I (23M) grew up in an extremely abusive household. My older brother learned to imitate the violence and lack of remorse my father modeled, while I hid in my room for most of my childhood and slowly deprogrammed until I learned to trust safe people and assert my needs and boundaries. Now that I know what safe people are like, I also know what they absolutely fucking aren't.
I think most people would consider my brother a psychopath. He beat his girlfriend's cat to death, brandished a knife at my father in a screaming fit of rage for insulting him, strangled a bird and displayed its corpse hanging in a tree, fantasizes about mass murdering "liberals," said without hesitation that he would kill me in a "civil war," spoke extensively about his desire to break women down and control them, drives recklessly and amasses unpaid speeding tickets, and, most importantly to this discussion, insists that he will have to "take care of me" and "force me to live with him" after my father dies, because I will supposedly be too incompetent to take care of myself. He also has an extremely fragile ego, and any perceived slight or defiance can trigger a violent rage that he admits causes him to lose control of himself (hence the cat's fate for "misbehaving").
Suffice it to say, I don't want to be kidnapped. None of the money or outside communication I have will do much good if he takes away my access to them. What can I realistically do if he makes me live in the middle of nowhere with no phone, no money, and no transportation? It may be a fate worse than death.
I've been in therapy for half a year and reached the point where I am no longer stuck in a perpetual freeze response and can assert my needs and boundaries. This caused subconscious shifts in my behavior that my narcissistic parents have reacted with hostility towards, calling me "crazy" or "aggressive" for asking to be treated with respect and standing my ground. My mother finally snapped and said she wouldn't do anything for me anymore... I was frightened at first, but my life barely changed once she withdrew her support, because I was doing most things by myself already without realizing. I don't feel so helpless and dependent anymore because now I know my family was bullshitting me the whole time, and now it's even more clear that my brother has predatory intentions when he paints me as incapable of taking care of myself.
I've been working on a flexible plan to make a clean break from this situation. I can run away tomorrow and my brother won't be able to find me. But there's one problem that prevents me from truly disappearing: he has access to my full name, date of birth, and social security number, if not because he knows it, then because my mother will readily tell him.
Getting a job and a place to live can leave a paper trail that links my name and SSN to my new location, allowing me to be found no matter where I live in the U.S., and emigrating out of the country isn't a realistic option. It's also worth noting that my brother travels a lot and regularly takes road trips spanning several states, so it's not like geographical distance will deter him.
Is self-defense going to have to be a part of the solution here? Or making it almost impossible for him to get away with whatever he might pull if I tell him no? I would really prefer a solution where I could just disappear off the map and live my life separately; I would hate for the situation to have to come to this.
It's worth noting that I have not explored legal avenues yet because I don't want my brother to be notified of any actions I take against him, which I fear will escalate the situation.
I expect that no matter what, I will have to make some difficult decisions here. I spend every day in constant anxiety so severe that I am afraid to get food or use the bathroom for fear of encountering my brother. But I have to face reality and accept that hiding in my room isn't going to protect me from him. I think staying and trying to seek stable employment or education under such extreme threat is an unworkable solution.
I plan on visiting my local library soon, where I will be able to make phone calls without anyone in my family hearing.
Any ideas? I think having a trusted contact to stay with might be a decent temporary solution that will help me get my bearings, but I'm going to have to deal with the discoverability issues eventually. I would also need some way to find people I can trust in a limited time window, which seems inherently risky. But does that really compare to the risk of doing nothing? Staying at any shelter that will allow me to stay might also be a temporary solution, but given the finite number of shelters, I run the risk of being discovered eventually.
I'm concerned that my new address and workplace will appear on public records. I know that physically leaving will buy me some time, but I'm afraid of my brother using data brokering services, hiring private investigators, or potentially abusing the legal system to force me to appear in court with him. (He has a lot of disposable income.)
I believe you on the "life getting easier" part. Yesterday I wrote down everything about living with my family that stresses me out and came up with 183 unique things! I know that life without stable employment or housing will be rocky, but I don't think it can be worse than this. I can't wait to finalize my plan and get the fuck outta dodge!
I have "disappeared" myself, and I did it by keeping anything that has my address at an outdaed one, and handling all payments online with prepaid cards or stored value accounts.
When I run my name it comes up with an address from 25 years ago, which the data brokers still think I live at.
I don't have home Internet, I use a repeater to aim at the store down the street and use their wifi, so no need to put my name ona bill. This is also helped with renting a room instead of an apartment as you pay a portion of the bill which is held in someone else's name, not in your own.
