This is all going to sound horrible and selfish on my part, but I try to emotionally divorce myself from the nightmare that has consumed my older brother's entire existence as much as possible. I talked to him this morning, listened to just how utterly depressed he is, and I am just fucking furious.
In June of last year, one of his four-month-old twin boys had bleeding in the brain. Despite no evidence beyond the bleeding, (which may have been caused by the boy being born two months premature, or by any by any number of things including hereditary problems), CPS determined that he had been abused and had both twins taken away. The boys were placed with a couple that was friends with my brother's wife.
Shit happened, the couple turned against my brother, and the twins were placed with the wife's mother and step-father. They weren't placed with my mother and me because I'm on prozac, ergo I'm a danger to the children. I'm not allowed to be alone with them.
Seriously.
Anyway, the wife's mother is insane and the step-father is straight-up evil, abusive and controlling. This guy somehow managed to worm his way into controlling the situation, and instead of helping my brother and sister-in-law, he's using this whole mess as a way to control them. When he says jump, they jump or he calls the authorities on them. He actually stood up in court and objected to them getting their boys back.
Meanwhile insane mother-in-law has, very literally, rendered both children autistic. I am not exaggerating. These boys, nearly two years old, are operating on a six-month-old level. She doesn't play with them. She doesn't talk to them. She doesn't allow them to socialize, or make messes, or make commotions, or be disruptive. She sits them in front of a big-screen television and plays the movie Rio all day.
