My Brothers and I

I know i have written A LOT about my dysfunctional family ,after all venting about what is going on in my life is one of the reasons why i started this blog. I am not talkative in daily life and sometimes don't have the right words to express myself- i guess you noticed that-.

This post is a bit different cuz it's a shared idea post about brother-sisters relationships in Saudi families . It was my fellow Saudi blogger Hala's idea. when i say Saudi families i don't mean ALL families, nor can i say most or a huge part, cuz i have no idea. What i know for sure is that lots and lots of sisters-whom i know personally- complained about their relationships with their brothers. Maybe we are a minority, which i doubt, but we do exist.

Of course, i am not talking about "happy families" so when i say "brothers-sisters relationships" i mean the other families.These relationships can be vary between simply bad to killing bad. 

There are things i am going to write that i didn't discuss before with anyone not even those closest to me.Some might be shocking or bad or gloomy .And be advised there are repulsive images.But i really need a big vent. 

Thanks Hala for the idea, you wont believe how helpful it is to talk -or write- , after all it's a kind of therapy, right ?

I don't have one brother only to have a brother-sister bad relationships. There are three of them. 

And i know that my two sisters have had their share of trouble but i only can write about what i feel,cuz we are a family who knows how to complain but not to discuss or argue peacefully to reach a decision

The eldest of my family are my two sisters, them my eldest brother, another brother, me and finally the youngest brother.

I seriously have no memory of what our life was before i was six years old. I have no idea why this lack of memory, but someone -a reliable person-once told me that something had happened when i was probably four and it was so evil .It was me who asked about that period -i know what it was and wanted reassuring- , so i guess my mind blocked all that time. I wish i can know more cuz i am positive it will help me know the truth about what have i been told or maybe God wanted to protect me cuz i know that if it was the truth i will be devastated.

I

 have been molested by one of my brothers, let's skip the part of which one is he,. 

It was scary and my heart still race every time i remember that. He used to ask me to bring him water and each time i hand him the glass, he will start touching my hand in a very disgusting way, feel them for minutes. most times i simply drop the glass which would evoke him and made him curse me and calling me names. 

Other times, he would use his foot to touch me in private places when i was siting on the ground, from behind. I guess you got the picture. 

To this day, i am always scared and moving quickly from my positing if i was sitting on the ground and someone come from behind me.

One day he simply stopped. Every time i look at him, i wondered if he remember what he did or if he know that i do remember. 

I honestly have no feelings for him. I am trying to let it go but such memories aren't easy to just vanish. By the way, these are my first memories, the first things i remember and they almost drove me to destruction. 

I once -recently- told my sister about what happened but didn't  told her who is he ,she simply didn't believe me. 

now let's talk in details about each one of them three lovely boys. 

The eldest brother used to hit us and order us like a bunch of animals that belong to him. I have seen the way he treated every single one. He has no love or maybe less love from everyone now. Most times tough times just don't go away. One of the thing he used to do that might sound silly but hurt us deeply is that he used to go for football matches with  his peers. Whenever he is home, he needs to have a shower immediately- you know how WE make our own stupid rules- so whoever was in the bathroom had to leave immediately. We had only one bathroom back then, and he wasn't going to wait for you to finish whatever you were doing.

We were eight people. we will be punished if we didn't leave the minute he knock on the door. 

Yes it was easier to follow the rules of a dictatorships and evacuate the bathroom before he is there. But who can control his/her bladder, plus we were three girls who need to change pads at times of periods, but nope we got to leave. I remember hiding even my pads and leaving without one cuz there is no time to change-sorry for the image-, did i say there will be nasty images, there you go.

Since i am younger than him, i was even ordered by him of what to and not to read . Of shaving, yes he forbids me from doing so and believe me i didn't start shaving before he says "yuck Wafa' why don't you shave". 

I was not allowed to use lipstick when i left for college, no it was not my parents who told me not but it was him. 

He used to take us to Mecca for Omra and no way we can say we need the bathroom or that we need to re-do our ablution. so i guess some Omra wasn't acceptable.

One day, a friend of his proposed to me and i refused . He heard my loud voice through the phone complaining about the proposal when his wife was speaking to my mom, so he had to come in his car from him home to ours during the fajar prayer to hit me, i guess prayers can wait. And i was hit, message delivered. 

