I used to fantasize that I was adopted.

I think every kid has that wish on occasion when they’re punished or frustrated by the rules or whatnot. But for me, it was beyond that. It was a pervasive and omnipresent dream, an undercurrent of understanding that I was indubitably different from my parents and brother. When I was young, I couldn’t figure out that sensation beyond simplistic terms, a la Sesame Street’s old song, “one of these things is not like the other, one of these things doesn’t belong…”

I’m in my mid-30s now and have only recently stumbled upon a better way to understand that childhood perception, though admittedly it isn’t in less childish language and imagery. This probably stems from my recent reading of Jim Henson’s biography (comprehensive, informative, fascinating, moving, I highly recommend it!). Henson was the creative genius behind (among SO many other things, including Sesame Street which I already referred to in this post, gosh!) cult classic films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and Labyrinth in particular made a very lasting impression on me. The premise of Labyrinth is that a teenage girl named Sarah is annoyed about babysitting her infant brother and makes a foolish wish that the goblins come take him away; when they do, she makes a bargain with the Goblin King (played deliciously by David Bowie, I might add) to solve his labyrinth in 13 hours and save her brother, before the baby boy is turned into a goblin forever. I haven’t actually watched the film in many years, though I vividly remember a lot of it, and one scene in particular sticks out in my mind right now, where there’s this tiny little human boy surrounded by dozens of curious and hideous, very obviously nonhuman creatures. Goblins are not people; they’re monsters.

It’s this scene that came to mind this week in thinking about my whole childhood. I was a human child surrounded by, bred by, raised by, and undeniably harmed by monsters. It’s taken me decades to fully process that not all monsters look grotesque or creepy on the outside. Some of them, indeed, share a striking resemblance to you. (My brother and I have undeniably similar facial features, and we both look notably like our parents; as such, my hope that I was adopted was only ever a fool’s hope, I knew that even then.)

Does it sound cruel to call my parents and brother monsters? Well, what else would you call: a father who psychologically and verbally abused his son and then abandoned both of his children; a mother who birthed a daughter specifically to help raise her special needs son and trained that daughter to disregard her own needs in favor of everyone else’s, ignoring all boundaries and making decisions for herself that put her children directly in harm’s way to endure more abuse, and later, overmedicated and mismedicated that son just to keep him sedate so he’d stay out of her hair; and a brother who constantly fought with his sister like cats and dogs, who once injured her badly enough that knee surgery was necessary for her at age 13, who as adults refused to treat her like a person because he couldn’t see her as anything more than his younger sister who he therefore thought he had to domineer?

I know my immediate family members so intimately — because I was expected to, being treated like a servant and nurse and therapist and friend and confidant but never an actual young child that I was — that I can easily spend several blog posts detailing the intricate details of their psychological makeup and how they became the people they were. But here’s what I’ve come to understand, after years of hard work in therapy: just because you know why a monster is the way that he is, doesn’t mean he isn’t a monster. It can help to know background information like that (and I have an overabundance of background information), but their history doesn’t justify their behavior. It doesn’t excuse it. My brother lets his past define him, and it never occurs to him that he can grow beyond it and get to a better place. He doesn’t have that kind of faith in himself; to a large degree that is not his fault. He is intellectually and psychologically very stunted, both due to his disabilities and the horrible state of the service system that has often failed him, and the abuse he’s endured, but the hallmark of his personality is also that he absolutely refuses to accept any help that can be great stepping stones to healing and having a better life. He’s as stubborn as an ox, and just about as physically imposing. In spite of my best efforts to help him his whole life, in spite of the efforts of many other people on his support team over the years, he continues to make poor decisions and won’t put up with being told so.

My therapist once asked me if, all things being equal, I would want to have my brother be a substantial part of my life, and with no hesitation at all, my instinctive response was, “No, he’s an asshole.” And he is. Not because he’s got disabilities, but because that’s his personality. (There’s a misperception in society where we can’t say things like this about people with disabilities; sorry, they’re human just like everyone else, and they too can be unkind and boorish!) We’ve simply never gotten along, as children or adults. He’s very much an aggressive and combative person that I have no more patience or energy to deal with after over thirty years of it.

This question had been posed to me years ago, and only this week I had an epiphany about the state of my relationship with my brother. I have frequently lamented losing my relationship with him, feeling like I’d failed at my job to take care of him (a job I never should have had). But relationships aren’t one sided; he had a responsibility to keep us together too, and he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, even if his part of the bargain was necessarily smaller than my part. The crux of it all is that if I can easily identify the fact that he’s a monster, why would I want to keep said monster in my life? The two other monsters in my immediate family aren’t in my life anymore; one died when I was 18 and the other I forcibly removed six years ago. I’ve devoted so much time and energy to removing toxicity from my life; why would I invite it back in, for any reason? That smacks of hypocrisy.

Maybe I am actually Sarah from Labyrinth; I managed to solve the labyrinth and escape from the Goblin King, but not in time to save my brother from being turned into a goblin. That being said…saving him from that fate was a Herculean task that should never have been set to me, and some things are beyond even my extraordinary will and tenacity. One thing is for sure — I am done with putting up with monsters.