Little Boy Wrong

There's a little boy I know who goes to a psychiatrist. He is currently being prescribed medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

When he is with me, he has no problem focusing, maintaining control, understanding and respecting limits. He does not show any symptoms of ADHD. He, also, has not been compliant with taking his medication. He states that it makes him feel "not good sometimes".

His parents try to force him to take his medication. They also tie his wrists and ankles with duct tape to prevent him from getting away from them. They are obese and are both retired and they cannot keep up with their ten-year-old son due to their age and poor overall health. They try to trick him into coming into the room by telling him that he has received a phone call from somebody important to him, and when he presents himself, they corner him physically to the point where he feels threatened. I have never heard his mother say anything positive about her son. Anything positive his father has said about him is in the form of a backhanded compliment, like, "a boy as bright as he is shouldn't be getting the horrible grades that he's getting, but that's because he's not applying himself."

The little boy is my brother. His mother and father are my step-mother and biological father. They are not good people. They are even worse parents. And somebody, somewhere, agreed to let these elderly, obese people adopt two children, both of whom are under the age of 11.

I spoke with my brother's psychiatrist a while ago, and told her that my brother lives in a situation where he never does anything right according to the people around him, and this is the reason why he behaves the way he does. If there's no way that he can do anything right, I told her, why should he try? If the result is the same no matter what he does, why should he put forward any effort for anything? I told her that my brother and sister live in a home where there are colonies of fruit flies living in their breezeway and they have a mouse problem. The children sleep on beds that are on the floor, where the mice can more effectively get on them. I told her about my brother being bound with duct tape at his wrists and ankles. She mentioned that she would find out about how to report them to child welfare services and then she would call me back.

I haven't heard from her. I spoke with her prior to Christmas. We're now coming up on summer.

I think about calling child welfare myself. It wouldn't be tough. My brother has repeatedly gotten on the roof of his house, and his mother has told him to stop going on the roof or somebody might call child welfare on them. She's already thought about it being a possibility.

While my brother can't do anything right, my sister can't do anything wrong. And she's getting just as fucked up as he is. Just today I received a voice mail from her telling me that I hadn't called in a long time and she was mad at me for not calling. And I want to tell my almost-9-year-old sister that she should have picked up the phone sooner and called me before she got to the point where she was mad. I want to tell her that she should have done something to help herself rather than do nothing and make herself mad. But I don't give a shit. She believes she can do no wrong, so it doesn't matter what I say to her, she hasn't done anything wrong. And maybe I need to tell her that she is impossible to speak with because she doesn't allow for anyone else other than herself. And it's not good for anyone to have to deal with that kind of attitude.

I hate my step-mother. She is one of the worst people I have ever known.
My father is a complete and total waste of space and should have been killed by a pack of wild boars.
My sister is... unfortunate.
And my brother is a casualty of people being absolutely criminal in their treatment of other people.