I am a senior level nursing student. From my psychiatric nursing class we learned that nothing can be done to fix personality disorders. We also learned that medications for mental illnesses are not true cures, they aren’t even quick fixes, since many only start to work after 4 weeks. My dad isn’t on any medications. He is ridiculously paranoid, extremely jealous and possessive, has hording problems (books and movies), has no job, has nothing to occupy his time with, and throws a constant pity party for himself. In short, he is very difficult to live with. But, there are times when he is lucid and father-like. Those times really break my heart, because I can never know when it’s okay to rely on him as my dad.

So, it is Easter today and we have already had a huge family fight. My dad was scrubbing away at a painted wood chest until he took the finish off of it. As he was doing this, he blamed me for messing up the painted wood. I asked him to stop once I saw how much paint was coming off. Then I told him to stop. He started yelling that he wouldn’t have to keep cleaning it, if I hadn’t spilled stuff on it and let it dry. I began screaming at him to stop, because he was scrubbing the paint off of the chest, not some dried-on drink. He continued yelling and telling me that I was crazy. In truth, nothing had been spilled, but my Dad is often deluded about things. Actually, no one can really tell for sure if he is starting to hallucinate, but sometimes he will talk to himself for an hour straight…

Either way, I wouldn’t let it the issue go. My brother started calling me a bitch and saying that I was too loud and my voice was “fucking annoying.” He said that he would come over and shut me the fuck up. That he would beat me until I was quiet. I reacted pretty negatively to this and continued disagreeing in a louder and more obnoxious voice. My brother threw a newspaper at my back and I reflexively grabbed it and turned to throw it back at him. He charged me and twisted my arm behind my back and threw me on the ground.

Meanwhile my mom starts sobbing because we have ruined her “peace at all costs” motto. As my brother fought me, he knocked over a glass of juice and stained the carpet. My mom freaked out when she saw it, crying heavily, she ran into our garage to begin chain smoking. She said things like, “I hate my fuckng life. I’ll never forgive you. You ruined Easter. Why! WHY!”

These were directed at me, no one else. I asked her how she could call me wrong. How could she justify my brother attacking me and my dad destroying things? How can she justify violence? I hadn’t done anything violent. My brother apologized to my mom for ruining the carpet. When she left to go smoke in our garage, my brother smacked me across the face with a wet washcloth. I was speechless. He tried to tell me to clean up the juice “I” spilled, but I threw it back at him and ran up to my room, crying.

Now my brother is down there soothing my crying mother and badmouthing my name. He’s cleaning up the mess he made when he attacked me and telling my mom that she should just get rid of me and kick me out of the house. My dad is in the background, slowly destroying the chest as he continued to “clean up” my “mess.” I can hear him saying, “she’s manic, I can’t believe she did all of this because of paint.”

Listen, I know it was wrong to yell and carry on, but did that really justify things being thrown at me like an animal, being pummeled, punched, and thrown onto the ground? I have his scratch marks on my arms and they are STILL seeping blood an hour later. My brother is 6 feet and 4 inches tall. He weighs over 300lbs.

All I want to do right now is call the police. But the only thing stopping me is the fact that I can’t believe it’s come to this. When I think of my family, I DO NOT THINK OF JERRY SPRINGER. I cannot beleive how destructive and voilent my brother is. His mood switches on a dime and he becomes SO violent. And he feels entirely justified to do what he likes to other people. He has no regard for other people. He literally uses others constantly to get what he wants and is incapable of doing things for others. He is constantly calling me, my sister, or my father names. The only one he is not outright abusive towards is my Mom. But he uses her like a bank. If someone dying in the street asked him for help he would say, “What can you do for me?” That is the type of perosn my older brother is. He feels entitled.

