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.

I commend you on this level of self-awareness: getting to this point as someone who has never yet lived as an adult outside the gated community of crazy that is a family filled with Cluster B behaviors, this is a huge deal. You’ve been trained your entire life to be afraid of anything that does not come from their beneficent hands, trained to dread existing outside their own shelter, but you’re beginning to see the huge existential lie they’ve been laying on you all along, and it is a massive accomplishment. You should be proud.

Fifty years ago I was in your exact shoes, and possibly my sole regret is that I did not call the cops when I was still underage and my own satanic sibling beat the shit out of me and capped it by setting fire to my hair. I had a visible and profound case. It would have been jail for the doer. But the lengths that these self-indulgent fuckers and their enablers will go to in order to keep the status quo unchanged, with the designated scapegoat in place, is unbelievable to anyone who hasn’t lived it, and I was too young and too fucked in the head, and it worked. I didn’t make the call.

Today, I would. Even if it meant nothing would ever be the same again. And not only would I make the call, I would be as belligerent and unrepentant as possible after making it, saying whatever insane shit needed to be said to make it All Their Fault, which it of course is. And if that sounds a lot like what they do anyway on a daily basis, you’re right: I would turn their own mental tricks on them, because when you, the Assigned Scapegoat, first do it back they have no idea how to handle it. Rage, and confusion, will ensue.

Make no mistake. Shit will explode.

But not all explosions are bad, and this is the kind of explosion that will teach all of you that you, the scapegoat, also have a life of your own, free will, and power to act outside your assigned scapegoat role.

You only get that first shot at turning the tables one time, though, so do it fast, do it hard, and do it from an angle or direction they do not see coming. Making a call to the police when you are assaulted within the home is a great place to start, not least because it documents what is happening, creates a line across which the perp cannot step without external consequences, and cops have victim services people who can tell you about options you may have that you do not even know about right now.

This is NOT the safest route for you in any number of ways, and you are already aware of this, but if you think you can hold your emotional and mental ground while the post-violence police call bullshit flies, then you’d be amazed at what changes can be made.

Lots of others have spoken about how getting out is the primary goal, and it absolutely, truly is. But in the meantime, now that it’s come to expecting your brother’s violence acted out toward you directly, it’s not something you can handle on your own: once he starts, once he lays that finger on you, once he breaks that wall, it will only escalate. And if I were being honest, I’d tell you that my gut call on reading your post is that he’s already testing the water, already mentally moving in that direction, or you would not now be more concerned than you were before.

If you think that this bears a lot of similarity to what battered wives go through, you’re quite right, it’s just that the same dynamics happening to others in that family at the same time are often left out of the narrative, and a wife is not that much different than a weaker sibling: it’s the exact same thing, but without you having any experience of being outside and away from it.

So it’s probably also time to start looking quietly into how police in your area respond to domestic violence, and what actions rise to the level of incarceration, and what to expect when you call. Start also to document everything violent he does, with dates, times, places, and witnesses, no matter how informally, and to keep that documentation in the cloud somewhere beyond their reach, or on school servers. (This post is a great start.) You also need to have the courage and strength to make the same 911 call every and any time someone in your house acts in physical violence toward you, and to mentally be able to withstand the aftermath, because at some point someone’s going to get arrested and you will be blamed for “ruining the family” and “destroying the peace” and all the other deflected and retargeted shit they will want to throw your way for bringing outsiders in. That’s THEIR shit, not yours: they will dish it out, but bottom line the guilt and shame of violence and incarceration for it belongs to the perpetrators and enablers of it, not you.

You also mentioned being confined to a body that is keeping you almost as trapped as your family, but your mind is free. Use it. Reinforce whatever healthy mental behaviors and practices got you to this level of insight to begin with. Start realizing that their shame is their own, and shifting it onto you is why they do this shit to begin with, but that does NOT make their shame and guilt yours no matter what they say. Find something all your own that cannot be taken from you, like meditation or faith, that is available to you anywhere and at all times. Behaviorally, keep your own hands clean as much as possible, of course, and do not provoke without cause, or engage without good reason (which I’m certain you’re already doing.) Never threaten: it is a sure sign of weakness. Just do, if you can, or keep your mouth shut. Mentally, do whatever you have to do to stand within your own truth, including being aware of the possibility that there are good things that can happen that are unseen to you now, but possible.

You can’t do what you can’t do, but try very hard to do everything you possibly can and to challenge your own physical and mental limits outside their awareness, so that when opportunity comes you have them ready without fear.

Ultimately, you need to get out: there is no substitute. But you cannot handle a situation that has escalated to physical violence on your own, especially if you are already physically disabled to begin with.

I will not bear the high costs of your decisions; you will. It’s easy for me and others to talk and offer advice. That said, it is possible that the worst thing you can do is to continue doing what you have always done, and in that light, start planning now for involving third parties immediately when your brother turns his violence to you, and preparing for ANY opportunity that may come to you to be able to get away.