Brothers - Part One

“They tell us that suicide is the greatest act of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.” Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860

Prologue

Up until now, I have deliberately kept the names of my adoptive and birth families out of this blog, out of respect for those still living and those who have passed. However, as I write about my adoptive brothers, keeping their names anonymous has become confusing. For clarity, I will call the youngest "Alby" and the oldest "Felix."

Alby was only 15 when I came home from the hospital. Mom entrusted him with the task of choosing me, likely because he was the golden boy of the family. I always wondered why he held that cherished status in her eyes. True, he had a gift for mathematics, played the violin with the skill of a virtuoso, and shared a unique connection with animals. But there was a randomness to Mum's choices or was there. Seems males fared better and maybe it was because Mum understood the female allure? She loved to recount stories of Alby sitting in the backyard, skinks approaching him fearlessly as he played with them. She revered him, elevating his memory to near sainthood at every oppurtunity. And we followed blindly behind her, she was always the leader of our lives and thoughts.

For years, I envied Alby's position as the favoured child. But now, with the wisdom of hindsight, I see the pressure he must have endured. Being the golden child wasn’t easy. Mum, with her arrogance and self-righteousness, had a narcissistic streak that we now understand better. Narcissists, often plagued by inner feelings of worthlessness, create idealided versions of themselves and project those expectations onto others. In our family’s divide-and-conquer dynamic, Mum maintained control. I can only imagine how suffocating it must have been for Alby to bear the weight of her aspirations. Perhaps his self-esteem was even lower than mine, though I always believed mine to be rock-bottom. It’s possible that Alby struggled far more than I ever realised in a world where he was perhaps expected to be flawless?

From what I can recall, Alby and I shared a close bond in my early years. Like a typical little sister, I trailed after him until I was about three. Family photo albums are filled with pictures of us snuggled together.

When Alby turned 18, he moved out to live with friends in a shared terrace house while attending university. For a long time, I found his departure puzzling, given his favored status at home. Mom, who so adored his talents, surely envisioned a future where he stayed close to the family fold. But Alby was different. He sought something beyond the "loving" environment that I believed we had.

It was the late 1960s—a time of cultural revolution, protests, and the Vietnam War. Felix and my sister were conservative - the "squares" of their generation, but Alby embraced the era’s counterculture. For someone raised in our strict family, the sixties must have been intoxicating—a world brimming with freedom, rebellion, and new ideas. I imagine the ideal of that freedom was irresistible, much like the yearning I felt at sixteen to escape.

The 1960s was a period of transformation. Music, protests, and the mantra of "make love, not war" defined a generation. Movements against the Vietnam War gained momentum, and iconic festivals like Woodstock captured the spirit of the time. Alby was part of this cultural rebellion. In 1970, he attended the Ourimbah Festival, Australia’s answer to Woodstock. I found one of his letters describing the atmosphere and the pot: “It was a great weekend,” he wrote.

But Alby’s journey took an unexpected turn. Once a top achiever in mathematics and a computer science student at university, he began missing classes and experimenting with drugs. What started as casual use spiraled into experimentation with LSD. Mom attributed his choices to bad influences, claiming he had fallen under the sway of friends and lost his free will. Her explanation felt too simple. After a particularly harrowing LSD trip, Alby suffered a bout of paranoia so severe that he ended up in Callan Park, a psychiatric hospital infamous for its dark history.

In 1961, a Royal Commission exposed the mistreatment of patients at Callan Park, casting a shadow over Alby’s time there. His breakdown became apparent only when police found him wandering the streets in a delusional state. Even his housemates were unaware of his struggles until Mom and Dad were contacted after identifying him.

When Alby returned home, it wasn’t clear whether his problems stemmed solely from drug use or if they hinted at a deeper mental illness. He abandoned his university dreams and attempted to work but grew paranoid about judgment over his long hair. In retrospect, I wonder if he battled schizophrenia, given the some of the memories I have.

The last time we were with Alby, was on a trip to Queensland. He seemed distant, as though trapped in his own mind. Looking back, it may have been depression, but as a child, I lacked the understanding. To me, Alby was simply not the same person.

A few months later, tragedy struck. Felix came home from work to find Alby in the backyard, propped against the granny flat wall with a shotgun between his legs. He had taken his own life. The rest of us were away in Queensland, visiting my sister’s new property.. The shotgun, which belonged to her husband, became a point of blame.

The loss of a child is an unimaginable pain, even for a mother like ours. No family should endure the heartbreak of losing a brother under such tragic circumstances. As I grew older, I grappled with feelings of abandonment, knowing how selfish those thoughts were—even at seven years old. In later years, I wished I could have done something to change Alby’s fate, though I know that wish is futile. Its funny how you feel guilt over something that is out of your control. That speaks to the devasation left behind when someone takes their own life.

I’ve often wondered how Felix felt, but he never spoke of it, and I never dared to ask.

Alby would be 73 today, but he remains an enigma. What might his life have been? A thriving career? A family? A continued struggle with mental illness? We will never know. He left before I had the chance to truly know him.

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