In 1997 i graduated from the university and got my job as a teacher in a remote village. I was happy first and grateful but then came the shock of the distance and everything else. I said i don't want to go. And i guess the floor will testify on the way i was kicked and pushed and hit and thrown from one side of the hall to the other to say yes and sacrifice for the family-his words-. The family he didn't give a dime for.

The funny thing is that i didn't scream or yell or say yes for all to stop. I was completely silent during all that and everyone- my family and my mother's family who were there- kept yelling at me" 7aram , it's enough, you are annoying your brother" .

 I tried to kill me self after that and was taking to the hospital by my father and sister. My heart beat was not normal, but i survived.

 I don't  know what had happened to my body back then, but from that time up till now, when i lay on bed to sleep and after some minutes when my body starts to relax, my whole body shiver and shake hugely and then rest. 

I never told anyone about it, i don't want to be called a liar again and who cares. 

When i got my first salary, everyone asked me to give him something including others-it's like a tradition here that we divide our first salaries among family- and what i got is his happy smile and "see how this wont be possible without me" , oh yea it was not. 

I guess no one knows anything about letting someone who refuses a job to rest for few days and then discuss it. Nobody understand how scared i was of that place. 

Yes, i am glad i continue and glad and thankful that i am working and can help -or sacrifice as he said- but it's no thanks to him, it was my God. 

By the way, he still thinks that i have no burdens in life and that i have no responsibilities or sacrifices-though i am the only breadwinner- in the home. 

I know that he does what he does because that's what our culture about, boys will be boys. Boys are there to control their sisters. Boys are there to be fathers. Even if the father are still alive, actually most parents are happy that their sons take control.

Will i ever forgive him? i have no grudge in my heart towards him. And i guess he was a victim too. 

To whom? i don't know. i was not there in his childhood and when i was , i was way young to remember,  But i heard stories of how harsh my father was on him. so i guess it's a circle . 

A circle i want to break from. Though was stuck in for a while. Yea i was evil too for sometimes. 

Will i ever have a good relationship with him? No, Never. Even now we rarely talk to each other and when we do, we rarely look at each other's eyes.

I only pray for his kids cuz he is still stuck in that circle and he still hit them and mock them. Is it an irony that he has five daughters now ?

The second brother is the one still living with us . In a way i despise him and feel sorry for him. 

we were close when we were young and we dreamt of things to do for the well being of our family. He was the only person who asked me to say yes so the hitting would stop when i refused to start work.

 He is 40 now. He was not blessed with the mind or the tongue. My father and older brother ruined him beyond repair. up till know i still think he is a bipolar but i can not be sure.

 He stutter a lot and that put a huge pressure on him. Life is not easy when you are a stupid according to everyone. 

He never completed his studies, he graduated from primary school which he fails a lot so when he was old enough he quit. He step into the world of corruption early. 

At  19 he was in jail for a couple of years but even back then i loved him ,cried for him and visited him weekly. Life is not easy on anyone after jail. But it's not easy when you refused to help yourself and he never wanted to help himself or maybe he doesn't know how to. 

We don't even know how to. Up from that time till now he moves from one job to another. 

He is tough to talk to or argue with. He is scary. 

Gradually most of his violence is directed towards us- my mother-father-sister and me- he was not courageous enough to be able to fight with my younger or older brothers., he was weak in that regard.

 He used to take speed" the pills" which is a thing he learned from my father. He said he quit a long time ago, but we can not believe him. He is always jealous from anyone and everyone who has better things and not better life. No body is perfect but people see your faults when you blame them for it.

He is so lazy which is another thing he took from my father. He doesn't want to work but wanted money. He has a huge debt for things we never saw. Where all his money go? . He puts huge pressure on us and my mother especially to provide him with money. He says that he understand my responsibilities but he never seems so. He is never satisfied and since no one allow him to treat them badly, we are his victims.

He never hit me, but the verbal abuse is beyond repair and i live in constant fear of him. His temper could go off in a second . With an on/off job , all he wanted now is to get married. When my mother asked him where will you live ? He simply says "with you" . He wanted to have a room for him and his wife !! , what about kids after that ? he doesn't think of any future that's coming in one hour.

Days before Ramadan, he cursed me and yell the usual ways. I was afraid and locked myself  in my room. He then-as usual-cool down in minutes and wanted everyone to forgive him-by force- and that's it's enough that he says sorry. i refused to talk to him and we are still on volcano.

My mother tries to please him as much as she can. After all, he is the only son left with her. 

Life with him is constant fear , pain, screaming and plain and simple physiological torture.

