The family of DV.

*DV warning.

Listen to this mama share her experience growing up with a brother who is a recognised DV aggressor.

Each persons experience with DV is different, but DV is always serious. If you or someone you know is affected by DV please seek help. https://www.dvconnect.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

Welcome beautiful mamas, I am your host Shea Harrison. This podcast is a place for Springfield and local surrounding area mamas to share their stories about life, motherhood and everything in between, completely judgement free. I am so excited to be able to share these stories with you and give women an opportunity to be heard. So if you're ready to laugh, open your mind and be part of a supportive sharing community, let's crack on. Welcome beautiful mamas, I am your host Shea Harrison. This podcast is a place for Springfield and local surrounding area mamas to share their stories about life, motherhood and everything in between, completely judgement free. Hello and welcome to the podcast. How are you feeling? Good. Good. Excited. As always, you'll just introduce yourself. This member is anonymous today, so they will not be mentioning their names, but they have a good story for us. This is exciting. Carry on. So I'm 33. Yep. I have a three-year-old son. Yep. And an eight-year-old fur baby. Yay. And I'm married. Yes. Very good. Yep. So my story today is actually... about my life growing up with a toxic brother yep um and i guess how it works from the inside and um so the reason i'm doing this is i heard another like one of the earlier podcasts um and it mentioned about how can um the family support somebody who's abusive And I was that family for a very long time. So, yeah, I guess just my spin on that. But it's, I don't know, about 30 years of my life. So it's a long story to try and put in an hour. That's all right. Any boring bits, no, I'm kidding. So I will start with, I did actually find this little quote randomly the other day, and it explains it very well. Most people blame their upbringing for the position in life, but the reality is two people can have the same upbringing and grow up differently, the different is the level of responsibility they take. So my brother and I grew up the same. We had the same advantages. Are they older or younger? He's two years older than me. Okay, yep. So we got given the same advantages in life. And it was just the two of you? Yes. We were by no means a rich family, but our parents worked really hard to give us everything we wanted. So I rode horses at a very high level. He rode motorbikes at a very high level. So we were both given all of those advantages. If I needed a new horse, I got one. If he needed a new bike, he got one. Money was never a question in those sort of things. We obviously had the same parents growing up, so we had the same upbringing. And you don't feel like either of you were favouritised? You didn't get more horses than he got bikes? Look, I was probably, I will say I'm the favourite child. Is that because you were easier? I'm much easier, yes. I'm really, really close with my mum. okay so um not as close to my dad i'm closer with my dad these days than i used to be yeah um but super close with my mom um but also i was a daddy's little girl okay so i was definitely growing up we could see that i was a favorite child right yeah and you think your brother knew that as well oh 100 yeah right 100 but he also made a lot of really bad decisions yeah whereas i sat back and watched those decisions yeah and went oh i'm not gonna do that because this is what happens. So from a young age, my brother and I were really close, like really, really close. I didn't speak to anybody as a toddler. A lot of people thought that I was mute because I didn't speak. I spoke to my brother and my brother only. Not even your parents? Oh, look, at home, yes. When we were out, no. I was a shy kid growing up. Very contrast to you now as a person. My brother always spoke for me as well. If you ask him, he would say that he raised me Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, right. He didn't, obviously. There's only two years difference, but yes. So, and just growing up, because I was really close to him, I felt, I guess he made me feel like I needed to keep his secrets. Yeah. So he would do things like he started getting into drugs. How old was he? It would have been... In high school, but young high school. Yeah, okay. So like maybe year eight, year nine, maybe around that age. It started obviously, as you do, with weed and went from there. And because of our closeness, I felt I had to keep that a secret from our parents. Yeah, yeah. And he would tell me all these things and know that I wouldn't go to mum and dad about it. So, because we were just super close. Yeah. I knew it was wrong. Yeah, yeah. But he's your brother and you love him. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I guess he made me feel that way as well. Yeah. So just the manipulation started really young. I don't think he was doing it on purpose. It's just who he was. Yeah. Anytime he did anything wrong, it wasn't his fault. The world was against him. Oh, yes. Yeah. The victim. Always. Always. I remember one year he got grounded over school holidays, Christmas school holidays. And it wasn't his fault. Do you remember what he did? No. Okay. Can't remember what it is. I just remember that he got grounded. He had to stay home for Christmas school holidays. Wasn't fair. Life's unfair. Everyone's out to get him. He didn't even do anything that was that bad. Absolutely. Your parents overreacting. