Growing Up With A Psychopath

My brother. The psychopath. He is only 9 months older than I am. Being that he is the adopted son, and his adoption was more of a “spur of the moment” sort of thing, as the Rabbi that married my parents phoned them up one day and explained that this very young newly divorced woman wishes to place her baby with a loving, Jewish family. My parents accepted as they “were trying” and although relatively newlywed, they were older and wanted to start a family. Soon after the adoption procedures began, my mother discovered that she was pregnant with me. So, in her early 40’s, Mom was raising two babies.

Instead of being best friends as my Mother had wished we were, David* (not his real name) and I couldn’t get along from the time when we were toddlers. I remember vaguely from a very young age, that I could not stand being with him. Not only was he a hyperactive kid, yet, from my earliest memories, he tried to inflict harm on me. At the age of about 3 years old, standing atop a carpeted (Thank GD) staircase, David pushed me down a long flight of stairs on two different occasions. Even after being scolded, it didn’t deter him from doing more. From jumping on me and beating me (unprovoked) to a long list of outright abuse, David continued this behavior into our teens and adulthood. As long as I’ve known him and had to live with him, he progressively became worse and worse. My mother tried effortlessly to correct him but to no avail. It’s not as if he endured punishments per se, but she would try corporal punishments that never worked. He would go into frenzies and huge fights with her begging her for “just one more chance” until she gave in. He knew what to do and knew how to work it.

We started out as a middle-class family, For a family in the late 60s throughout the 70s, and my father only working, we were not rolling in the dough, but we had what we needed. Yet then, the debts began to grow and credit cards became more and more popular. Before we knew it, we went from “paycheck to paycheck” to even worse. However, David would do what he could to drain my parents’ bank accounts. If he didn’t get his way, he’d have outbursts that would last hours until she’d give in. On top of this, well into his teens, twenties and from what I gather, even later, he would brag to anybody as to how he came from a very wealthy family. This news would come back to me from common friends or acquaintances of ours, some of whom would tell me that “your Dad’s wealth went to David’s head”. I would just sit there in shock, yet at the same time, I wasn’t at all surprised.

I also need to mention that due to a combination of a poor medical history as well as decades of smoking, my Mother’s health was declining. From the time I was about 9 years old, she showed signs of arteriosclerosis, heart issues (she had a total of 4 heart attacks in her lifetime, as well as stomach ulcers (some requiring emergency surgery) and finally lung cancer which eventually took her life in 1993. I guesstimated my Mother’s hospitalizations to occur on average every 18 months or so from when I was in middle school. Having stated this, David would use her weaknesses to his advantage, getting what he wanted out of her was a lot easier for him as her strength and health declined. This also didn’t deter him from harassing or assaulting me whenever he got the chance. I remember on a couple of occasions in my teens where David harassed my mother to chest pains after she returned from the hospital after suffering a heart attack. Believe me, I can list many other times where he harassed and psychologically abused my Mother way into the night.

His actions towards my Father were even worse. To be fair, my Father was not cut out to be a parent at all. Although he worked hard at a job he seriously disliked to support a family and provided for us when he could, he was aloof and just very bad at nurturing. He would put his TV shows in greater importance to our needs and just didn’t seem to be interested in our growth. As a Father to 4 now myself, my guess was he was just too old to be a father and too tired to be bothered. I hope that I don’t sound as if I’m making up excuses for him and I cannot relate to him in that vein, but being his son, I guess I understood him.

David despised my Father from when he was a young kid. Eventually, being that David was the type to push the envelope, his disrespect and threats to my Father came to a head when my Mother was once again hospitalized. Dad was hard of hearing and would keep the TV on louder than usual, but not at horribly high decibels. Long story short, David marched right into my Father’s room where he was standing, and punched my Father so hard in the face, the then nearly 70-year-old man fell on his back with blood gushing out of his nose. Mind you, my Father too was a cardiac patient. After a screaming match and David threatening me, I had to take my Dad to the emergency room. Our family doctor who was there at the time stated that my Dad was very lucky and due to the blood loss (David punched him so hard that Dad needed minor surgery to stop the bleeding), that he could’ve died. The doctor wanted to press charges and I was somewhat relieved as finally David would be punished for his antics. Due to external family intervention, charges were dropped and David got away with it again. They were dropped (and I do regret this) because an aunt of mine feared that if David was indicted, my Mother’s health would be at risk.

I remember when my then fiance and I visited my Mother in the hospital, David was with her. This had to be about 3 days after the incident. My Mother wasn’t told at the time, as she was told less than a week later. The look on David’s face got my blood boiling, and in the name of GD, he knew it. His expression was stating, “look at what I got away with! And there’s nothing you’re going to do about it”. If I didn’t hate him more than ever, then was the time.

I can go on and on with many more incidents up until my Mother’s death in December 1993, as well as my Father’s death in April 1994. Yet one thing is for sure, he got away with too much, and of course, my parents made very poor choices in his regard over the years, especially his childhood. I forbade him from coming near any of my children, who were toddlers at the time as I didn’t trust him at all around them. He met them perhaps twice and that was under extenuating circumstances and with many adults present, including that of myself and my wife. Needless to say, I cut him off soon after my Father died of a massive coronary. After the shiva mourning period was over (David did not sit with me, thank GD), he phoned me up as if he wanted to just shoot the breeze. I told him directly that I had no reason to be in contact with him and that he was not allowed to contact me or my family at all whatsoever or the authorities would be called. He played stupid, of course, as if this was out of the blue, which is not at all surprising.

To label him, I’d say he is delusional with sociopathic tendencies. He believed to be a child of wealth and privilege and bore no remorse for any harm he inflicted upon me or my parents. He felt that as long as he got away with it, it was OK. What is very interesting about this is David comes off superficially as a warm, caring, gregarious person. He was never shy to make friends and loved to play with other children when we were kids. There isn’t anything about him that one would find to be sinister or evil. Additionally, it has been found in many sociopathic people hatred for animals and many show these signs by harming, maiming and killing small animals before they start on humans. With David, this was not the case as he always loved animals and treated them very well. It’s also important to note that he isn’t the brightest man in the world and is very shallow. During his childhood and teenage years, he was a poor student. He was accepted to a university yet dropped out after about a year or so because he was going to be expelled for very poor performance. Despite this, he does maintain that he graduated from that university to this very day. He really cannot contribute to an esoteric or abstract conversation but sticks with the concrete. It’s probably a blessing in disguise as if he were a very bright person, GD only knows what damage he could do.

My children are now all adults and we live about 7000 miles away from him. They have no desire at all to meet him or contact him. In the age of social media, I got on their Facebook accounts and blocked him from contacting them.

From what I know, he never married nor had children and I am thankful for that as I’ve no doubt this would have been a disaster of serious proportions.