I say this with all respect, but you NEED to simply detach yourself from your brother.
By that I don't mean refuse to communicate with him, IF he tries to get a hold of you. But do not go out of your way to placate him. He is essentially trying to get you to do what he wants, or control you.
The reason is that refusal to communicate IS a textbook form of being an abusive sociopath.
http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.com/2006/12/communication-and-functional-sociopath.html
Thanks for that link. Some of that definitely applies to my brother, although maybe not to the extent that the article is taking it. But there is definitely some of it that applies.
As far as you saying I need to detach myself from my brother, it really is the truth, and essentially what I am doing.
The first time my brother did this, I tried to reach out to him by trying to call him to reconcile. He ignored all attempts at contact, and finally I just stopped. He came around eventually, and we did reconcile. Again, I had said something on Facebook that he took personally (though it wasn't aimed at him) and decided it was enough to cut me out of his life.
I did take accountability for what I said, even though it wasn't directed towards him, I could see why he would have been upset by what I said. So I took my due accountability, but I also had some grievances of my own to lay out to him, and I did. We did reconcile, but it wasn't totally satisfactory on my part, as a lot of it boiled down to I needed to get over anything that he and his family did that offended me, because "they have my best interests in mind", but I need to not do anything that would offend him, whether it's targeted towards him or not.
And that's essentially what happened. I made a Facebook status talking my own anxieties about flying, and making myself vulnerable, as well as a tongue in cheek remark about wanting to get out of the area that I'm living, and possibly never coming back from vacation. He took it personally, and gave me this lecture (via text message - he avoided my attempt at a phone call to discuss the issue) about how I am so insulting towards him, I have no genuine interest in anybody, he brought me out here to grow as a person and I haven't grown, because I am not passionate about anything, and that because I am so selfish and don't care about anyone else, that's why all my relationships fail.
I had said some things to him, but by that point, I saw that he was doing nothing but taking cheap, personal shots at me, so I set my phone down and stopped responding, before I ended up saying something that couldn't be taken back.
As it is, with this being the second time this has happened, with loads of insulting words and actions from he and his family in the past, and a history from my brother of being totally judgmental and condemning towards people who do things he doesn't agree with, or do things in a way he doesn't approve of, and casting plenty of other people out of his life (for reasons that really make me look towards that whole "victim" element of the article you shared with me) - including my parents (we have the same father, and my mom is his step mom), his own mother, his wife's sister and her husband, friends, neighbors, parents from our little league team (he cast out one of the parents from our Little League team - a man who had been incredibly helpful to the team and the children the 2 years we coached his kid, and was one of the first people to step up when my brother's wife had a serious health situation earlier this year - because this man decided to take his son to play on a different team in the future, nothing against my brother or I, but because this new team would offer his son new challenges and opportunities that we couldn't. My brother cut this guy out for that), his own aunt and uncle who he aspires to be like, his cousins, and now me - I've decided that my brother is not a person that I need in my life, he's more of a negative presence in my life than a positive one. It's a shame, he's my brother, and I want to have a relationship with him, but I think I've realized that it's both impossible unless he drastically and fundamentally changes who he is as a person, and unhealthy.
Way too many of those traits in that article you shared applied to my brother. Again, probably not to the degree that the article is speaking of, but they are still there. For the time being, my brother is not welcome in my life. That's really how I feel about the situation.