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what it's been like our whole life. Yeah. Okay. I've always taken responsibility for my actions. Yeah. And he never has. Ever. Yeah, right. So, yeah. So just growing up and being really close to him, he would have a lot of relationships. When I was 17, Yeah, right. Yeah. Their relationship started going downhill. He was still on weed. He'd tried other things like other substances, speed, all of that ecstasy. By 19? Yeah. I think that that's very young to be trying speed. I never did any of it. I saw what it did to him. I wanted to stay well away from it. I drank. Yeah, yeah. As, like, I was probably 16 and I was partying. Yeah, yeah. But it was what I call now, I wouldn't say a super safe environment. Mum and Dad knew, though. Mum and Dad knew that I was drinking and they would supply the alcohol for me. Yeah. So they knew how much I was drinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they thought they did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. um but like it wasn't so much that i couldn't get up and go to school or anything the next day or you know it wasn't every night it was just occasionally would go out with a few friends have a couple of cruises like yeah yeah party girl dreams um so yeah by 19 um he was working full-time he had an apprenticeship as a butcher um so quite a good trade um and he would smoke weed every morning before he went to work he would on his lunch break go to the car and smoke he would when he got home just smoke constantly so his girlfriend at the time she obviously started smoking with him yeah ruined her life absolutely ruined her life yeah Um, he then moved on from her. Yeah. Um, I moved out. I stopped living with them. I, by that stage was with my now husband. Oh, wow. Yeah. So we got together really young. Yeah. I didn't realize that you guys were together that long. 16 years. Wow. Yeah. It's our 10 year wedding anniversary this year. Wow. Congratulations. Um, so did you move in with him? Or you were just dating him? No, we were just dating. I was pretty sure, and I'm pretty rusty on my timeline, but I moved back home with mum. And by this point, mum and dad were divorced. Did you move back with your parents just because you didn't like the environment of living with your brother? Or you didn't want to pay rent? Yeah, I'd finished study and there was no reason for me to be living there anymore. So I just moved home. So yeah and I moved back in with my mum and my now stepdad okay yep um was still dating my husband yep um and I was still still in contact with my brother all the time like every day we would chat um and we were still really close um he was then with another few girls and I always supported him through everything um and then my husband and I obviously it's a few years down the track we moved in together um I was working full time he was working full time, double income, no kids. We had a great life. Rent was really low back then. My brother was with his... so he has a child and he was with the mother of his child but she wasn't pregnant or anything not at this stage no it was actually they weren't together for very long before she fell pregnant and he will never admit it but I do believe that it was a save the relationship baby for him So he felt her pulling away because she was in a really good position. She had a great job. She had a car that was well paid off. Like she was going places. And he felt her starting to pull away. So I feel like it was a save the relationship baby. So you think he said to her, let's have a baby? Yeah. Yeah, right. And she said, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah. So I got a phone call from him early on a Saturday morning. I had to work. I'd had friends over that night. I remember it. quite vividly. My best friend had stayed over with us that night. We'd had a few drinks, a few too many drinks. I was very hungover and my phone rang at 6am on the Saturday morning. I had to work that day as well. So I wanted as much sleep as possible. And it was my brother and he's, we're pregnant, we're pregnant. And I was like, that's amazing. Was he excited? He was so excited. And yeah, I was like, that's great, but I'm hungover and I can't deal with this right now. And he's like, well, I need to call mum at the time uh so my mum travels and at the time she was in western australia yeah she was three hours behind us so it was 3 a.m in the morning he's like i need to call mum i said no you can't you can't call mum like mum is asleep it is the middle of the night where she is like do not call mum he's like well when can i call mum it's like you wait till lunchtime like it'll be nine o'clock around lunchtime here like call her at lunchtime um at this stage i had never done a hadn't even done a pregnancy test and I'm like you need he's like we're waiting for the chemist to open so we can do a test and you know and I'm like well one don't even call mum unless you know yeah and two like it's too early why are you yeah why did it why did they know just they had unprotected sex yeah I guess that um I don't know you've had babies like you know I guess you get that inkling I did lots of people don't though yeah both of my girls were planned um and I was loose Yeah. So, um, like I just, I knew, but that was because like the timings were. Yeah. And I'm the same as well. So I, um, our baby was very planned. Yeah. Um, and we were tracking it. And some people don't, some people are literally having babies and they're like, shit, I'm pregnant. Yeah. The baby is exiting their body. Yes. But this was obviously semi-planned. So they were expecting it. Maybe late on a period, maybe her boobs were sore. Yeah, exactly. So, um, Um... Yeah, so that was all really exciting. And then we lived at the time about an hour, hour and a half away from each other. So my brother actually moved to my town. Oh, wow. Yeah. So is this where your parents were as well? No. Okay. No. So I moved there with my husband because it was close to his work and close to our friends and everything like that. So that obviously like... Validates how close you were if your brother is willing to move. Yes. Relocate to be close to his sister for their child. Yeah. Yes. So yeah, he packed up their life and they moved. I was working in real estate. I was able to get them a house. Oh, lucky. That's good. So I managed their house. I got them approved for it. It was all me. Yeah, yeah. Knowing that he didn't have a great rental history. Yes. Yes, so I put my name on the line for him. Then him and his partner broke up not too long after the baby was born. And they were on again, off again for a very long time. She ended up moving out, moved in with her parents who were... I'm like maybe four hours away from where we lived and he moved out of the house that they were in because it was too big for him and he just couldn't afford it on his own so I got him another property. I paid the bond for it. I was also paying the rent for it because it was my name on the line. Um, and it was through my work and I didn't want that to come back to me. So, um, back to the whole double income, no kids. We were in a very good spot. Your husband knew that you were paying the rent. