My situation feels impossible
This is my first time posting here.I will be discussing extreme sexual abuse, and drug use in this post. I am 23m. I was adopted at the age of three, with my biological brother. and lived with my adoptive parents until I was 18. I am completely alone. I have never met my biological family. My brother is the only ties to them I have.
Our biological Mom was a heroin addict and a prostitute. We don’t have the same father. We apparently lived with her while she was homeless for a year on the streets of Portland. She moved into her fathers house where he sexually abused us (this is all the reports said, and I only read them once when I was 16) the information I have to go off of is limited and almost a 7 year old memory of reading it.
My adoptive parents are beyond frustrating. They gave me clothes, a roof over my head, and fed me. I am truly grateful for that. My adoptive mother is probably one of the meanest people I’ve ever met in my entire life and I wish it weren’t true. Most of our issues started around 5th to 6th grade, and it was very much school oriented. I had some poor influences for friends in 6th grade. Nothing out of the ordinary, I just checked out from school and never really checked back in. Poor grades all throughout high school.
She’s not just mean to me either. She’s estranged herself from MANY different people in the family. She was born in Canada and her side of the family still lives there. My Dads side lived in the same neighborhood as us. His Mom, his sister, and his dad. All within like 2 streets. She’s not welcome in these houses anymore.
She is a high functioning alcoholic. During Covid 19 she worked from home. I would watch her poor Irish cream whiskey into her coffee every morning. She’s had multiple DUIs. She’s constantly shitting on my Aunt from my Dads side of the family. She talks all this big talk about how my Aunt is a drunk because she had a breathalyzer in her car. My Mother drunkenly wrapped her car around a telephone pole directly in front of my Dads pizzeria…
She’s a fuckin bully to my dad. Like a tried and true bully. She constantly shits on him for not being the bread winner of the house. She shits on him for going to art school. She shits on him for serving in the Navy. He gave up long before they ever adopted us. When I look at him I see a tired defeated man. It’s hard for me to blame him on his shortcomings. I see what she did to him because she was doing it to me too.
She was extremely physically abusive towards only me. I was the only one in the house who got hit, slapped, thrown around or grabbed by her. I naturally gravitated towards my Dad. I was scared so I avoided her. That obviously just made it worse.
When I was 14 I started working at my Dads pizzeria. Shit was bad when I was 14. My parents family friend who came over often was taking pictures of me and giving me money while telling me it was for “modeling”. I finally pieced it together at 17 at his wedding. He was marrying my aunt on my dad’s side of the family to avoid deportation. My Cousin leaned over and said “this is weird right, I know it’s to keep him in the US, but he’s gay” my Dads pizzeria was the first place I made some real friends and felt good about something.
When my Moms father died she went ballistic. She used to grab me by the face and call me retarded and anorexic. She would grab me by the arm and rip me away from the dinner table leaving bruises on my legs. I told my 7th grade counselor at school so they called my Mom. That made it worse. My Dad always came home after my Mom. She would always talk to him first. So I would get beat, then yelled at by my Dad for “talking back” when I was just defending myself. As a kid and a teenager I always tried to use logic against her. Her arguments never made sense and once I realized I continuously called her out. It usually made it worse but I was fighting the only way I knew how.
I used to fucking beg and plead with my Dad to do something. He’s twice her size and fucking jacked beyond belief, but can’t even stand up to his own wife for hitting me. I would do it the same night too. Usually only hours after it happened. I KNEW waiting to tell someone wasn’t going to work. Nobody fucking listened to me. From 15 to 18 I was crying out for help in any way I knew how. I would look him in the eyes and fucking beg him for an answer to “how many times do we have to have this conversation dad. I’m asking you for help”. I know he’s just as terrified of her as me. It doesn’t upset me anymore. Just makes me sad.
My final straw was when we were arguing through the bathroom door and all I can remember saying is “stop taking your shitty day out on me”. She kicked the fucking door in and I went ballistic and she ran like a scared dog. I’m not gonna lie it felt really good to finally see her atleast back off for a second. I packed my bags and stayed with a friend for a week. This was all right at the end of high school. Weeks before graduation. I graduated while living with my grandparents on my dad’s side.