You are on edge with him. What he asks from us are not reasonable but he can not understand that we can not help. He is easy to be manipulated to the evil side and people-in his own words- keep telling him "why doesn't your sister-me-help you?" .  I said it before to him" i am not helping a willing man" . and help is for one time not all the time. right now while we are preparing to move-in about two month-to the new apartment, he didn't even think of help.

He is great with promises, but fucked up when their time to achieve is due.

I really feel sorry for him , i wish he can have what he want, but i know he wont cuz he is never trying.

 I know that our life is way easier and relax of mind and soul if he isn't here, but i know that this wont happen.

Will i ever forgive him ? right now, no. but i have no grudge against him, too. Can that be? i guess but i don't know. Will i ever have a good relationship with him? He is the only one who got a chance, but the more verbal abuse i got the further away his chances are.

I wrote about him here and here .

My relationship with my father were so badly because of the way he treated my mother. My mother kept telling me to let go and that it was between them, she was afraid that my father might die angry with me. 

The same is with my brother, most of the way i feel about him is because of the way he treated my mother. i simply hate him for that.

The third brother is the youngest one, He is two years younger than me.

One of my earliest memories are me and him hiding under a blanket from the fight between my father and my uncle. 

I remember most of his childhood cuz he is younger than me. Actually not most because i know nothing about him when he left the house. He was beating like the rest of us from our older brother and was treated so badly , you can only feel sorry for him. 

He was the youngest one of us to be corrupted. Oh we were all corrupted, some of us find the right path while some are still lost,.

 He started to sniff glue very early, young teens favorite way to forget. Then he was discovered and the typical treatment was installed, beating him. He was ok and nice and never hurt us.

But when we move to our new apartment-we used to live in the same building with my mother's family- the monster in him was released.

 first we tried the best we can to control him and when that fail, we tried letting him do whatever he wanted and then he can sleep and we can all live happily ever after. 

The main concern was that no one knows about his problems . Most people here prefers to hide a problem than solve it so people wont know about it and start talking. We were not different. 

But things got out of hand, he started hitting my mother and throwing us all out of the house.Police would be called so we can get in and the whole world knows about our big secret. 

He worked despite being an alcoholic.I had a car in my name for him - as he asked me-which he refused to pay the rent for later. When he continued to do so and my work received a call from the car's company ,i got to take the car and sold it so i can pay the debt, he simply quit his job and claimed that it was my fault. But still i don't hate him, yes he was scary and way violent when he is drunk or not. but i always felt sorry for him. 

One day,when everyone ran from the apartment during one of his rage, i was the only one left. He was looking for the keys to his room, i guess he lost them or something, and since my mother had another copy he grab them  and decided to check which one of the set is his.

He grabbed me to the door of his room with a knife in one hand and the keys in another, and simply ask me to try them one by one. With a smile and a warning that if none of them were the right one, then he is going to kill me. I kept trying them one by one and none fit, until we reach the last one.

He kept smiling and reminding me of what will happen. He was drunk but that was not an excuse, it's just a fact.

Well, life is not a movie and the last key was not the right one or not cuz i was crying and shaking and refused to even try it. with the tears and cries he let me go. To this day, i don't know if that key was the right one or not. 

whenever he got sober, we used to sit and talk and discuss things and what he did . years after that, he was taken to an institution for addicts by force. He refused to stay and i left with my older brother to convince him to stay. Eventually when the whole family drove 400 km to visit him ,he begged my father to help him leave and my father agreed. Every one blamed my father for this to this day but if someone doesn't have the will to stop he wont. 

Things got back to normal and the drinking/hitting/chasing/sleeping scripts kept happening. 

Almost 12 years ago, his rage erupted again, i was asleep but awaken by the screams.I couldn't move from my bed until the door of my room was burst open and he came in , grab me from the hair and the same throwing through the hall that happened about four years ago with my older brother happened again. 

seems like they think i am way fit to fly from one end to another. i reach the hall throw flying and there i was  hit and hit and hit. My father and my second brother was there standing but did nothing. 

Then he stopped and i was asked to leave the house with the rest of my family. i was speechless and act like a machine, wear my abaya and scarf with no tears. I guessed they stopped during the beating. 

To this day, i don't know why he hit me.But he always targeted me after my mother. 

One thing  i am sure of is that i represent a bitch -in the good meaning-to my brothers cuz i am the one working and bringing the money and yet not easy to manipulate, smart and independent, i guess, i like to think highly of myself, lol. 

