Dear Katie:

With more understanding comes better mental health, so let’s proceed with understanding best we can:

“I try to take my daughter to her therapy appointments as a supportive gesture, and he has said at times, “Is G driving to her appointment today or is she waiting for mommy to take her?’ (sarcasm)”- this is evidence of his jealousy, his anger at you for spending your time and your love on your daughter, instead of on him.

When a child grows up with too little loving attention, he (or she) finds it hard to share loving attention later in life. In the adult-child mind, there is just not enough to go around, so he feels threatened others taking away from him the little love that he perceives as available to him.

As a child, not only did he get too little loving attention from his mother, he didn’t get her/ any adult’s protection either. His two older brothers took things away from him, for example: he was enjoying ice-cream and they grabbed it from him. It makes me think of ice-cream as love: too little of it, and it can be taken away anytime, too soon, when he is unprepared.

His two older brothers one time swung him back and forth, then let go and he flew into the wall, breaking his toe. You were shocked when you heard this, but I am guessing that he told you this story in a detached, no-big-deal manner (?) If so, and I suspect it to be so, he repressed the fear and anger at his brothers, but that fear and anger are not gone.

The fear is responsible for his OCD, his forgetfulness, being scatterbrained (“He always seemed so scatterbrained”), and his anger is responsible for him withdrawing from you, for his occasional sarcasm,  and for the times he verbally abused you.

“His childhood must have been pretty messed up”- yes, and unless he heals from it (a long, long gradual process, with professional help), his life will continue to be pretty messed up, and if you are in his life, then your  life too will be.. pretty messed up.

anita