I tried to talk to my mom again but she just says that I’m wrong for yelling. And I yelled at her and told her “keep crying, you deserve it! If you think it’s okay to hurt other people and destroy shit, you deseve to hate your life. I don’t pity you. You’re the one who married him [my dad] and you’re the one who decided to keep him. And you’re the one lying to yourself. You won’t get him help and he’s driving everyone crazy. And YOU”RE SON! I can’t beleive you’re defending him. Your son just beat me up and threw me on the ground! How is that okay? Why will you talk to him and not me? Why can he hug you and tell you it’ll be alright when he’s just as comfortable threatening to kill me and then acting on it??? Is he your favorite or something? Can he do no wrong? He can throw things at me like I’m an animal and destroying things! How is that okay? How am I more wrong than him for yelling at Dad to stop peeling away the paint on our furniture?? How am I being violent!!!???” Then she proceeded to tell me that I was no better than my brother OR my dad. She told me that I’m that I “drove” my brother to violence, because I got louder after he called me a bitch.

So she can make excuses up for him… that’s nothing new.

But, I am really losing sight of my sense of right and wrong, here. I need a third-party opinion. And that is why I am posting this humiliating response to an article about “peace at all costs.”

Does the volume of my voice by default make me incorrect? I don’t know anymore. I want to say, “no.” Because, it’s not like my message was wrong, just the volume of it. And I tried to handle things reasonably at first, but you really can’t reason with my dad. I never thought my brother would get involved and begin physically abusing me while my two parents turn their backs and later tell me I deserve it.

My mom doesn’t even see shades of black or white. It’s peace at all costs. In school we learned that “peace at all costs” is a sign of a dysfunctional family. She tells me that my books, my instructors are all wrong. That peace is the only way, that it is the “higher road.”

According to my mom, because I objected to what my dad was doing, I broke the peace. And because she didn’t want to pick sides against her mental-case husband, I was told to stop being a bitch and shut up or I would be beaten. And because I would not let it go my brother did beat me. He said, “it’s your fault. I gave you fair warning. You wouldn’t quit.”

My brother doesn’t try to keep the peace, like my mom does. He is just selfishly motiviated. He doesn’t care who is right or who is wrong as long as he isn’t bothered. But, apparently my loud voice bothered him. And there you go. Because he got involved, things became violent and destructive.

In the end, my mom’s holy holiday is ruined. In the end my brother is happy he got to work out his stress on a human punching bag. In the end my dad is still slowly wiping away all of the paint in one spot on that painted chest, while muttering things to himself. And because I told my mom that she deserved to have her holiday and all the hard work she did (cleaning the house and making food) ruined, my younger sister won’t even listen to what happened when I try to explain myself.

In the end, I am in my room, bleeding, crying, and confused about how things become like this in the first place. I’m googling “why is peace at all costs wrong?” Because, I need help sifting through the feelings of injustice and hurt. What is the punishment I deserved for yelling at my dad? How much harm did my yelling warrant?

My mom tells me that I am violent and need to be on medication because I disagree with her “peace at all costs” jargon. All she does is compare me unfavorably to my older brother or my younger sister or my father. I know that my mom has hard life providing for all of us, but I do everything I can to cook, clean, and shop for her when she’ll let me. When she is sick, I’m the only one who cares enough to check on her. What the hell has happened to make her hate me? Everything I do, even my major, is something that I have done to please her or make her proud. I am miserable here, but I can’t stop worrying about her safety (around my violent brother and my rapidly deteriorating schizophrenic father). No one else lifts a finger to help her but me. So why on earth does she hate me so much? Why am I the most disappointing of her children? I’m not as smart as my brother and I’m nowhere near as pretty or feminine as my sister… I am plain and I have failed delayed my own graduation by failing a class…. I know I”m not perfect, but I am sick to death of being compared to everyone all of the time.

How to I obtain peace? All I want is a normal family. I cannot stay here. My life only continues to become worse the longer I stay here. But I do not have the means to support myself. And I don’t want to hate my family the way I do now. I know that life is going to be too hard if I can’t rely on my family for support. But all I get here is abuse. And it is changing me into someone who is quick to become defensive and argumentative. I can’t stand the injustices and abuses that are allowed to go on every day. But no one cares to change or point them out or fix them. It makes me sick. It makes me want to kill myself. I have no idea what to do. But I know that I want the peace you described in this article.

What should I do to obtain peace when everything and everyone around me is destructive and chaotic????

I feel like going to the moon wouldn’t put enough distance between me and my family…. And, it’s impossible to live without them. I won’t have any means to support myself until I graduate. What should I do??

I have to come back + read U in more depth - I am impressed*

For some reason I think I was meant to land here*

;))

Peace*