Ghosts of Roommates Past Part 3

I hated living with my brother, five years ago. He too had lied to me and just wanted my money. He didn’t want to give me a place to live, he didn’t want me there, he couldn’t be nice to me, he refused to be loving to me or kind to me. It hurt so bad, it was like being punched in the chest. I stayed primarily in my bedroom and got out as much as possible.

Even if I went into the kitchen for three or four minutes he would try to start an argument with me about religion and politics, yelling, belligerent, mean, hateful, vengeful, raging.

He tried to kick me out of the house, twice, the first time happened when I had only been living there three days. He became enraged at me.

I had moved there, across half the country, spending all the money that I had on his promises, taking two and a half days to get there by bus, without any sleep and he refused to heat the house the first night I was there or to take me to a store to buy a space heater that evening, even though it was not far from the bus station, so that I got sick, a cold, he kept the house unheated and cold, yeah that again, but at least it was southern California but still got cold overnight, usually 50 or lower and colder as time went on, even many times going below zero, so that I had one warm and comfortable tiny room to live in.

He was mad that I got a cold, not my fault. He was mad that I was not happy and upbeat. Yeah sorry I just had to move across country in order to get away from abusive freaks that I had trusted. Yeah sorry I am disabled, and poor, and not happy and not doing so well. Sorry that is harshing your buzz dude. He was mad that I had anxiety, something I had been dealing with the reality of all of my life, but okay since my anxiety is bothering you and you want me to shut up and pretend to be happy while I am sick and can hardly breathe and talk, okay dude, whatever.

He got enraged because I did not want to stay in his freaking cold tv room and watch the second half of a Larry the Cable Guy special and said something that he took to be derogatory about white southern racists. Cause according to him many of them are wonderful people, though I don’t agree, racists by definition are not wonderful people.

But what really teared it, according to him, was that I refused to thank him and his on-again, off-again girlfriend for Thanksgiving dinner. Which I don’t think that I forgot to do. So apparently I am an ingrate, an accusation that I have had from my family of origin all of my life, but I don’t believe that I am ungrateful, just humiliated over their grandiose concept of how much they do for me and how little appreciative I am. I am appreciative, it is just that they seem to expect and demand that I put on a dog and pony show for them, and they are not satisfied until I do so. But they naturally seem to accept that everyone else is appreciative without all the bells and whistles.

But after traveling across country for 60 hours on bus without any sleep, being forced to sleep in the cold, getting a cold my first night in a new place, the rude awakening of how he was treating me and the fact that his secret plan, which I found out the second day that I was there, which made me burst into tears when I was in my bedroom alone, was to coerce me into working for him for free, doing things that I was not trained to do nor capable of doing basically and especially due to being disabled, I might have forgotten to say thank you, but I think that I did. I tried to explain to him over and over the definition of disabled and unable to work. He harassed me over and over until I broke down and called his son asking him to intervene for me.

So when he told me I was getting all my stuff and taking it outside, I told him that I couldn’t move out and live on the streets, I had no money and no check for another ten days, I was disabled, I needed somewhere to stay and there wasn’t a homeless shelter in the town where we lived. When he relented I told him that I would rather go home once my check was deposited into my checking account in ten days and live in the streets, in the middle of winter, rather than stay and live with him. He said that he would rather I stay with him than live in the streets in the middle of winter. I think that was all about and only about how the family would feel about him and treat him if he didn’t try to reconcile in some way with me.

He was loud and played his music and tv shows loudly.The second day that I was there he did take me to the store and borrowed me money to buy some food and a space heater. I had trouble sleeping due to his loudness and tried to avoid him. I would sit in my room as long as possible before leaving it, after waking up. I would stay up as late as possible and sleep as late as possible to avoid him, because he was a morning person.

The second time he insisted that I move out and live in the streets I decided that I had to limit all my money spending in order to get the fuck away from him. He got into a rage with me and was jumping up and down and rushing towards me and shouting. He made me fear for my safety, that he was going to attack me, and perhaps even rape me in a rage. I had never feared rape from him before, but his rage was out of control and I could not feel safe near him, in any way, after that. Seeing someone that out of control shattered me and my confidence that he was a human being, he looked and acted like an animal. I was not safe and I wanted to get as far away from him as soon as possible.

The argument he escalated over his rage at me and his deciding to take computer access away from me, the only access I had to anything in the outside world. I had a crappy unsmart phone with limited minutes, based on cards I had to buy. I insisted that he allow me to keep using the computer, since I was paying for half of the internet fees. He took the keyboard and locked it away in a cabinet in his bedroom, and kept his bedroom door locked as well. It took him a couple of days to leave me a note in my bathroom, saying that i could use the computer once again. I had already cancelled my internet company so had to pay again for a re-connection.

After two months of living there I finally bought a bike from Target, which was a huge money compromise, but necessary to get away from him and that house, and used it to get away from him, as much as possible, which was difficult and challenging because I did not have extra money to spend out in public, so most of the time I was at the library or as an extravagance a cup of coffee somewhere.

All I wanted was to save up enough money to get away from him.I was there five months. Everything revolved around saving enough money to get away from him and to find a place to move to once I got home. Again, none of my family, offered to help me financially or to have an emergency place to stay. Still, no matter what I wanted to go home and as far away from him as soon as possible.

He lied to me about the house being sold, it hadn’t, insisting that I had to move out in a month, but he lived there for another year after I moved across country to once again be in my home state. He was shocked and amazed that I wanted to go home.