it’s because Satan completely tarnished his view of women. He’s probably too traumatized to date again. Anyway, I assume she gets a good 17% of his salary and doesn’t have to reach into her own pocket EVER to care for their daughter. 
My brother moved in with Satan in late June of 2013, 3 months after meeting her. Satan told him he didn’t need to bring ANYTHING to her house. She had it all. I sat back and watch him sell off all the new furniture we had just picked out in the months and weeks prior. He came to my house one day with a box of kitchenware. My brother loves to cook. Over the years he acquired lots of kitchen gadgets. He divided them up between me and my mom and whatever we didn’t need, he threw in the garbage. Everything was either sold or dumped. 

EVERYTHING.I went to his house to help him pack up the rest of what was left. He was acting really strange that day. It was like he was in a frenzy to get rid of his stuff. He filled up the dumpster with furniture and housewares and he threw away so much stuff the the superintendent of his apartment complex yelled at him for taking up too much of the dumpster. He was throwing away some good stuff. It was strange. He didn’t want to take the time to bother and see if anyone else could use it or if he could donate it to a Salvation Army, he just wanted it gone. I was insisting he keep some of it and he told me, “Satan doesn’t want me bringing any extra stuff there.” I bagged up some stuff that I knew was important to him and brought it over to my mom’s house to put in her attic. When all was said and done my brother got rid of everything he worked so hard for, for the last 6-7 years. All he brought to her house was his clothing and toiletries. She let him bring over his new dresser that he had just purchased and she put it in an extra bedroom, so he can store his clothing. The only other housewares she allowed was his bed in which she gave to her pre-teen daughter. That one still disturbs me. He used to sleep with his ex on that bed. Now her daughter is sleeping in it? That’s just weird. 
After he was all moved in she started to slowly but surely erase any shred of his independence, starting with his phone. She told him he was over paying for it and that she got a better deal with her service provider and so he cancelled his phone contract and signed onto hers. The next thing to go was his car. She told him his transmission was going, because you know, Satan is a mechanic (along with every other profession in the world). His car wasn’t even 5 years old. The transmission was FINE. 
When all was said and done, Satan now owned my brother. He was jobless, carless, furnitureless, phoneless, identityless. He couldn’t leave her, even if he wanted to, he would have to start completely over. He would have to rebuild his entire life. It would be him, his clothes and toiletries; and a brand new dresser. THAT’S IT. 

To be continuted in my next post.