Hello,
I would really like your input on something which is causing me a great deal of pain (and costing me a lot of money as well).
My brother is a very strange person. Well, the entire family is. However, my brother is especially negative and suffers from bad depression. On the other hand, he can be extremely witty and is very handsome and intelligent. My father abused us all, but this is the kind of thing that he used to say to John: "I never wanted any goddam sons". Etc. (We girls, on the other hands, were all whores.) Oh, btw, we were not Witnesses.
As a reaction, my mother babied him to death. He could never even do his own homework. She did it for him. And when she couldn't, she tried to get the rest of us to do it. I remember one night in particular, Mother was begging us to do John's school project for him. My older sister was very vocal in saying that she wouldn't do it, and why (all sound reasons). I of course, left the house so I wouldn't have to get involved. Anyway, Mother ended up in hysterical tears while she did John's geometry.
Well, my mother died a few years later and John still could do nothing for himself. He got into drugs and in a lot of trouble; someone usually bailed him out. He' s never held a job for longer than a year. Sometimes the depression gets in the way; sometimes it's drug use.
One of John's talents is to find great stuff. Anywhere and everywhere. If you saw something really cool in his apt., you'd ask where he found it, and he'd say, "The trash". Or "It was just lying in the street". So he started selling on Yahoo with my daughter. After four months she couldn't take it anymore. He was irresponsible and lazy. She did all the work, and he never held his end of the bargain.
Fast forward to a few months ago. John asked me if I wanted to sell on ebay with him. I did not want to, but we all do things in our life we don't want to for someone we love. I was assured that he and my sister would take the pictures and do the mailing; all I would have to do is the listings and the customer emails. Anyway, one night I get a call from my sister Theresa (who, btw, is notorious for insulting my daughters and its her husband and my brother who cost me untold hundreds of dollars in the "corporate dumping fight" tm the day I moved. Yes, they helped me move but cost me most of my good clothes. Shes does not know this, however; I never told her the guard told me to get my family out or she'd call the police while half my stuff was still up in my apt.
Anyway, she says I owe her a favor. A BIG one. For all she's done for me. Let me assure you, apart from the "corporate dumping fight" tm she's done nothing for me and never has, except a few times as a child. I turned to Tim when I got off the phone in tears, Theresa had said for me to get Tim (my domestic partner) to drive me 45 minutes down to John's house (both my sisters Theresa and Marianne live within three minutes of my brother) and take some photos. He said he'd be happy to help (I had known him all of 7 weeks by this point in time - yes , I did move in with him very quickly but it just seemed the best thing to do and anyway, I was suicidal living with my abusive father. ) and we went down to take photos. Tim cropped them; I listed everything. Immediately I got complaints from my brother that he didn't like what I did, there were too many mistakes (there were two). I wanted to respond that I told him up front that due to being ill, my thinking capacity was impaired; it if was not, I'd have a decent job paying enough to live off of instead of a crap job but I didn't tell him that - or anything . I usually say nothing so that I wont' say the wrong thing. When we finally sold things, he didn't mail them. Then when I'd try to get him to mail things (after refunding the buyer's money in full and still sending the items), he'd get really mad and my sisters would say I was picking on him. Oh, and theoretically, I'm supposed to get half of the money. Well, not only have I not taken any of the money I've made, I've spent $140 in ebay fees and refunding people's money. He doesn't know I do this.
Anyway, the last time this happened, (and remember, I'm the one who has to write to the buyers and tell them we messed up) I emailed my sister to please find out if John had shipped something or not; the buyer was coming down on me hard. My sister FREAKS out at me. So I said "I will never bother you with this again"
Yesterday, I found out that he once again, didn't mail something. It was three weeks ago. Oh, and BTW, Tim has continued to drive down there to take photos and all he gets for his trouble is my sisters asking "When can you get down to take more photos?" See, they don't want to have to help John anymore, they have helped him a lot (BTW, they have never helped me out of the problem's I've gotten myself into except once when I sold my guitar to get to work because my fther would n't give me the money and it cost $50 to get to work for the week and my guitar only sold for $25. I did get money then, but was told to pay it back IMMEDIATELY upon getting paid.) My brother owes me at least $2,000 and has lived with me for a few y ears in the past. On the other hand, I had to live in the ghetto with my abusive father and no one gave a damn. I know this sounds self-pitying but my life with my father was hell and it hurt me deeply that each and every one of my sisters had the room for me in their houses and did not ask me to live with them. On the other hand, John has lived with all but two of them. Sends a strong message about who is worthy of help and who is not.
I didn't say anything to John, and I offered the buyer a full refund. I am sick to death of this but know I will get some nasty phone calls if I decide to stop. Theresa will probably start crying at me. And I do want to help John, but I don't want to continually bail him out. I do know what it's like to be so depressed you don't want to do anything; I've felt that way but the fact of the matter is I never stopped doing what I had to do .
I don't know what to d o. I want to be fair, but I don't want to get more insulting phone calls from my sisters and nasty ones from him (he would send emails that were downright awful to me about how I never called - BTW that's not true. When I did, if he didn't want to talk, then forget about it.)
HELP!
Sorry to rant, I'm just so upset. Another $13 refund to a customer and I simply don't have the money
Rosemarie