Catch-up No. 15

Fifteenth Installment 17 Nov. 2009:

One of the constant sources of anxiety is family, esp. my brother who lives in town and a couple of other family members. I have to constantly set boundaries with him. He has a way of making everything sound like everyone else's fault...really into a victimhead...has been most of his life. He hates his part-time senior jobs and wants someone to listen to him piss and moan. When I shut him off, he always says, "I knew you wouldn't want to hear about it!" Usually I just hang up; today I said, "then why do you start?" It gets worse then, so I ALWAYS hang up. The only reason I called was to tell him he got some important mail in our mailbox which neither of us can figure out why...where they got our addy. He'll sort that out, at least.

He is very toxic for me to be around. He is all alone. We are tied up in his music with him, to some extent. So...I don't feel as though I can disown him, but I will continue with very ltd. phone calls and very infrequent in-person visits. He is a genuis composer...too bad that seems to go hand-in-hand with social disfunctions. It is very upsetting to even speak with him when he is like this.

I can tell the therapist and I will have much to work on tomorrow.