Last time I was really active on here I just found out TTBTT.. I was 28 at the time and now im 33. A lot has gone on but im finally able to live my life. Have my own apartment, steady job, a dog. A big event that recently happened was a little of a year and a half ago my JW mom passed away.. I hadn't talked to her in over a year prior and I almost didn't go see her before she did. I swallowed my pride knowing I might regret it if I didn't.. I wont go into details but she actually almost tried starting a confrontation with me a month before she passed when I went to see her but my step dad spoke up.. I knew she was ill for months and she was on her way out. The last 15 years or so I've been in survival mode trying to get my life together without any help..
Why Im coming on here is to vent a frustration. One of my hobbies I picked up is playing on a sports league Friday nights. Its sorta a wild story but some context is needed. I made a friend who played on a league, i started going to his games, and decided to get back into sports. I play with guys who are brothers, fathers and sons, and who have just been friends for years.. I have 3 brothers and we arent close like I feel brothers should be and its mostly them vs me when it comes down to it.. They all benefited from support of our mother till pretty much they got ahead and then wanted nothing to do with her. my older brother is the only active witness of us. Both sides of my family are JWs.
In a prior post I think I mentioned my mom was pretty abusive mostly to me growing up. It all ended one night when I was 16, she put me in the hospital and she was arrested in the hospital.. The next day CPS took me from my home I went to live with my dad and that was it. My case got lost in the system she got off. My step dad worked for a very successful company at the time. So the next few years my brothers and her all went on cruises together and other countries. It sorta stung at her funeral because when they where showing photos from over the years and I wasn't in a lot of them and they were all doing the things stated above.. I didn't think about it at the time but in the past 10 years there has only been 3 times me, my brothers and mom where all in the same room. One of those times was a week before her passing. I tried holding her hand and she did briefly before pulling hand away. Before she pulled her hand away she mouthed the words "im sorry".. The saddest part about that is she didn't want anyone to know she was dying (family, friends, ect) my step dad was dealing with it all by himself. Only a couple weeks before people were made aware of it.. She knew she wasn't a nice women and in her youth my mother was a very beautiful women. She didn't want people to see what she had withered into.
The weekend before her passing one of my brothers was helping take care of her. I was living my life as usual. A couple of my close friends knew what was going on while some of my new friends I have made had no clue.. My brother taking care of her sent me a text. I wont go into the whole conversation but it started out "hope you had a good weekend, did you hear mom died".(she was still alive). I made a couple family members aware of the conversation but he knows how I feel about the JWs so instead of starting a war with him I gave him a pass. (some of the things he said to me where outrageous, untrue, and delusional)..He actually made a threat on my life (I'm a lot bigger than him so you can assume his method was with a weapon). Im not sure if our bond can ever be repaired and the worst part to me is it feels like the family is sorta enabling his behavior and inviting him to functions and leaving me out of them. In the last year since my mom passed a lot of family members have been reaching out though. I'm pretty sure my mom bad mouthed me for quiet awhile and under the disguise of a Christian women they believe her.. But once I got my life together and started showing face at family functions I was invited to, people who knew me as a boy now are seeing the man I turned into.
The point to all this roller coaster of my life goes back to me playing sports again and the friend I made who got me into it. Lets call him Josh.. Josh is older than my oldest brother. He was raised Mormon in a household bigger than mine and when his family went thru a divorced her was the glue that held his sibling together. It bug me but I know there isnt anything I can do, how does that happened with my brothers who only 1 of them in a witness still while the other 2 arent yet they are all close with each other and I who dealt with the most as a kid is getting the short end of the stick. A friend of mine stated "it seems your mother created a culture of favoritism and you get the shit end of the stick". I know they have helped each other out when they needed places to stay but I was practically homeless for a better part of my 20s and had to resort to "self employment" if you know what I mean(not the sexual kind).
TLTR; Had rough start, finally getting to start my life. Brothers are still jerks to me when I haven't ever done anything against them. Is there any way to salvage or save our relationship?