Ok, im going to allow some insight into how my life is being affected negatively right now. first off we need some background information. My brother is braininjured(from a serious car accident) and bi-polar, along with other dissorders that haven't been properly "diagnosed" yet. His brain doesnt understand alot of things. He doesnt understand the concept of love for instance; When my family is upset with him and are no longer friendly he assumes that everyone hates him and doesn't love him anymore. To him, we love him when we allow things to go his way, are nice to him, and/or are giving/buying him things. There are also alot of other concepts his brain cannot understand but due to lack of patience(with my own mind) i will not pry into my memory and past expieriences to find out what those exactly are, just know that he is not your "normal child." Now, what exactly i am upset about right now i will dabble into for you. When i came home today, i played bass for a little while and then the rest of my family came home from dinner. They procceeded in a normal and calm happy fassion to my parents bedroom. They watched tv for a few minutes in there. Eventually my brother decided to take his shoes off and in doing so released a fowl odour that was not to my parents liking. So, my parents proceeded to tell him things like, you should probably wash your feet(he just recovered from some weird foot infection) and that this their room and he cant leave his shoes there. Now his brain will react to this in different ways. Either a) he will accept it as it is and do as he is told or b) he will take it as hostile actions and become upset. He (or rather his brain) chose option B. Thus a tantrum proceeded. Lots of yelling from both sides ensued. my brother became extremely upset about the sudden change in enviornments and became worse. He stormed around the house yelling and hitting things...(by the way, his this sounds rather dull compared to all that really ensued but i am too lazy to type all of it and also lack the memorization skills to recall all of it) Anyways, eventually he went into his room. My dad, who by the way, is also bi-polar, has trouble accepting these things and has trouble sometimes realizing that yelling and arguing with my brother will not help the situation at all. Anyways they started fighting(verbally), my dad then realized that things were not changing for the better and calmed down and tried talking with him. My dad finally got frustrated and fed up enough that he left and came into the kitchen where i was and sat on the counter in silence(thinking about the situation i suppose). My mom by this time was now on the phone.(some more background information, my mother has been fighting with doctors since my brothers accident(i believe it was 8 years ago), no matter how trained they may be to help us with our situation, we never seem to get enough help, as you can expect, she's getting pretty tired of dealing with the medical peoples)So yes, she's on the phone trying to get ahold of our current psycologist type person, she gets an on-call person. She demands information regarding the fact that our doctor is not returning her phone calls and whatnot. Her and the on-call doctor person get in a heated argument. IT ends with her slamming something into something(i suppose the phone into something, and with no help or answers from the doctors)...so as you can see this night has in the past hour and half or so, become alot worse than it was before i got home....lets what else...OH, now because of this strange law that says everyone needs to be in school, and due to the lack of an EXTREME amount of money, my brother has to go to school. For the past school year he's been expelled/suspended about once everyweek. HE hates school...he has realized that, by throwing a huge fit and if needed, hurting something or someone, he can get out of school and go home...as you can see, with his mind, this is a good thing to use to get out of school...now, we have been fighting with the goverment/school for a long time now, trying to get some special staff to help my brother while he's at school, and pay special attention to him and ONLY him because he works best in those types of enviorments...no such luck...what other problems are we having...well the doctors arent doing much to help, they re-adjust his meds when they can and ship him back to us so we can deal with him...when he's at whats called "thereputic levels" he's fairly easy to handle, i guess...for us anyways. Anyways, his brain shifts alot (i dont know the exact reason and termonology and all of that) but basically, he has good periods and then these long periods of us trying to re-adjust his meds...thats always hell.im running out of ideas...but i think you get the picture..basically, the medical field isnt giving us much help and either is the governmet, and we cant take care of my brother ourselves.....i just want your opinions on all of this.

So yes as for that whole explosion/fight/fiasco that happend tonight, while i was eating, after my mom slammed the phone down and i think started crying. my brother realized that she was on the phone/crying because of him and he apologized...Of course that wont change him at all...he only wants people to be nice to him and give him things and do what he wants(in his words, love him)...so when he goes in to the room where my mom is and wants to hug her or something(im just guessing, this is all happening while im in my room typing this) he doesnt know the reason why she wont hug him back or is being unresponisve...of course we know why, she's angry, frustrated, losing hope....and she knows my brothers hugs are just so people will be nice to him(i think)... so he throws another miniscule fit, "NO ONE LOVES ME!"crying blah blah blah it eventually became silent...i gues he calmed down...now the only sound in the house at this exact moment are the air conditioner, an occasional cough, my typing and the washer and dryer...well this concludes this people...i want your thoughts, and im sorry for boring you.
-mike

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like i said, i can give you advice, but im not sure i would reccomend actually taking it.

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mhmm, i know how to handle him, dont worry...its just that..well i just want people to be aware of how difficult it is to live with a brain injured/handicaped type person, yet it seems to be a rarely talked about issue and that i think more needs to be done for care for these people...without institutionalizing him.
-mike

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I'm sorry, I'm not much help.
-Sunset

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just the fact that you read it is help enough, as i said with another persons reply, america's ability to care for the brain injured/mentally handicapped is bad..it seems as if because its fairly uncommon, its not really an issue...and as you and i know well enough, that it is a BIG issue...
-mike

I can give you some advice, but i cant garentee that it is good.

i think that you should talk to him. not about anything that is going on with him, his brain, or anything that would make him mad. Talk to him about sports, music, the weather, whatever. just somthing to take his mind off of what is really going on.

like i said, i can give you advice, but im not sure i would reccomend actually taking it.

Wow, I'm glad to know that I wasn't the only one who had an "eventful" day. I know what you're going threw, my cousin has bi-polar, I think, he got thrown off a horse or something.

But, he threw another fit when everyone was coming and going from the hospital. It ended with a chair thrown at me and calling the cops. I don't know what to do anymore, all I heard since this afternoon is yelling and the phone rining. My Uncle and Aunt have given up hope. We don't know what to do and the meds. don't help. It's an on going cycle I know.

Enough of my blabber. I would say, talk to him, nicely. Say, that love is more than giving you stuff, we love you know matter what. We may not always be happy, but it's not because of you, ect. This may not work. I've tried this, it worked for a mer 30 second. Talk to your parents about it. I'll try to get some web pages for support groups or about certain kinds of meds.
Good Luck, if you ever need to talk NOISEmail me. If you do noisemail me, be aware I might not reply. I haven't been getting my noisemail.

I'm sorry, I'm not much help.
-Sunset