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you don't seem to have any secrets from him anyway. No. So yeah, we were paying his rent. Uh, we paid his bond when he had his child. Like, so he would have her, um, every other weekend. for the weekend. That was their personal deal. I think that's the same a lot of the time when you have broken families. I would buy Nappy's food. Yeah. What happened to the apprenticeship? He didn't like the apples. Oh, fuck. Butchering is very early. It is. And apparently it just didn't pay enough. I don't know how much a butcher's salary is, but... Look, it doesn't... I think any apprenticeship isn't bad, though. No. But with my brother, no money's enough money. Yeah. Ever. He ended up... He is a welder. Oh. Not by trade. He will not get his trade. He's very good at it. So it's just like a side job almost? Well, no, he's an unqualified welder basically. So he's a welder. He's not a– I don't even know what they call when they're qualified. Certified maybe? No, like it goes from a welder who's unqualified and then it goes into like the actual– Boilermaker? Yeah, boilermaker. Oh, okay. Thank you. No, you're right. I'm not good with trades. I worked in the wrap base for too long. So yeah, he is an amazing boilermaker, but he's a welder because he won't get his– He won't finish it. Because they won't give it to him for free. They won't just say, here you go, here's your trade. What does he have to do? Go to TAFE. Just go to TAFE and finish the course. He just won't finish it. People are just like that. It just fucking blows my mind. I just can't do it. This is him. This is what he is. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Can you please continue to tell me your story? I'm just going to sit here reveling in the stupidity of some humans. Yeah, so I was paying for everything for him at this point. He had no license either. so I was driving him to work or if I wasn't able to drive him to work he would get lift like carpool to work yeah um I think he's been without a license for majority of his driving life because he keeps losing it just doing stupid shit oh yeah speeding driving on the influence yeah um so yeah I was driving him everywhere I every second weekend because he had no license I had to drive him two hours to meet to pick up his daughter to drive him back so that was a friday night when i finished work i would drive to drive him two hours to pick his daughter up and drive two hours home that night have her for the weekend and then on sunday i would do the same thing so he would have her for the weekend yeah yeah okay yeah yeah i paid for everything so she could have fruit and nappies and clothes and um and his relationship with his ex-partner was not good and because his relationship was not good then my relationship was not good i wanted nothing to do with her and i was on his side yeah um do you consider yourself in a in this environment not so much an enabler I think it was in this environment I was probably more so a follower like he I wanted to keep that relationship and I was terrified of losing the relationship with my niece because he would threaten me all the time that I wouldn't get to see her so I didn't want to lose my relationship with my niece so therefore I didn't have a relationship with her mother um there was obviously a lot that happened between now and then there were a lot of fights that went on um and i only ever got his side of it so i only i was on his side because it was everybody was against him and the world was against him and it was all their fault and you're the only one that's there for him yeah don't ever leave me and that's all i ever heard as well so i actually never heard her side of it so i could never make my own like a proper decision about what was going on so his side her side and then there's the truth yeah exactly exactly so So I always got his side of things and it was always to his advantage. Yeah. So it was all she's doing wrong and she's not letting me have my daughter and, you know. Yeah, villainising. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I didn't have a good relationship with my niece's mother for a very long time and I feel terrible about that. She's such a beautiful person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so all this time I was helping him. I was paying for everything. He was in debt to drug dealers, a lot of debt, because he was trying to deal as well, but he was smoking his own product. He's not a very good dealer. Oh, that's so funny. Not for him, but funny for outsiders. Yeah. So he was in massive debt. So I worked my arse off. Also, I was working full time in between, like on my lunch break or between phone calls or whatever, I would be making phone calls to, like, debt agencies to try and get all this cash for him to get him out of debt. I was calling his drug dealers, basically, to see what I could do to get him out of debt. Do your parents know about any of this? Not to this extent. Yeah, okay. And not at the time they didn't. Yeah, yeah. They know now, I think. Yeah. Yeah, no, they know now. Okay. Not then, obviously. Not so much then. just you yeah helping and supporting yeah and mum and dad were there dad wasn't as supportive um he tried to sort of he had his own family and when he right does your parents have separated yeah yeah so like he had his own family now at this point um so he just did his own thing um and he didn't really want that delinquent son so he sort of tried to ignore the fact that he was there um mum helped out where she could but i took a lot of it on because i didn't want to burden mom with it um so yeah i just i took it all on and i dealt with it all and my husband was amazing through it all um he should have probably left me years ago because of my brother but he stuck with me and dealt with it and didn't hate me for it not you though you're not the one that's no using your product no no no but for like basically wasting all of our