To say I've never had a great relationship with my brother would be the understatement of several centuries. He was always a very jealous sort when it came to having attention from our parents. He wanted it all...end of discussion. I have come to hate the words 'sibling rivalry' with a vehement passion. It is far easier to ignore the so-called 'normal' competition amongst siblings as something that can't be helped, even when it escalates into cruelty, brutality and outright abuse. The world is a violent place to be sure. Kids need to learn that other people aren't always going to be around to take care of them. However, kids are much smarter than people give them credit for. My brother not only knew what he was doing, he knew how to get away with it, and he started very young. There is a home movie of me crawling through the grass. My brother is seen running in, swatting me, and running away. He does this several times without punishment. Knowing that our dad had a volatile temper, my brother did everything in his power to make me cry. He knew that Dad couldn't stand to hear me cry, and that he would be angry with me. I was a very sensitive, insecure, fearful child, and my dad made it plain to me on several occasions that I disgusted him. Unfortunately, this made me very easy prey. My dad would stand over me, fists clenched. "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!" he roared. I would stare up at those huge fists, cringing in fear, tears streaming down my face, hiccuping and choking back sobs until I was hyperventilating in my attempts to stop. I could see the anticipation in my brother's eyes; they sparkled with icy delight at my distress while he waited to see if I was going to get a beating. If by some small miracle I manged to pull myself together, his disappointment was clear. He would now have to wait awhile to upset me again. If he tried again too soon, he would get in trouble himself. Alcohol played a very big part in our increasingly dysfunctional lives. Before we were even ten years old, Dad split a can of beer between two small glasses, sprinkled some salt on top to make it foam, then made us kids drink it. I always hated the taste, but drank it out of obedience...and fear of what would happen to me if I didn't. It became a daily ritual that I dreaded. I knew somehow that what he was asking us to do was very wrong. One day, I had finally had enough. I stared at my glass with tears in my eyes. "Drink it" he commanded. "No Daddy" I said quietly. "I don't like it." He became angry and started yelling at me. I cringed, waiting for the blows. "That's okay Dad" my brother said as he eagerly reached for my glass. "I'll drink her's too!" He drained the glass and smacked it back down on the table like a seasoned drinker. "That's my boy!" Dad praised. He turned to me and frowned in disgust. "Get out of my sight" he hissed. Things were never the same between us again. I think at that point he realized that I was going to be trouble. I wasn't going to go along with everything he asked us to do. I was far stronger than he ever could have realized, and I would prove that to him over the years in ways that would infuriate him beyond all reason. His perception of what constituted true strength was, to put it mildly, skewed wildly out of proportion. I was exactly who he wanted me to be, but he was too blinded by rage, drink, and god knows whatever else was going on in his head to ever see that. After years of putting us all through several levels of hell, Dad left when he realized our mom would never let him kick my brother out of the house. I thought things were bad when Dad was living there. Without him in the house, my brother now had free reign to be as brutal and cruel as he wanted to be. I still remember the day that he lost favor in our dad's eyes forever. Dad called me down the hallway into my brother's bedroom. "Guess what?" he spat. "Your brother's using drugs!" I was truly stunned. I knew that he drank (go figure), but I never thought that he would be stupid enough to get involved with drugs, especially since he was only about twelve or thirteen at the time. "No way" I said with conviction. "Not my brother." I could tell by the way he hung his head that it was true. From that day on, Dad went out of his way to make my brother's life a living hell. He'd put his arm around me and say, "This is my daughter. I love my daughter...but I hate you." He'd come into the living room and say, "Let's play catch!" My brother would jump up off the couch to go. "Not you" he spat, "I was talking to my daughter!" Needless to say, our dad's behavior only deepened the chasm between us and festered the resentment my brother had been feeling towards me all of our lives. It genuinely hurt me when our dad would do this; there was so much pain in my brother's eyes. I tried to tell him how I felt, but he refused to listen. If I persisted, he looked at me with such hatred that it tore me apart.