Back to what happened, we left to my eldest brother's house and laying there quietly, i utter them "let's press charges against him, the doctors can approve the hit " everyone agreed and we talked to the police and i was escorted to the hospital. when the police man asked the Doctor to give him a report, the doctor asked me who hit me and when he knew it was my brother , he asked me to not to press the charges and that it's 7aram cuz he is my brother. 

I hate praying against people, but i wished that doctor experience what i felt that day. 

anyway, we got a report and for the first time in over fifteen years we had the chance to get rid of him. And as we say in Arabic "the words of the night is removed by the day", the next days,everyone kept asking us to drop the charges and that we can do this and that but 7aram let's not ruin his life and so and so. My mother tried to press charges herself, but couldn't cuz he didn't hit her so the only charges were issued by me against him. And i was asked to drop them.

 I remember sitting on the hall and asking my mother what she wanted me to do and if i should drop the charges but she begged me not to. 

You know you are way out of control when your mother wants to send you to jail and out of her life. 

I didn't drop the charges and he was sent to prison , not thanks to me but to him. He was sentenced severely but was let go after almost four months due to the king's pardon of Ramadan and  cuz it's his first .  

he kept going in and out of jail for sometime due to drugs charges mostly. Till now everyone blames me for not dropping the charges. But out of everything i did in my life, i know that this is the right thing i did. 

i know that things happen for a reason and i know that "hitting" was the reason to get rid of him, to stop living that desperate life.

He tried to get back to live with us not out of love but cuz he has no work and no place to stay, we simply refused. We lived in terror and we are not going back to that. Our extended family took him for a while but every time there was a trouble . He kept stealing from them .But they still have the guts to ask us to take him back , after all it's 7aram , he is a family and what will he do. What we will do is not important, we are women and we are supposed to be beating and hurt, so what? . 

almost 12 years ago and my back is still in pain, i thought that i had a bleeding back then but there were water coming out of me !! dunno how but i know who caused them. 

The rest of the family kept having a good relationship with him, except my mother and i . Life with him and without him was pain. When my father passed away, he was there and we hugged and cried together and during that my aunts and cousins said that it was time for him to come back, really ?? My mother stood firm to everyone and make it clear he will come back to see his father and say his goodbyes , stay the three days of the mourn and that's that. 

I know she has a soft spot in her heart for him, but she is afraid of him coming back, of him hurting us again, he is still alcoholic. When he used to live with us, it was a habit for him to bring his drunken friends to stay with him, he would  leave for days leaving them in his room. Our kitchen is the closet to his room and she used to forbid us and beg us not to go there at night, she was afraid that something might happen to us there. He calls on the eve of Ramadan and talk to my mother and asked to talk to me.

 I have written this about him before.

Will i ever forgive him? yes and no. sometimes i feel i need to forget about him for sometime so i can forgive him completely. I feel sorry for him, have i said that we were friends ? . Will i ever have a good relationship with him ? No, never.

I wonder how many sisters like us out there, who can not be rescued, who are still treated badly , who are still abused. 

So many of my students talked to me about the way their brothers treat them, some even showed me the marks. 

Sometimes i wonder why do we have this beating relationship with our brothers in the Saudi society. 

Is it related to society and the suppression we live in.?

Are they themselves being abused by all forms of authorities -parents,schools,works, government- and they vent it out on the bodies and minds of their sisters?

Is it the law of the jungle, the stronger kick the ass of  the weaker?

I guess the only way to stop that kind of hateful relationships is by empowering women. 

Have strict laws against violence especially domestic ones.

 Build safe haven for abused women. 

Teach  kids how to respect women, women's right and how to treat them but mostly explain the consequence of not doing so. 

But it must start from us, abused women, . If we kept being quiet and silenced because we are blackmailed by the blood relationships and how good it's to give second chances, we are going to end up dead, damaged and some of us pregnant. 

I know i am still way too weak to stand up, but i am trying. And i will try my best to help my students to stand up. I remember one of my students who used to be abused sexually by her uncle until i told her to talk to her family, thankfully she did and the abused stopped and i am proud of that. 

I believe that most of all what we need is a strict law. We are sorry that our brothers are hurt and damaged but we can not be their pillows. 

The following links are for some of the lovely ladies participating in the topic. 

when they publish their own post, i will post the whole link here.

Brotherly Love By Hala
انا و أخي
The Forever Bond
Me My Brothers and Rest

And if you are a Saudi woman blogger, then you can join by writing about your relationship with your brother/s