money on here Yeah. Yeah, like, and supporting him and being that person for my brother, like, being the only person, well, what he felt was the only person in the world who would help him. Did he, your husband ever say, like, come on, you know, can't you see that you're being manipulated or he just supported you? No, not at this point he didn't. He just supported me. He supported my brother as well. Yeah, right. Like, yeah, like, he wasn't willingly, like, pay money, pay money, pay money, but I would, my phone would ring and I would see my brother's name and I would look at my husband and say, he wants money. Yeah. And I would know that's what the phone call was. It's he wants money. Um, and it would, I'd just be like, Hey, maybe like, Oh, Hey, like just, just wondering, you know, I'm just short a bit of cash this week. I get paid tomorrow. Can I borrow 20 bucks? I need smokes or, um, and it sort of got to the point where me and my husband were like, well, no, we're not going to give you cash anymore because we don't know what you're spending it on. We will buy you what you need. So, um, he would call me and be like, can you go get me a packet of smokes? So I would go buy him a packet of smokes. Um, I've got no bread or milk. Can you go grab some on your way home? So, yeah, and we were his support, like, this whole time. We were support for him, for his daughter, for everyone. My relationship with his daughter's mum was really rocky. But also she knew that out of everybody, like, she wanted– their daughter to have a relationship with my brother with her father but she didn't want to compromise her daughter basically so there was a point in in the relationship where I had like the daughter had to stay with me um she could spend like time with my brother but overnight stays were with me far out yeah so um and that's because she knew she was safe with me Jesus yeah So even though we didn't have a good relationship, she knew that. Yeah, I was going to look after my niece and I wouldn't let anything bad happen to her. There was something really important in here and I just can't quite remember what it is. That's all right. But anyway, so yeah, I was talking, I spoke to, was talking to his drug dealers to try and get him out of trouble. I basically made a deal with them to take his car He didn't have a license anyway. He didn't need his car. Right. He loved that car as well. Was it a good car? No, it was like a Ford Falcon. But it had that Harlequin paint job on it as well. Yeah, right. He loved that car. Men and their cars. I don't get it, but good on them. So yeah, I basically made the deal and said, look, you take his car, you leave my brother alone. Yeah, right. And that would clear out all the debt? Yeah. Yeah. So that got them off his back for I'm not sure how long. No. Well, forever then, obviously. I stayed away from it after that. Oh, okay. But then he had actual proper debts as well. So credit cards and loans and all this sort of stuff that he couldn't pay back. So I was then on the phone to debt agencies to try and get that paid off. And I got him on a debt agreement, which is, I think it's like just before going bankrupt, but it acts as being bankrupt. I put myself on that debt agreement as well. So I could get some sort of cash back from him that I'd spent on him. I got... like next to nothing back because you don't actually get all the money back that you put on the agreements. But I got him on one of those agreements and it got paid out as well. It took a very long time, but it all got paid out. I got everybody off his back. He had then moved on again, moved out of the town that we were living in because we'd moved out of that town. So we'd moved back to our hometown, basically. So he moved closer to work for him, which is kind of... a little bit further than our hometown um and started dating other girls and they weren't great either um they were already in a pretty bad spot so he was dating them and ruining their lives as well misery likes company yeah yeah so at this point my husband and i had pretty well decided no we're not giving any more money to him we can't afford it like we are trying to serve up for a house deposit we can't afford to support his life anymore um So, yeah, we just stopped giving him money. He would call up, I would see his name and be like, oh, God, how much is he going to ask for now? And he would ask, and it was really hard for me to say no, but I had to come up with some excuse. It was, oh, I can't afford it this week. We've spent all of our money on groceries or we've put it all into savings and we need it for the house deposit or whatever. Whatever excuse I could think of, it was an excuse to stop him asking. It's sad that you need to... Make an excuse. Yeah. If you don't feel comfortable enough to say, I'm not giving you any money. Yeah, absolutely. And it was always a really hard conversation for me. I felt terrible saying no. Did he ever push back? Like you'd say, oh, you know, I've got no money this week. And he'd go, come on, it's just$20. Yeah. Like surely you can afford it. I'll pay you back next week. I'll pay you back with interest. Yeah. Constantly. Yeah. So, yeah, it was really hard to say no. He would then go, oh, do you reckon mum would lend me 20 bucks? Yeah. It's like, well, no, probably not. So he'd call mum and mum would lend him 20 bucks because he's her son. Yeah. And she didn't know the full extent of the pickle that he'd gotten himself into when you were digging him out. I think she did because I was really close with mum. So I was always talking to mum. Yeah. And I felt comfortable enough to like let her in and tell her what was happening but also said to her you can't tell him like he'll he'll lose trust in me i don't want that to happen i won't ever get to see my niece like don't tell him that i've told you yeah yeah yeah so um i didn't have these conversations with dad though yeah but dad knew yeah um sort of he knew very vaguely what was happening Being a parent, you know what's going on with your child. But he also wanted nothing to do with him. Yeah, right. So unless he was in a good place, he wanted nothing to do with him. So he just stepped back. Yeah, right. Dealt with his own family and went on with life. And I wasn't super close