In 2022 I got a certificate in welding, and then I just froze. I stayed working at my Dads pizzeria. In 2024 shit got absolutely insane.
My brother, who has since had a kid and moved in with his baby mama did some really fucked up shit. He got caught red handed taking photos of the family members of his babymama. Obviously he got kicked out. He shows up at the Pizzeria like a lost little puppy. Says he needs a place to stay but can’t tell me why. I say sure, and immediately call my Dad to find out more. He won’t tell me anything. I didn’t find out until a month later when he told me everything he’s done.
In high school he raped 2 girls. I don’t know why he told me but he did. I don’t know why I let him stay. When I was a kid, I found a camera in his room with a video of my Mom changing on it. I instinctively chucked it against the wall (I was about 13 at the time. My brother would have been no older than 15). Nobody was home so I didn’t tell anyone and it faded from my mind until that moment. I remember him asking about the broken camera about a week after I found it.
My last straw with him was intense. It broke my fucking heart to my core. Made me more depressed than I ever had in my entire life. I live in a studio apartment with a walk in closet. The closet was his room. It is directly next to MY bed. The door is a sliding door offering no sound privacy whatsoever. This guy was crankin his shit literally 10 ft away from me. Lotion man. I FUCKING HEARD DUCT TAPE TOO. This fucker was actually making a flashlight ten feet from me. I literally could not move. I was frozen. I tried to get up and just leave but I physically couldn’t move. What the fuck happens when he knows I’m not actually asleep.
I somehow fell asleep and just B lined it to work the next day. I told my Dad absolutely everything. Even about the camera with the video on it. He didn’t care. I almost broke down crying trying to tell him and he literally didn’t even care. He still hasn’t told my Mom. Obviously I kicked my brother out that day. The next year was weird. Really fucking weird. My resentment for my Dad grew and grew. I stopped talking to him even at work, and stopped showing up at the house for dinners because of my brother.
I don’t know these people. They don’t align with my morals and what I value. My mother will never change. I have tried since moving out to explain my side and work towards a healthy relationship. She doesn’t want it. My brother is disrespectful to other’s property, disrespectful of peoples boundaries, and downright a disgusting person who takes advantage of others for his own sick needs. I love my Dad. Somewhere deep down in him is the man who went to art school and appreciates fine beautiful things. A man who wouldn’t stand for any of this shit taking place within his family. When I look in his eyes I can see how tired he is. I can see he’s given up and died on the inside. I would say it’s the rotten woman he’s married too, and I have. He just stares like he’ll be shot if he says anything. It’s sad.
I thought I did it right. I told the adults when something was wrong. I asked for help immediately or very soon after anything happened. I kept a relationship with my parents despite my mother being impossible. New Year’s Eve last year, my Dad Mom and I went out for dinner. She was already drunk when I got there and had driven my dad. She decided to bring up a personal health issue of mine in a crowded bar on New Year’s Eve. I politely asked if we could talk about it at the house and not in public. She got really upset and kept pushing and pushing. I told her to drop it because now I for sure wasn’t going to discuss it. She told me “fuck off” in the most genuine way I’ve ever heard anyone say it in my life. So I just left and refuse to respond to her texts. I will speak to her in person briefly but that’s it.
There’s obviously so much more to this story. If you’re interested I am an open book, especially with people who have similar experiences. I’m just lost at the moment. I have no family to turn too or friends, and I don’t really ever get to talk about this part of my life. I just don’t know what I’m doing or where to start. I’ve struggled all my life with dissociation and depression. My anxiety was through the roof when my brother was staying with me, and after I kicked him out. When I cut him off, I was an absolute wreck. My only connection to my blood family was a fuckin loser creep and it hurt me bad. Nobody in my family cares about what he’s done and all pretend like it never happened, and I physically/ mentally can’t do it.
Thank you to anybody who read through all of this. It means a lot