A Lifelong Nightmare
I am 29 years old, and my older stepbrother, Chris, who is 42, has been a nightmare since the day my mother married his father. Our parents married when I was four and he was 17. After the wedding, we all moved to the US. My only memories of him from that time are of constant bullying. He would lock me in the bathroom or the shed, steal my lunch, and even tried to run over my cat with his car. My parents never believed me. He was the classic golden child, especially since my mom had always wanted a son.
The bullying grew worse, and creepier. He would use a key to unlock the bathroom door and walk in on me while I was showering. My underwear would disappear. One night, when I was 14, I woke up to find him next to my bed, touching himself. I screamed. My parents came in, but I was the one who got in trouble for “tempting him.” He was 27.
When I was 16, after an assault I am still in therapy for, I called my biological half-brother, Sam, and asked if I could live with him and his wife, Sandy. When Sam found out what was happening, he confronted my mother. She didn’t care. “Take her,” she said, “as long as you never ask me for money.”
Sam and Sandy became my legal guardians. They took me in, along with my cat and the family dog, because I couldn’t trust leaving any living creature with Chris. Thanks to them and my paternal family, I finished school and earned my bachelor’s and master’s degrees with no student debt. I now work as a nurse practitioner and still live with them, paying a small rent to contribute.
The Demand
Things were quiet until my mother messaged me recently. It was the first time she’d contacted me since I was 18, when she told me she no longer had any responsibility for me. She was overly friendly, asking how I was. She knew I was a nurse and started asking about my salary. Then, she got to the point. She told me about Chris, how he was jumping from career to career, drowning in student debt, and barely making money working at my stepdad’s used car business.
Then came the demand. She texted me that I needed to pay off his student debt so he could finally make the money “the man of the family” deserves. I turned off my phone.
When I told Sam, I had never seen him so angry. He told me to block all of them immediately. The next day, my mother and Chris showed up at the house. I was alone. I called Sam, who told me not to open the door and that he was on his way. My mom spent the whole time screaming that I owed them for raising me. Chris prowled around the house, trying to find an unlocked window or door. He saw me through a window and screamed vile things at me, pounding on the glass so hard it cracked.
Finally, Sam arrived. I saw him drag them both off the porch. They looked pale and scared before they ran to their car and sped off. Sam had threatened them with filing charges for what Chris did to me when I was 16, and told them my stepdad was willing to testify against his own son.
Escalation and Revelations
That threat stopped Chris, but not my mother. She began a relentless campaign of harassment, calling from different numbers and rallying people she claimed were my maternal aunts—women I’d never met—to demand money. She started posting false accusations on social media, claiming I was a temptress who had tried for years to sleep with Chris and that I was lying about the assault.
My stepfather, however, commented on her post, calling her a liar and revealing the reason for his own fallout with Chris: his son had gone after one of his nieces.
The situation forced us to contact my late father’s lawyer to get records for our own lawsuit. My father, who died when I was one, had been a man of means. His lawyer, a sweet older man who was my dad’s best friend, was overjoyed to finally meet me. It was then that we discovered the truth. My father had left me a substantial trust fund. My mother had been systematically draining it for years by submitting fake receipts for my expenses, claiming I was still in medical school. She was even claiming me as a dependent on her taxes to get refunds.
Because this was fraud, the lawyer had to contact the IRS and the police. My mother’s greed had exposed her. If she had just left me alone, she could have milked the trust dry, as I never knew it existed.
The Final Straw
The harassment didn’t stop. One night, my mother cornered me in a bar, launching herself at me, crying about how much she missed me. She begged for a reconciliation, saying I had taken my stepbrother’s “affection” the wrong way. “He loves you,” she cried, loud enough for everyone to hear. “He found you so beautiful he couldn’t help himself when he made love to you.”
I exploded, screaming at her to leave me alone before my friend called Sam to come get me.
The final, most chilling event happened at my work. She made an appointment under a fake last name. When I saw her, I immediately called my boss, who asked her to leave. As she was forced out, my mother threw a letter at my boss. I read it later, my blood running cold.
“My lovely daughter,” it began. “It hurts me so much that you refuse to speak to me. I know there are a lot of misunderstandings with Chris. He loves you so much too, and I wish you would give him a chance. He always talked about how beautiful you are. He even asked me to convince you to marry him, and I think it’s a wonderful idea. Your stepfather and I are probably divorcing, and this will be the perfect solution so Chris, you, and I can stay a family. He keeps going on and on about how much he wants to raise your and his baby together. Let me know when you want to go shopping for wedding dresses. I love you, my darling. Mom.”
My mother knows that Chris’s assault left me unable to have children. My lawyer added the letter to the mountain of evidence against them.
Just a few days ago, I received the latest news. Chris has been arrested. He kidnapped a two-year-old baby girl—his own cousin’s daughter. Thankfully, the baby was recovered, safe and unharmed. I don’t know what he planned to do, and I’m terrified to even imagine. But for now, at least, he is behind bars.