Assaulted

I finally went to bed at 4am today after being assaulted by someone I know around midnight.

It started out simple, I was just going to go downstairs and pick up my keys.  I met them at their car after I found them.

The initial encounter was really weird, beyond description, and this person who I had let borrow the keycard to the swimming pool area told me to go back and wait at the other end of the parking lot.

I waited a while, read the latest news on my BBC News app and checked Facebook.  Then I'm approached.

He says he doesn't have my keys, that they're somewhere in his trunk.  He asks me if he can give them back to me in the morning.  Knowing this person, who is very irresponsible and has a history of walking all over me, I asked of him to go look for my keys because I needed them back as soon as possible.

He kept resisting me and I kept insisting.  Things escalated really quickly with the raising of voices and then the same person, who I knew was drunk earlier, started shoving me around.  I pulled the phone and threatened to call the police if he didn't stop, but then he grabbed the phone from my hand and I struggled with him to get it back.

At that point, he shoved me again and he pushed me into the car behind me.  I instantly put distance between him and me, and I was frightened for my health and life enough to yell for help around this parking garage.

I ran down to the first floor of the parking garage, then up a stairwell, around the third floor of my apartment building, then came down to the second floor in an effort to confuse him and lose him.  During this time, I was just running, full of adrenaline and catecholamines.  The last thing I wanted was for him to be outside my apartment, but I was really relieved he wasn't there.  I got back into my apartment, locked both locks and didn't look outside.

My girlfriend was staying over that evening with me and I told her what happened.  She really did a lot to comfort me, and I really didn't feel the  shakiness and anxiety bleed away until after 2 am.  I couldn't fall asleep until around 4am because I was so stressed and disturbed about what happened.

The person who assaulted me is my own brother.  I had trouble falling asleep for that reason, and because I kept imagining what could've happened when he shoved me into that car.  I could've ended up with a skull fracture or some other injury.

He has always bullied me, and I couldn't stand up to him physically because he's one of those people who lifts weights all the time and uses his size to intimidate people.  I'm shorter than him and don't lift weights because I have an old rotator cuff tear.  I'm also his older brother, but he didn't care.  He just shoved me around like some kind of bully.

My girlfriend asked what would help me feel better, so I replied that we should watch "An Idiot Abroad," a show where Karl Pilkington is sent around the world by Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant to experience entirely different cultures with Ricky and Steve as uncomfortably and awkwardly as possible.  The Mexico episode is particularly good.

In the middle of one episode, my girlfriend and I hear a loud, violent knocking on my door and I didn't go near it.  I stayed in and kept distracted focused on this television show instead.  Before this interruption, I originally planned on confronting my brother again with mace I keep on hand, but I'm glad I didn't do that as it could've gone terribly wrong.

I don't forgive my brother just yet for shoving me against a car and these scrapes and bruises as well as him saying I'm "not his brother."  I'm calling my apartments today and requesting a change of keys and locks, and trying to spend the day as comfortably as possible.