I (23M) am a broke online college student living with my parents. I have an abusive brother (25M) who also lives under the same roof.
My brother is a narcissist. He believes that he is the most important person in the universe. Boundaries and respect do not matter to him. He will hijack every conversation into being either constant self-aggrandizing or personal attacks and force me to repeat it back to him. He is physically violent when provoked and he has killed multiple animals by beating them to death with his bare hands. Unfortunately, he seems to consider “no” to be a provocation. He searches through all my stuff without permission and I’ve had to start being careful about what things I leave lying around.
My parents do not care about this. My father doesn’t because he’s the OG narcissist who passed it down to my brother and actively cheers for my suffering, and my mother doesn’t because she is the enabler who chose to stay married to my father and told me I had to suffer the abuse endlessly like she does.
I don’t have any irl friends because I have medical conditions that make it difficult for me to be outside on my own for extended periods of time. I also can’t drive because of that. It sucks. This isn’t to say it’s impossible for me to go out, but it’s hard and kind of risky (my condition can cause me to faint).
I have constantly been told to give up on being treated like a human being, but I have begun to recognize that my family is feeding me false narratives of hopelessness to keep me complacent and submissive. I surely have power, but my internalization of their narratives is obscuring the ways to exercise it.
What would you do in such a situation, or if you have been in a similar situation, what did you do?
EDIT: I live in the U.S.
Oh my god, this triggers me so much.
Brings me back to when I was… sometimes between 5 to 7 years old. My older brother was chasing me around the apartment unit in Guangzhou, China, and I, being a stupid kid, ran out the front door. I was alone in the city for a few hours… still have nighmares about it. Nightmares about getting kidnapped, which was a fear that my mother instilled in me.
On another incident, I think this is an earlier incident. I remember being tied up with zipties when there were no one home, I was just alone with my abusive brother and I think I cried until my parents came home.
I don’t remember what happened, I think a plausible explanation is I played with his toys and that “provoked” him. (He’s 5 years older than me for context)
Later on, when we came to America, I think my brain suppressed that memory, since I was no longer in Guangzhou and that probably made it easier to disassociate and forget about it, at least temporarily. I don’t remember ruminating on that memory like the next few years? So I kinda had a frienemy relationship with my brother for the next few years, sometimes I play with him, we’d talk as if we were friends, but sometimes he become the abuser… but remember, my brain likely didn’t want to recall that traumatic memory. It always was there, but it decided to not recall it.
But there would be random bursts of fighting. The only thing that calmed him down was the fact that we’re immigrants and mom told him that there would be trouble if the American authorities got involved.
When I didn’t have afterschool programs, my mom would make him pick me up from school, which we then sometimes talked a bit like how brotherhood is supposed to be like…
but that memory is just contrasted with him arguing with my mom about this “chore” of having to pick me up from school.
So anyways… flashforward. Philly… 2014-2019… forgot when… police got involved for an altercation, but there was no report since mom asked them to keep our names off of it and the officer kinda just didn’t wanna deal with it so it was wiped under the rug…
So he got Citizenship with a clean record…
I mean imagine how funny it’d be if dude got deported and then I, having derived citizenship from mom, is immune from it? Lmao (don’t feel bad for him, he’s a racist btw)
So anyways… I think its after that incident… things just completely fell apart. No longer just “frienemies” but now its completely hostile. Like Cold War… Cuban missile crisis type of shit… or I guess its more like Sino-Soviet Split (cuz they share the same continent like we share the same home, get it?)
So I think after each altercation, my brain started to think about those memories more and more. By now I’ve relived that memory I talked about in Guangzhou like 1000 times already… I fucking wake up in a panic…
…
I think the best option is ignore and not provoke.
Have pepper spray ready.
Or, if you have a safe, get guns and ammunition.
Move out if possible. (Not a possibility for me, sadly, too depressed)
If your parents have assets, make sure you live long enough to claim your share. Or maybe sue over the their abusive behavier during probate.
Meanwhile, listen to some music to calm your mood.
You are not alone, remember that.