with Dad at this point either, so I wasn't having those conversations with him. Yeah, and then... So he would call her for the$20 and she'd give it to him? Yeah, yeah. We then found out we were pregnant. Yay! Yeah, and I still had my brother. in my life. And it wasn't until... the end of my pregnancy and he was around a fair bit and he we'd just built a house and he was coming over to see the house and towards the end of my pregnancy you know you put out those posts saying like if you no vaccine no visit sort of thing yeah one of those and he's like do I have to get those facts those stupid vaccinations I'm like well yeah you do like this is our choice everyone has to get it and he's like oh I had them when my daughter was born they last 10 years she wasn't 10 at the time yeah and I was like oh okay so I let it slide didn't I for my brother nobody else I like I made my mum go and get she got the vaccinations as well 10 years ago so I bet I made her go and get them again like everybody else I may go and get them I didn't make my brother go and get them um but he came to my house one day when my son was a newborn and I saw the state that he was in and it just went through my head and I was like I don't want this person being a role model for my child I don't want my child to be anything like this I I can't deal with this. And that's when I started stepping back. Thankfully, we moved states up to Queensland. So he couldn't come to me. And for that reason, that was one of the best decisions we've made because he couldn't get to me up here. He could only call me. He couldn't come and visit because he could come and visit me whenever he wanted. We were close enough for him to drive to, whereas now we're not. So, yeah, being able to be so far away that he couldn't just come and visit It was amazing for us. He was living with his girlfriend. They'd been together a couple of years at the time. She had a couple of daughters herself. He obviously had his daughter, which he was still seeing every second weekend. There were stages in there where he had to have supervised visits. None of this went through court, I don't believe, but it did go through court. like mediation and stuff like that. So he had to have supervised visits. My mum was doing supervised visits at one stage. They had this massive fight and she threw her hands up and said, no, I'm not doing them anymore. So your mum? Yep. Yep. And it was a huge drive for mum. It was a three-hour drive just for her for a one-hour visit. So he could see his daughter like once every– Every weekend, every second weekend, I can't remember. So yeah, mum just, they had a huge fight after about the third visit and mum said, no, I'm not doing it anymore. You need to, if you want to do this, you need to find somebody else to do it. Which there were agencies that you could pay to do the supervised visits, but he didn't want to pay for them. And yeah, and everything was so hard and it was all everybody else's fault and everyone's fault that he couldn't see his daughter. And I was getting these phone calls of him complaining about all these things that were happening. And then I guess the biggest thing that happened, which really made me step back was he went to prison. So, yeah, he called me and he's like– he was basically on the run for a couple of days. Do you know what he had done? Nope. Didn't ask. I didn't want to know. I was trying to step back and stay out of his life. But, yeah, he called me and he was like, I need someone to look after my dog because– That was the most important thing in his life, apparently, was his dog. It ended up being like he does have depression, anxiety, multiple personality disorder. Growing up, I'd always said he's got bipolar disorder. Obviously, not diagnosed. He wouldn't speak to anybody. So that was just my assumption because he has always had really high highs and really low lows constantly. So when he said he had multiple personality disorder, I was like, well... There you go. That makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, he had been seeing somebody under a health plan, got all these diagnoses. And, yeah, he's... Blamed it on his upbringing, basically. Drugs can exacerbate or trigger lots of mental health issues. But he blamed it on his upbringing. And I had the same upbringing, so it can't be his upbringing. Yeah, nature versus nurture, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Different... People, same environment, different outlooks on life. Yeah. And I got a phone call from mum. So he obviously had to go to court and everything. It wasn't his first appearance in court. He'd been to court multiple times throughout his life. And I was driving home from work one day and I got this phone call from mum. And I was like, hey, mum. And she was in tears, like absolutely wrecked. And she's like... And I said, oh, what's happened? Like, tell me what's wrong. And she said... He called from prison. His lawyer called me and said that the only way he would avoid going to prison was to come and live with me. My face has dropped. You can see me right now. Yeah, so basically his lawyer made a deal to say that if he would live with mum, then he would avoid prison, but she would have to take him to the police station every day for check-ins and all this sort of stuff. Right. And I was like, oh, mum, like, I thought she'd obviously said yes. Yeah. And I was like, oh, mum, it's okay. Like, we'll get through this. Like, I'll help you through it. She's like, I told them no. Yeah, good. I sent my son to prison and she was just hating herself. Yeah, how devastating as a parent. Yeah, yeah. She was absolutely beating on herself. She's like, I should have said yes. She's like, they didn't even talk to me about it. Like, they called me from the courtroom and they didn't even talk to me about it before they offered it. Like... I didn't get a choice it needed to be like a split decision yeah pretty much she was at work when they made the phone call as well um and she told me that she said to them that she's at work she needs time to think about this and talk to her husband and you know because it's not just her decision and um they decided together that they weren't going to do that so they did give her time to process it not much but