Yes, The Bad Brother investigates how childhood trauma shaped my identity, relationships, and destructive choices as an adult.This story is not about excusing those choices or assigning blame. Neither brought anything but more pain.Facing those choices honestly means understanding where they came from, exploring the complexities of accountability, and showing what recovery can look like when family silence is finally broken.

I decided to make The Bad Brother because silence had become part of the damage. For years, survival meant blaming my abusers and using drugs and alcohol just to get through another day.The film became a way to examine what happened without reducing it to a simple story of villains and victims. That view had never offered a path toward a healthy life.Making the documentary meant confronting my own behavior, listening to family members and experts, and asking difficult questions about responsibility, delayed reporting, and recovery.Just as important was showing survivors that healing can begin, even after years of silence and self-blame.

The title came at the lowest point in my life, after years of abuse and vice had left me feeling small, invisible, and powerless. His name had become unbearable to hear or say. Calling him the bad brother became an act of refusal.That refusal was the first step toward reclaiming the tiniest bit of power. I didn’t understand it at the time, but it would help save my life and plant the seed for this documentary.

The film questions the idea that understanding trauma means excusing harmful behavior. The abuse was never a choice, but understanding what followed required an honest look at my own actions and the actions of others. Recovery meant separating what truly belonged to me from what did not.

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociation are central to The Bad Brother because understanding them provided a vocabulary for experiences that had felt like personal failures. Shame, disconnection, substance abuse, and self-destructive behavior had shaped my life long before their connection to childhood trauma became clear.C-PTSD and dissociation did not erase responsibility, but they changed the questions. Instead of asking only what was wrong with me, I could begin asking what had happened and how to make it out alive.

I did tell my mother at seventeen, actually. She gave me a “choice.” Tell the truth and destroy the family, or keep it a secret. That choice left me with a profound belief that I was not worth protecting. It made speaking about what happened impossible.This film is the first time I am speaking out unsilenced.

Because the law measures time differently than trauma does. Although the abuse was disclosed at seventeen, the response forced me back into silence.By the time the damage of that silence and its legal consequences became clear, the legal deadlines had expired.The film examines what happens when a survivor becomes able to act on one timeline while the legal right to act expires on another. Fear, shame, family pressure, and survival do not follow a legal clock.Research indicates that the average age for disclosing childhood abuse is around 50. Should the law be governed by reason alone, free from passion? How can reason and passion coexist within it?

The film is currently in production and is scheduled for release in 2028. Festival, screening, and distribution details will be announced as they are confirmed. I will post dates and viewing information on this website as they become available. Visitors can also join the email list to receive updates.