My "brother" is a maniac, and my parents never told me.

Up until recently, I believed I was one of two children. One of two children who grew up in a stable, loving, and comfortably suburban home. I grew up thinking that and began college that way. But after what I've just been told, I don't know how to view my childhood. From stories I heard in my childhood, I knew my parents moved across the country before I was born. They told my stories of the coast they lived on before having me. They'd told me they had kids late. They were around 40 when I was born, but would never talk about why they were married for so long without kids. I know that sounds wrong, but my mom talked about always wanting a big family, so it seemed odd to me that she'd wait so long after being married to have kids. My parents started moving into their new house last week. They just became empty nesters after my younger brother moved out for college, and they want to explore the world. To be clear, my little brother is not who I'm talking about. As I was cleaning out my dad's office, I found a photo album. Now, my mom was a photographer, so our house was riddled with these, but this one was special. It was thicker, made of some fancy material, and labeled. There was a name on the front, one I didn't recognize. Not a cousin, family friend, or anyone I knew. So, I flipped to the first page. I saw my parents with a baby boy. In my dad's handwriting was "Welcome to the world, baby Daniel" (Daniel isn't his real name). Naturally, I brought the album to my mom, who looked like she might cry. She called my dad in and they sat me down. They told me I was not the eldest. They had a kid before me. His name was Daniel, and he was in a mental hospital. My dad continued explaining that Daniel was their first child, and they had him when they were freshly married. There was something wrong with Daniel. Autism runs on my dad's side, so they figured it was that. A few checks later, Daniel had both autism and ADHD. My parents said they did their best raising Daniel, but as the years passed, Daniel just had more things wrong with him. In his preteen years, he was diagnosed with ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), which makes the affected resistant toward authority. No matter how hard my parents tried, Daniel just got worse. That's when the first 'incident' occurred. Daniel stabbed a pencil through someone's hand at school. Daniel showed no remorse, and only seemed to care once he realized he was in trouble. Even then, it was a mild reaction for an act of such violence. My parents got Daniel into more intensive therapy than he already was in, but the therapist wasn't getting Daniel anywhere. More incidents occurred during that school year, but never enough to get him expelled. My mom said he loved testing people to see how far he could go without a reaction. The incident that got Daniel into the mental hospital was the rape and murder of a girl at his high school. Daniel was definitely friends he shouldn't have been friends with, and that made this event so much worse. Daniel and his "friends" (we'll call them Freddy and Zack) found a girl at their school attractive. However, she was a senior (grade 12), and they were freshman (grade 9), so she rejected all of them when they asked her out. None of them took it well. Freddy was apparently the first to make a plan. For weeks, they researched techniques on how to kill people and dismember their bodies. They even wrote their plan down. Then, they did it. They kidnapped the girl and did things to her I wouldn't dare say. Then, they dismembered her body and threw it into a river. They would've gotten away with it if Zack's parents hadn't found the written plan in his journal. Once convicted, the boys laughed recollecting the murder. My mom said she hadn't seen Daniel so happy in a long time. It made her sick. Zack and Freddy were sentenced for longer than life in prison, while Daniel pleaded insanity. The court found that he wasn't of sound mind (which I think is bullshit) and locked him in an insane asylum. Daniel's in his late 30s now. My parents haven't visited him in just about a decade. They said they probably will never visit again. They said they moved here just to be rid of him and his influence, and going back every once in a while ruined them. I'm sitting in my room typing this because I just realized I'm related to a murderer and rapist. We grew up in the same family, yet Daniel is a monster and I'm not. I wonder if he looks like me. That would be horrifying. I don't think I want to know, but at the same time I do. This is entirely a vent post, and in no way is this meant as anything but a vent post. I appreciate anyone who has read my horrendous writing this far. Have a good night or day, and try to stay positive for me.