she did get to go okay then yeah yeah not much time so she had to give them a call back by that afternoon yeah so and she was working all day so she was trying to work run a business so she was like an office manager basically so trying to run all of her staff with this happening so she's on the phone to her husband saying like what do I do like he's my son how do I say no like I can't deal with this right now yeah and she called them back and said no and it broke her heart obviously because she's had to send her child to prison um I think that he sent himself to prison yeah but she I can understand how she would feel that way and that's unfortunate yeah she was the only one who could stop him going and she chose not to yeah I think that's an unfair position absolutely a very unfair position because if they had called her and asked her could they put her name down she would have said no I can't do it you cannot put me in that position I will not take him find someone who will and I guess it was probably a good thing that she had done those visits with him. Yeah. With his daughter. Yeah. Because she already had a bit of an understanding and a bit of history knowing that she can't support him. Yeah. She's tried with other avenues. That wasn't the only thing. There's obviously, this is 30 years of history. There's a lot of back and forth. There was a lot of her helping him. This is obviously just my version of it. So this is just my side of helping him and what I saw and you know lived my life through yeah but she's helped him as well she hasn't just sat on the sidelines and watched me do it yeah okay um she's helped him as well she's done everything she could she spent a lot of money on him like she did the same things i did yeah yeah um so it just for her it also got to a point where she was just too exhausted yeah absolutely um by this time i had ceased contact with him a couple of times um i stopped calling him he would call me and go oh you never call me anymore i'd be like well yeah sorry i've got a life i'm busy you know um and he would make me feel bad for not calling him yeah um but i just refused to call him yeah um and then so we didn't have contact for i think it was about the first it was about three to six months there was no contact and i've got to tell you it was a nice the best three to six months of my life like it was just so calming yeah i didn't have to worry about my phone ringing and seeing his name pop up and go oh fuck what does he want now like um you know is he going to ask for money is he going to ask for smokes is he going to ask to stay with us is he going to ask me to get him out of some more trouble like I didn't have to worry about that and it was so nice not having that on the back of my mind constantly and I think my husband's sorry as well like I was just much happier yeah right but then the contact started again and like this was before jail yeah yeah yeah before jail so this happened quite a few times and I think it was just a habit like he's my brother I need to support him um so when I got the phone call from mum saying that she'd um said no to him living and he's gone to jail um yeah, I was like, okay, no worries. And she's like, we need to do everything we can to get him out. She's like, I can't, I can't send my son to prison. We need to get him out. And I was like, all right. Yeah. So here I am in a different state working full time with a little baby, no support because we moved away from all of our family and friends. So no, other than like, there was just my husband and I and our son, I'd just gone back to work after being on maternity leave for almost 12 months. Um, And on top of being a new mum, going back to full-time work, having no family support up here, I was also trying to get my brother out of prison. from a different state so I was on the phone to lawyers um his lawyer I was on the phone to try and make deals like constantly all day every day I was risking my job because my phone would ring and I would jump up and answer it and walk out of the office and um you know try find out what's going on and how I can get him out um this happened I think it was early in the year because we came home for my son's first birthday so yeah we came back to our hometown and my brother was in prison on his first birthday so i went and visited him in prison um he wanted nothing to do with mum mum drove me there he wouldn't see mum he didn't want a bar of it um he called me from prison constantly he had my phone number my I think they get like a list of people they're allowed to call or something. And I was on that list. Lucky me. So he would call me every day and just tell me what's going on. And I went to visit him. I put my name down on the visit list. I didn't tell him I was going because I wanted to be able to change my mind. But I put my name down on the list and I went and visited him in prison. Mum drove me there. She knew I was doing it. my husband knew that I was going to visit him so I left my son with my husband with family our family didn't know that he was in prison mum didn't want them to know so I just said that I was catching up with a girlfriend whilst we were down quickly you know mum knew my girlfriend so we were all just having a quick catch up and then I'd be back I went and visited him in prison and he was so excited that I had come to see him because he'd called me earlier that day and he was like someone's coming to visit me do you know who it is and I was like no I don't and he's like I only spoke to Like his best friend who also visits him. I only spoke to him yesterday and he said it's not him. He's like, I don't know who's coming to visit me. Can you find out? I was like, oh, look, I can't. Honestly, like I'm with family. Like I can't do that. I was on my way to the prison. So at that point as well, he wasn't in prison. I think there's a difference between prison and jail. And he was in the nicer one of the two. Oh, I get it. So he was happy there. He was making friends. He was getting three meals a day. He was happy there. And there was, I don't remember the specifics of it because I've kind of wiped it off from my memory. But I'm sure there was like a deal on the table where he could get out and he just didn't want to. He basically had to take responsibility for his actions. And he was like, no, I'm not doing it. It's not my fault. I'm not doing it. I'll stay here. He's having a good time. Yeah. Um, and I was like, let's do my hands up. Fine. Have fun. Yeah. And then he got moved to like the actual facility, like correctional facility. So yeah. I don't know which one it is either. The rougher one. Yeah, basically. He wasn't having a good time there. Yeah, right. And he called me and he said, you need to get me out. Yeah. And I was like, I tried. I had you out. Yeah. You said no. Yeah. And he was like, no, this is not a nice place. You need to get me out. Yeah. So I got him out. Yeah, right. I made phone calls to lawyers and mum still wouldn't take him. But he's... