I need to ask a bit of advice. I have an adult brother (let’s call him Mike) who has a history of mental illness (OCD and depression), and has been in and out of treatment for the last 20 years. I am an American but have been living in Europe for most of the last 17 years. I tried to keep in touch with Mike, but he has basically rationalised my departure from the US as the root cause of all of his problems. So although we never had an official falling out, he has refused to have any contact with me until and unless I move back to the US. It has been 3 years now, with no meaningful contact.
I say no ‘meaningful’ contact because every couple of months, I receive an email (or emails) from him, essentially making personal attacks on me for being a bad brother, a bad son, a bad human, the cause of all his problems, etc. He often refers back to minor incidents and things that were said when we were kids or teenagers (he has an excellent memory for events, though his interpretation is frequently off the mark). He gets himself really worked up over some real or imagined slight, and his emails demand, with increasing invective, that I do something to fix them. In the past I have tried to humor him, but that only calms the seas until his next tirade can start. I should add that I am not the only person he does this too. He also harasses my mother and father, and to some extent my other brother. I would describe these emails as moderately abusive, primarily character attacks, accusations, and some bad language. So far there has not been anything overtly threatening.
A couple of years ago, after a string of harassing emails about something that I forget, I wrote back to him and told him that I was setting up a filter to block all his future emails, and that if he wanted to reach me to have a normal conversation he should inform our mother and I would be very happy to be in contact with him. This resulted in him sending me (occasional) handwritten letters, with the same sort of content as before. He also called me on the phone once in the middle of the night. My wife answered, and he was very rude to her. Despite the filter, Mike has also continued to send me emails from time to time. I know this because the filter I created forwards all of his emails to another account where I can see them when I can work up the courage and can keep them for the record. Lately he has also started sending groups of emails with only subject lines, on the assumption I guess that I couldn’t avoid seeing the subject lines. And last night he sent two more emails like this, copied to my wife, accusing her of being a sociopath. This was from a brand new email account, and signed as ‘your brother’ to avoid the filter.
I have put up with this for a while because I love my brother and know that it is his illness that is making him act like this. When he is not controlled by his demons he is a nice, funny and caring guy, and he has done the best he can to develop a professional career despite the impacts of his illness on other aspects of his life. And I have very fond memories of our childhood together, before the OCD really kicked in. As I said, the communications from him have been more abusive than threatening, and I have been content (if that is the right word) to take one in the chin now and then. Other than telling him about the email filter, I have never counter-attacked, because I don’t want to hurt him. In fact, I long ago stopped even arguing the points with him. But although I am willing to take a few hits myself, when he involves my family it is crossing the line. Mike has only directly included my wife in the communications a couple of times, though a number of the communications to me have included attacks on her. But I have two young children now, whom he has never met, and I worry that he may at some point start including them in his tirades, and god forbid, try to contact them. I should say again, there have been no actual threats of physical violence, but as my family grows, so do my fatherly concerns.
So I just wanted to put this out there to my wise Doper friends. Any advice on what I should do? Am I handling this the right way, or am I making things worse?
And a specific question. I have considered from time to time (this morning being one of them) taking legal action. A restraining order I guess. But would this help at all, or just make things worse? I can imagine his reaction at getting served and fear that it might push him over the edge. And if I do decide to take this route, who do I contact? As I said, Mike is in the US, and I am in Europe. Both of us are US citizens. Do I contact a lawyer in Mike’s state, or in my country? Is this even feasible?
