My face hurts

There's a lot of shit going down since the last time I wrote, some good, some bad, those things are all important and I will perhaps get around to them in good time, but I got punched in the face earlier and that is what I am gonna write about instead today.

This was a unique experience for me, I am fortunate in that I have lived 35 years on this planet and never once encountered someone who seriously meant to hurt me in the real world. I've never been in a real fight, never been sucker punched by a drunk dude, never been robbed. At worst I've exchanged shoves with people in high school and once when I was maybe 12 or so I got into it with my brother pretty good, but we never threw hands.

Speaking of my brother, those of you who know me in the real world probably know a little about him but to recap: He currently resides in the state hospital in Salem on account of he is quite insane. I don't know what his official diagnoses is, he is unclear at the best of times and it might even change depending on what doctor is seeing him, plus since he is an adult there is no obligation for doctors to tell me or my parents anything, in fact there is an obligation to do exactly the opposite of that. Suffice it to say that he is almost certainly bipolar combined with some other form of schizoaffective disorder, and probably some actual physical brain damage on account of a greater than normal number of head injuries throughout his life.

Dudes pretty fucked up at the best of times, but when he is dialed in he is perfectly intelligent and charming, he was... not dialed in today. Any more specifics of his condition and history are not really my story to tell in this space, but you get the idea.

I visited him today and if you read the start of this post you maybe have an idea of what went down. The details are not super important except to note that the inciting incident was not something most people would deem worthy of violence. You would either have to be pretty crazy or a huge asshole(or both) to decide that was worth punching your brother in the face over it. Note the second requirement there, we'll come back to that in a minute.

Anyway, he got me on the nose and cheek, I have seen him hit people before and I know he is a pretty strong guy, so I am not sure his heart was really in it, I am fine, nothing is broken, my nose is a bit swollen and tender, but you'd have to look pretty close to notice, at the request of the staff at the hospital paramedics checked me out and didn't think it was that bad and I haven't experience any of the classic concussion symptoms. I am however super pissed off.

You know how it's easy to forgive a lot of stuff from small children because they are just that? They are learning how to behave and you can cut a lot of slack for that, but I imagine most of us have also run into a kid who upon continued interaction we begin to suspect they might just be an asshole. This brings me back to the "or a huge asshole" I mentioned earlier. At what point when dealing with someone with mental illness, do you need to consider that they might, in addition to being insane, also be kind of a dick?

Now, I realize I may not be in an objective frame of mind as I write this, so I am not jumping to conclusions regarding my brother specifically, and the question is a bit fraught, considering my own issues with mental health, and the fact that there have been times I too was a dick to people. But fuck it it's five AM. My brother has a huge problem with empathy, he does not seem to grasp that other people can have emotions and opinions that are just as valid as his and attempting to assert that has a chance of making him quite angry. How much of that is garden variety narcissism and how much of it is "legit"? I dunno, I mean, narcissism as a diagnosable mental illness is totally a thing, but assholes exist too, for that matter all do it once in a while. So is it wildly undiagnosed in the general population? Are many of those with a diagnoses just in actuality gigantic toolboxes? Is there really an appreciable difference when we get into that level of behavior? Sociopathy or selfishness? Is there a difference and does it matter?

How much should a diagnoses shield you from consequences for your actions? I probably would have given a different answer two days ago than right now so I don't think I get to have an opinion on it at the moment.

It's frustrating because you know, even if he did hit me because he is an asshole, I can't tell him that, I mean I can tell him that, but his crazy won't actually let me finish the sentence, or internalize it even if it did. There isn't satisfaction to be had, or a change he is capable of making even if I did get a message through to him. Perhaps there might be one day, but there is literally no way I can influence that positively.

I have to keep in mind that I haven't really seen my brother more than a handful of times in the last twenty plus years, oh I have visited him, we've hung out, probably not as often as I should have, but it wasn't with him, he went missing sometime during the age of 11-13 or so and we don't see him very often anymore, he peeks out now and again, it shows in his love of fancy clothes, or in the musical tastes of someone in middle school trying to shock his parents, that blend of arrogance and terror kids of that age attack the world with. I think that person is scared, he never got to grow up, instead he got imprisoned in his own head by his illness, it shows him a world that is terrifying and inexplicable, where awful things happen for no discernible reason and no one else sees it. Neither version of him is able to deal with the world on a practical level and I think he knows that too. He's getting worse too I think, I've never felt anything but safe when I've been around him, hitting me shows a level of escalation that no one who knows him should be comfortable with. Did his illness make the decision to do that? Or did he just decide that it he would get what he wants out of me better with intimidation rather than friendship? I suspect the former, but I want it to be the latter.

Because then I could justify being pissed off. My face hurts.

How fucked is that?