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. my brother has made these decisions. He needs to live out the consequences. And he just said, look, I've been there before because he'd been through similar things. They were very similar people. Just his best friend was a little bit smarter, a little bit more switched on, and knew to take responsibility for his life, whereas my brother still hasn't learnt that. So, yeah, he took him in, said I can't let him live like that. So we still had contact. I didn't I still never called him he had to call if you want to talk to me he had to call me and he had to make that contact and if he ever mentioned like there was very I told him there's very specific rules around this contact that he's never to ask me for money he's never to ask me for help and he's only to call me when he's in a good mood. I don't want to hear about the shit that's going on. Because he was rarely in a good mood. So that means I would rarely get phone calls, which is great. So he respected, obviously, your wishes then? Yes, because I was very firm with it. Both me and my husband were like, no, we don't want him around. We don't want our son growing up with that. We don't want that role model. And my thoughts were... I don't think I could be as strong as my mother to support my own child or, you know, if need be, say no to my child if he needed to go to prison. So I want to do everything I could to minimise that happening for my child because I just don't think I've got my mum's strength. I know I probably do, but... You don't want to be put in that position as such a baby. later on that night I'd be like oh look I'm like text him back really sorry I've been busy with my family been putting my son to bed or doing dinner or whatever so then we would text because he knew I had my phone on me so I could text him um and then yeah I just decided to stop all contact well Sort of. There was still contact and he would tell me things that were happening in his life. And I would then relay that to mum. At the point there was child custody battles going on between him and obviously his ex-partner. They'd gotten lawyers involved. It was going through the courts. So yeah, there was lots of custody battles going on. So the information he gave to me actually assisted... his ex-partner to make the right decision and um put their daughter in a good place so she's never wanted to ruin a relationship between her daughter and her father but She needs to keep her daughter safe and she's not safe with him. So, yeah, my brother would call me. He would say, hey, this happened. I would then tell mum. Mum would then tell his ex-partner. The ex-partner would then tell the lawyers and it would get brought up in court. And my brother would call me and go, you told them this and yada, yada, yada. And he would have a go at me. And I would just deny it. No, I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't tell anyone anything. Like, people know things. Yeah. It's a fishbowl. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. And then there was... I think he probably set me up. And I'm okay with this now. But he told me something. He told me he had... So he went to court for child custody. They put rules in place. He wasn't to see his daughter. Until a certain date, they had another hearing. Mm-hmm. In that time, he had to be drug-free, alcohol-free, and go to all these classes. So drug counselling, alcohol, parenting classes. He had to do all this stuff. And he had to show that he wanted his daughter, basically. So he started doing it all. And then something happened in his life one night. He had a bender. And he took his best friend's car and he rode it off. He had no licence. Obviously, the car officially was stolen because he didn't ask permission. And he rode his friend's car off. His friend called me. And I was like, great. And he's like, it's okay. I'm fixing it. Um... Yeah, I'm not going to tell the police that it was stolen. You know, I'm just going to go buy a new car and that's going to be the end of it. And I was like, you can't do that. Don't put yourself. So this is your brother that's called you, not his name? No, no, no, no, no. It's his friend who called me saying my brother was beat up. He couldn't talk. He was in bed out of it. So, yeah, his friend called me and said, this is what's happened. Yeah. I'm not going to do anything about it. I'm not pressing charges. And I just said to him, you need to press charges. He's like, he'll go to jail. I said, well, he needs to. That's the simple fact. Like I was done. I said, he needs to go to jail. He can't do this to you. He's like, no, I'm just buying another car. And that's the end of it. So I told mum. And mum told his ex-partner, got to the lawyers, and my brother called me. Massive tantrum over it. You told mum this. And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. He's like, well, no one else knew. And I was like, you crashed a car. He's like, I didn't tell anyone. No one knew about this. The only person I told was you, and you told mum, and I know this has come from you. And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Just denied it the whole time. And he's like, I'm never speaking to you again. I was like... Okay. Was not cut up about it at all. I was very happy with that decision because that decision was then his, not mine. Yeah. So I couldn't be blamed for it. Yeah. We haven't spoken since. How long ago was that? Do you know if he's back in prison? I don't believe so. Oh, so you don't think