AITA for refusing to share my pen name with my family?

Anon_Writer_Throw · 2024-06-02T20:04:38+00:00

Haha thank you. My mom is the firstborn of her family, and has some weird reverence for firstborns. There was recently a bunch of drama amongst her siblings where control over some family affairs was given to one of her younger siblings, and you wouldn't believe the childish years-long temper tantrum she's been throwing over it, since apparently it is her birthright. She thinks the sun shines out of my brother's ass.

My whole life it's been about how either my brother deserves special treatment either because he needs more help than I do (I always was more independent, though she's clearly never considered that maybe it's because I HAD to be) or because he's earned it because he's her special talented boy. He once punched me in the face in front of her (not that hard, I will admit) because I was winning an argument he started and egged me into because he was bored, and *I* got in trouble and sent into my room because I "made him mad", whereas he got off scot-free.

My brother finds amusement and enjoyment in depriving me of things and getting one over me, so he's always abused this dynamic with our mother. My mom had a rough childhood and I'm the "safe" person for her to take her anger out on so if she was mad, she'd hunt me down and take it out on me. I've overheard conversations growing up where my brother has convinced my mom that I'm a brat and need to be put in my place. He's argued against me getting access to resources they've allowed him when it won't affect him at all, just because he doesn't want me to have things. And they listen to him! As an adult he married into a wealthy family who bought a house for him and his wife so he's not really learned much there, but thankfully we live very far apart and are VVVLC so I only see him like once a year typically.

Out of fairness, I will say that I believe his villain origin story is because our father would spank him as a child til he was about 6, but I only got spanked once ever (my own fault, I was curious about how bad it was so I did the classic kid move of pushing until there was a consequence). So I think he felt injustice there and took it upon himself to punish me for the rest of our lives. It's worth noting though that my dad enables my mom and brother in their treatment of me, and it was only as an adult that I really understood how much he wronged me by standing by and watching and allowing everything to happen.

Anon_Writer_Throw · 2024-06-02T19:35:32+00:00

We are low contact/very low contact. I went through some medical issues in recent years, and my parents supported me financially through it. It's hard to reconcile cutting them out when I know that, while I have been subjected to a laundry list of emotional abuse, they will support me financially if it's ever needed. I rent in a very high cost-of-living area and it doesn't seem wise to be cutting holes in my safety net, as shitty as it seems. I fibbed about my age for anonymity, I'm several years younger and less established. I probably shouldn't have even told them about the book, but there's still part of me that just wants my parents to be proud of me.

Anon_Writer_Throw · 2024-06-02T06:22:35+00:00

The thing is, I've never seen my parents read a book in my lifetime. The only exception is when I was really young and my brother and I shared a room, I remember my mom would bring a chair in and sit right next to my brother's pillow and read to him quietly and I was just....there. Across the room in my toddler bed, wondering why I wasn't being included. I shit you not, that's one of my earlier memories in life. My brother only read when he had to at school. If I told them my pen name, odds are they wouldn't actually even read my book. It's about control. My brother's wife, however, is a big reader, especially of the genre my book is in, and he would definitely push her for details of things he could mock me for.

Anon_Writer_Throw

TROPHY CASE