3rd, June 2025

Entry Title: “When the Bruises are Brotherhood”

Filed under: Sibling Rivalry & Other Forms of Domestic Terrorism

Dearest Diary,

Some hearings play like soap operas. Others—like war documentaries filmed in real time. This one was neither. It was a quiet descent into something far more gutting: the normalization of pain between brothers.

The case was standard on paper: conservatorship, two minors, warring parents, bruised egos, etc. But the real battle wasn’t between the adults. It was between the 14-year-old older brother and his 12-year-old shadow—who flinched every time someone raised their hand too quickly.

I clocked it early.

The younger one sat curled like punctuation. Shoulders tense, gaze low, waiting—for what, exactly? His mother’s testimony? His father’s disappointment? Or perhaps his brother’s next punch?

When the Guardian ad Litem brought up “incidents between siblings,” the courtroom twitched. The judge shifted in her chair. Opposing counsel shuffled papers like that would somehow make the facts less feral.

It wasn’t just roughhousing. It wasn’t even typical “boys will be boys” idiocy. It was trauma reenactment—on a loop. The older boy had become both villain and victim, taking the beatings he’d once received and passing them down like a family heirloom.

“He just gets mad sometimes,” the younger one whispered. “It’s not all the time. Just when I’m breathing wrong.”

And there it was. The psychological chess of abused children—making themselves smaller so the harm feels earned.

The mother, bless her misguided soul, defended the violence with the maternal equivalent of “they’ll grow out of it.” The father, who couldn’t spell therapy if you spotted him the ‘T’ and the ‘H’, blamed TikTok.

The judge looked at me. I looked at the floor. Sometimes eye contact feels like complicity.

The older brother denied it all. Of course. He wore his hoodie like armor and stared at the wall behind me with the vacant determination of a boy who’s learned that feelings are a liability. When asked if he had anything to say to his little brother, he shrugged and muttered, “Don’t be weak.”

Don’t be weak.

As if weakness were the sin, not violence.

The courtroom was silent, but you could hear every woman in the room internally collapsing. There are wounds you can’t treat with placement and visitation schedules. There are cycles that laugh in the face of custody orders.

The judge ordered separate placements for now. Not ideal. But necessary. And as the bailiff led the boys out in opposite directions, the younger one turned and mouthed something I’ll never forget.

“I hope he gets better.”

He didn’t say “I hope he leaves me alone.”

Not “I hope I’m safe.”

But I hope he gets better.

The empathy of children—God help us all.

I remain, as ever—Court-Appointed, Emotionally Exhausted, and Clutching My Pearl Earrings.

Disclaimer: This entry is a fictionalized satire. Any resemblance to actual people, events, or lawsuits is entirely coincidental—but not impossible.

Tag someone who still thinks abuse only happens between adults.

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