Straw woman?

I recommend this site: http://badcripple.blogspot.com. The guy has been handicapped a lot longer than I have, and he views the way people deal with him as being part of a larger context. This was especially useful about now. Here's why.

Without going into details, I had a survival crisis last spring. My older brother, after many years of estrangement, promised many things: considerable money, professional advice, and most importantly (to me) a willingness -- even a determination -- to figure out how to talk to each other and to heed me when I said he was being a bully. We exchanged a number of heart-wrenchingly honest e-mails before I could be persuaded to accept his help and risk rebuilding the relationship.

To his credit, he delivered most of what he offered. I was really impressed. I let go entirely of the feeling I had had for most of his adult life: "Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my brother?"

After several months and a couple of silly moves -- one on each side -- he sent me a flashback-inducing stream of bullying. I said I would calm down before replying; he delivered a preemptive strike consisting entirely of logical fallacies (largely ad hominem, false conclusions of several kinds, and a bit of post hoc ergo propter hoc, for any geeks out there.) I replied to what he said, so he turned it into a straw man argument -- another logical fallacy –- layered it with argumentum ad baculum and a few other forms of abuse, and repeatedly said he didn't know why I was so upset because he was being perfectly reasonable.

This guy is very smart. He's not terribly self-aware, but even so, his distributing such a stream of abuse and calling it reason is pretty weird. Not unheard-of, just weird. He proposed calling off our efforts to learn to be human to each other; I proposed a cooling-off period instead.

I was right back to, "Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my brother?" I've been simmering over the personal betrayal and the implicit and explicit threats, but Bad Cripple made me try to think in larger terms.

For one thing, funding critical home/vehicle repairs was a staggering gift. For another, however sporadically, I did get some good advice. For a third, I did get to deal, for a little while, with the profoundly sweet and loving person with the wise and subtle mind who does live in there somewhere.

I feel schizophrenic when I look at our early e-mails and then at our most recent ones. Such extremes, contained in such a small space or time, are not uncommon in my family (it's the borderline characteristic we were raised with.) However, my life is now so pregnant with inbuilt extremes that this needless chaos and drama has become unbearable.

With a nod to Bad Cripple, I try to put this in the context of species, society, class, upbringing, but it comes out as a very personal bellyful of anger. On my own account, I try to see it from different points of view: subjective, objective (to the extent possible), a friend's, a logician's, a clinician's, and I keep coming out at the same place: this is nuts. That doesn't exactly contribute to context.

Beyond remembering that he gave so much of himself for a few months, I can't come up with any bigger thoughts or any wiser understanding. It seems like a tired old story: patsy gets suckered into an untenable position, put under an obligation she can never repay, and then gets the knock-out blow. This isn't about being disabled; any vulnerable time will do.

I wish I could rise above my own species, class, or upbringing. For now, I'm still reeling with the whiplash of being emotionally seduced into trust and unprecedented vulnerability -- then being backhanded repeatedly across the room, flung across the room beyond that, then shown the door with the wolf howling outside. I do pretty much expect it from the rest of the world, but somehow, despite decades of prior experience, I did not expect it from him.

I really thought I had gotten my "real" brother back, but for now at least, the evil homunculus is back in charge. I wonder how long it will take for him to loosen his grasp again, and let my brother peek through for a little while.

I miss him more than ever.