Today YouTube recommended me that strange song that lyrics I couldn’t even understand, except of the few words that really draw my attention: ‘it ends in prison or with funerals’. That got me feel scared again. I realised the neighbour who helped my brother organise mum’s funeral mentioned something about family graveyard, that it may need ‘readjusting again soon’ and I thought, there was nothing wrong with it when I was last there.

My mum’s friend asked me how it all happened that my mum got sick and where she was lately and although I told her that mum had an accident in June, I didn’t say I suspected my brother was involved in it. I only said that I don’t really know how it happened. That made me think, however, that if even I don’t talk about certain things because I believe they wouldn’t sound respectful now, after my mum died, maybe the neighbour doesn’t want to tell me something either? He’s certainly neurotypical so he may be trying to hint me.

I remember, when I spoke with my brother when I was in Poland at the end of summer, my brother said that if I don’t get mum out of the care home (please remember, she was unable to walk, we wouldn’t be able to take care of her at home) he will get a rifle and kills the staff there. I mean, those are just words, he was drunk and he wouldn’t be able to get a rifle anyway, but if I go there, he wouldn’t need a rifle to hurt me, would he? Maybe that is what the neighbour was trying to hint me. Maybe my brother was telling the neighbours that he wants to kill me? Who knows. And again, those are just words said probably in a drunken stupor, but then people kill family members over money, don’t they? Even if there is no alcohol involved.

It’s so strange to imagine, however, that this may happen to me.

The neighbour also offered to organise clothes for my mum as she didn’t have anything nice (didn’t want to spend money on clothes) and we were talking about it over text messages. I obviously said, I’d pay him the money back and he said that this can wait until I’m there. I said, I won’t be going there, if I go, I’ll stay in a hostel in town and he didn’t reply. I didn’t think much about it at the time but it looks to me now like he wanted to let me know that I can’t go to that hostel. The place is away from the centre, near a forest and a river. Beautiful when the weather is nice but not good if you are trying to hide from someone who may want to hurt you. There is no staff there between 4 and 10pm and at times there may be no other guests there. It’s not safe for situation like mine.

But what I was thinking when I first got this idea that my brother may want to come and visit me, possibly with a friend, was that my main focus would be to make the situation look normal, even if I knew that it’s not normal at all.

It could look like that: my brother and his friend come over to talk. They want me to go for a walk with them and I initially refuse but my brother insists. I ask why is that man with him, he shouldn’t be involved but my brother says the guy gave him a lift, it would be rude to tell him to go now, wouldn’t it? And anyway, they’re friends, they have no secrets.

I say, ok, come in to my room, I’ll make tea and we can talk. No, no, my brother says, let’s go for a walk. It’s easier to talk when you’re walking side by side and anyway, the area is so nice. No, I’m not going, I say but he keeps insisting. Finally he starts pulling me by the clothes. He’s not abusive as such, I mean I know he shouldn’t be pulling me but he’s my brother, he’s exactly like that, his behaviour is hardly ever normal. I really don’t like the situation but it’s impossible to withdraw from, he keeps insisting whatever I say. I can see that it is all going to look absolutely ridiculous in a minute so what I do? I go. Only because I want things to look ‘normal’. If I go he’ll stop pulling me and we’ll all look like people who are just having a walk. And what’s my alternative? Presumably to lock myself in my room and call the police. But that’s not normal, is it? And my brother wasn’t even being threatening, he was just being weird. What will I tell the police then? That’s what I would be thinking.

All because I make so much effort every day to behave normal, that I wouldn’t be able to get out of that mode even if I knew that something is really not right. It has nothing to do with not being assertive, like we are often told. It’s just that I can’t change my focus away from acting normal.

I wonder what solution can people recommend for that? I can’t think of anything, unless we will actively recommend people to behave weird around us just so that we learn to react accordingly.