I had some inquiring minds wanting to know some further information regarding my previous post, titled BJ, and I wanted to elaborate on those before putting this issue to bed for a bit. Trust me, there will be more to be written about Bubs and my family, but this website isn’t going to be filled with shit like that. No thank you. That sounds exhausting and I pay a therapist for that kind of work.
But since some of you had questions, I felt it needed to cover a bit more ground.
BJ has never been officially diagnosed with BPD. I also don’t want any of you reading this to take that step and self-diagnose anyone. I just had been discussing these things with my therapist and she suggested that we handle it as if it WERE a family member who had BPD. She also made it clear that these were tools that only we could use, and that everyone has a different approach to their issues.
So we kind of landed on Borderline Personality Disorder so that we could have a framework. Even though BJ doesn’t have an official diagnosis, I felt it okay to write about it because knowing BJ he probably will never get the diagnosis himself. He will probably just keep going through life not wanting to fix anything because admitting to an issue means that there is something wrong, and we can’t have that!
This was something that was reinforced because of how my father acted. My mom has her faults, but she has always been brave and quick to tell people like it is. She also has been a driving force behind getting BJ more help. She’s never given up on him, and to her credit, that’s pretty amazing. It’s more than I can say.
What did BJ and I have a falling out over? Well, it wasn’t the “wife” situation that I brought up previously. Those accusations didn’t arise until I stopped doing whatever BJ wanted. It was a control issue. I gotta admit, I have such a fucked vision of what relationships should look like that I easily fall into these scenarios. It’s something that I work on constantly. It’s something that a vast amount of people on this planet put up with because we were taught these habits at a young age. My father was very abusive and my mother was codependent, and BJ figured that people going along with every whim you had was actual true love.
I can’t say I’m completely innocent when it comes to acting like a monster, either. There are plenty of people you can find on the planet who can attest to how fucked I can be. Cisco’s mother is definitely one of them, even though we are on decent terms at the moment. The best I can do is own up to those things and move forward, which is something that writing all of this out helps with. Sure, it’s content for the website and it’s helpful when it comes to eyeballs on my work, but ultimately these essays are for me.
Some more questions then:
Does BJ live near me? No. Does BJ read my work? Yes. You can be certain that BJ sees just about every little thing I do. I’ve gotten used to it years ago. I can’t worry about it because doing that would just ramp up my anxiety and then it’s all a battle. The way that I handle things is just accepting them for face value and trying to break things down objectively without too much emotion. Emotional regulation is a very important tool when it comes to healing. You need to stare into the issues and feel that pain but not let it overtake you. Now I can see things for what they are. Typically, if BJ is acting a fool, he just wants some form of attention. Cisco does the same thing at times if I am not mindful of his needs. It’s a sign of emotional immaturity: Any attention, even negative, is ideal.
Cisco went through a phase of picking his nose, and I could tell that he would disgust people at his mother’s house with it, because he would give me this little smirk as he started doing it and loudly pronounce, “I’m PICKING MY NOSE, Dad!” He was used to a reaction, and he knew that every time he did this one act, without fail, people would notice him. The way we got past that was that I simply ignored the negative and reinforced misdirection. It sucks but that’s how some adults are! You can’t win when it comes to some people. Even the negative reaction will be enough for them to sustain.
That’s exactly where things are with BJ. Only, he’s forty. Cisco is a child and autistic, so he has some things to work on, but there is no “working on it” for BJ.
That’s another thing that irks me with this discourse about my family. I have met so many people who are trying to do good by saying, just put it behind you! You’re family. Well, BJ called Cisco a retard during one of our first interactions with one another after years of not speaking. I didn’t react well either. I said at least I had a living son, as both of his are dead. Not my proudest moment, but I have to be honest in these situations as well. Otherwise, you are just reading someone flame someone else, not an essay.
I guess I could have been a better brother at certain points. Not engaging would be ideal, but I’m just so tired of being quiet. Even these essays are an affront to people. If everything I do in life pisses someone off that immensely, shouldn’t I just say fuck it and go forward with what I am already doing?
I know you don’t have the answer. I don’t think there is. I think when you deal with the mentally ill and deranged, there isn’t much you can do except protect yourself. These writings are a way of protecting my own sanity.
Anyway, I hope that cleared up the questions.
Oh, there was one that I forgot to mention:
The reason for BJ being named BJ is because it’s short for Bubba Jannetty. I hope that helps.