that the friend pressed charges? No, no, he definitely didn't press charges. Oh, okay. Definitely didn't press charges. No, he's definitely not back in prison because there has been child custody battles still going on. Yeah. I'm now in a great relationship with my niece's mum. We don't talk all the time, but, you know, when we... You don't talk to anyone all the time. No. But when we talk, we quite happily chat. If I go home... know i can call her and say hey do you mind if i pick up my niece for the weekend and yeah not a problem at all like you know um so yeah there's no issues there at all um and so but my mom talks to her a lot because she's been a massive support for her because her grand granddaughter yeah absolutely but also supporting her not against my brother she never took sides she never took like his side of her side my mom has always been on i'm on my granddaughter's side and i'm going to do whatever I can do to keep my granddaughter safe and if that means she can't have a relationship with her father that means she can't have a relationship with her father so mum sort of kept me updated to let me know what's going on with the child custody battles they went back to court my brother did none of the things that he was supposed to do and the lawyers sort of looked at it and went not even taking this to court you've done nothing you're going to lose sign the papers give her full custody walk away now um he wasn't happy about it i believe but yeah he now has no custody of his daughter he does not get to see her at all um she's in an amazing place she's doing really well at school she does ask about her father how old is she now she would be um I think she's just turned 11. Yeah, okay. 11? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she was one when we got married, so. Yeah. Yeah, she's just turned 11. And she does ask about her father. The only contact he's allowed to have with her is written contact. Oh, really? Yep. So no phone calls. It's via letter or email only. Yeah. He won't do that. It's too much effort.

UNKNOWN: 49:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:58

And she's always asked about her dad and it's... growing up watching her grow up and watching her she felt the same as i did obligated to make him happy so she would it would be his weekend to have her and she would have a friend's birthday party and she would say mommy like i really want to go to my friend's birthday party but also it's daddy's weekend and i don't want to let daddy down that's sad yeah that she had to think like that growing up her whole life that you know i i need to go and see my daddy because it's his weekend to have me and he'll be sad if i don't go there not it's my friend's birthday party i'll see daddy another weekend like every other kid would think yeah so yeah um the fact that he made his daughter feel the way i felt my entire life it just sort of put everything in perspective for me yeah so yeah there's 30 years in what's that 50 minutes 50 minutes three four seconds yeah

UNKNOWN: 51:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 51:03

That was really like if it's obviously as you've said your whole life. Yeah. So you've really gotten down to the root of that. You've obviously spent a lot of time processing this. Over the years. Yeah. I've never actually told it as a full story like that. Yeah. I'm sure there's a lot missing. My best friend knows obviously the majority of it. Yeah. And she's excited to listen to it because she only knows it in like. Pieces. Bits and pieces. Yeah. So she's not going to listen to it and be like, oh, what about this? I'd be like, oh, that happened too. But yeah, there's a lot that happened. So he was just... and I'm not downplaying this, but it was just manipulation. Was he violent? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Not with me. He was never violent with me, but with his partners, absolutely. I do believe one of the reasons, I'm pretty sure when he went to prison it was for a lot of reasons, but I do believe one of the main reasons was domestic violence. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So he's, yeah, a violent person as well. Yeah. Very manipulative. Yeah. It's just second nature to him basically. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Like that he's been doing it since he was a kid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just, I've obviously gone along with it, not realising. And, um... I wonder if he had been violent towards you, you would have felt differently. He was verbally abusive to me. Okay. Yeah, he never hit me. Yeah, okay. He never grabbed me. He was never physically violent with me. Mm-hm. But he was verbally abusive. Yeah, okay. Yeah. If I didn't do something, he would yell and scream and call me all the names under the sun. Yeah. Um... I just ignored it. I just let it roll off my shoulders. You're quite resilient. Cause I grew up with that. Yeah. But even to just like not take it on board as a child or an adolescent, that still is a good, like it's a sign of good resilience. Yeah. So yeah, it always made me feel bad, but you know, I got over it pretty quickly. Yeah. Pretty much. So yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your insight into, um, being the family member because it's not often, that people are willing to share that side of it yeah so yes and it's often we don't know yeah like they're treating us the same they're treating their partners yeah yeah that's great well thank you so much for coming on no worries awesome okay well let's finish with this or that um so i want to think of some new ones actually because let's go with outsider inside side uh snow or beach holiday snow 100 jeans or skirts or dresses uh dresses and skirts yeah yeah jeans are uncomfortable unless you get a really comfy pair yeah a challenging but good job that you enjoy or lots and lots of holidays but not being but hating the job Nah, a job I enjoy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And last one. Let's go with cheese or chocolate. Oh, no, I'll go chocolate. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Good choice. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on. I'm excited to put this out to the world. Thanks for having me. No worries.