That's a major issue, as even when they say they don't sell your data all of the utility and service companies have "Partners" who do sell it, and while there are supposed to be ways to avoid this they are often things you have to file for after you have an acount and the data has already been sold so preventing it from being handed off again si pointless since it is already in the pacakge their "partner" sells to brokers.
Thanks for the ideas!
What's it like renting a room? Are there significant compromises or sacrifices you have to make compared to having an apartment?
That varies wildly, from absolute living hell to wonderful, I think the biggest issue I have with the spot I am in now is that it does not have a kitchen and to move to a spot that does would cost more than just eating prepared food from the deli or cafes daily.
As far as places I've lived in the past there have been issues from thieves sharing the home where you needed to lock down everything to a landlord who was absolutely insane and broke down a neighbor's door with a hatchet...
But then crazy landlords show up anywhere, and are honestly easier to deal with than a property management group that automates everything.
Erm, just want to go on the record to say this is an extreme and rare type of crazy landlord.
The best resource on this front is Michael Bazzell’s Extreme Privacy Guide, written for dealing with exactly the sort of situation you’re facing.
https://inteltechniques.com/book7.html
Unironically, use DeleteMe or something similar.
They ain't gonna 100% scrub you out of like, the NSA's databases, but all those public databrokers, that you can pay $5 or w/e, to do a 'background check'? Yeah, they'll get you off 99% of those, with enough time.
(Now probably, such services themselves could be storing and then making available your data... but net net, to far less people, basically.)
Obv get a new phone number, new bank account. No corpo social media. 0. None. Other online presence? Never be too specific about personal details, trash accounts if you need to.
I... was homeless for years, lost everything, people probably think I'm dead.
Probably don't emulate that precisely, lol, but uh eventually, try to get a new... every kind of traceable of linkable number, of any kind, basically.
That will work against basically everything short of them hiring a PI.
Psycopaths tend to be spur of the moment, not so great with consistent, long term sustained effort. Narcissists will mostly just be offended you're no longer around to neg and bully, you're beneath caring about.
To pre empt the 'force you to appear in court' thing, file a restraining or no contact order when you get to new place. Chances are a medium sized town/city will have some kind of pro bono / non profit legal assistance organization to help you with that, hear your concerns, recommend a specific course of action.
They may also be able to help with the 'PI gets hired to find you scenario', but that could be... well if no have no contact orders, theoretically that should, in most places, considerably frustrate any... attempted actual use of any knowledge a PI might gain.
Hakuso has very good advice for not leaving a transaction trail that can be followed... the internet thing they're doing is probably technically illegal so maybe dont do that exactly lol... uh, if you can get a 5G based home internet router modem mabob, well those are literally overgrown phones, and their ips often register as being geolocated at a kind of 5g net center thats not actually that close to you. That and/or use a vpn, always, would be some probably more legal ways to confuse an attempt at finding you via the net, from everybody other than like, the NSA or whatever.
Most importantly...
Remember to breathe.
You got this, just stay cool, keep breathing.
Damn what a story. I can't give you any advice here, but I wish you good luck and I hope that leaving your family will bring you some happiness you obviously deserve. Now I wouldn't worry too much about being found if you don't want to be found. Is there a specific reason your brother would try to find you? It seems like they're not too fond of the way you'd like to live your life anyway.
Thank you! Honestly, this is the happiest moment of my life. My whole life was spent fantasizing about warmth and safety and feeling hopeless to ever reach it. Now I'm oscillating between deathly terror and boundless euphoria. I know this is the most dangerous and uncertain time of my life, but it's my only bridge to freedom and happiness.
My older brother will try to find me because he has a god complex and believes he is entitled to control me and do whatever he wants to me without my consent. He literally told me to call him "God" and told me that his sperm is the source of his power (?????). I've never met someone so deranged in my life. My favorite quote from him is "Everyone needs someone they can control," because it's such a dead giveaway for how he views everyone he interacts with. He's telling me exactly who he is, and I should believe him. He also recounted the incident where he beat his girlfriend's cat to death without any hesitation, emotion, or understanding of why it was morally wrong to kill animals. I think that convinced me he was a psychopath more than anything. How do you describe bludgeoning a poor defenseless animal to death in gory detail without flinching? I'm done pretending this guy isn't totally fucked in the head.
He learned early on in my life that he can dominate me through sheer strength, since he was bigger and stronger than me, given he was 2 years older. When we were young, he was way bigger than me! It's no wonder I was too terrified to ever say no to him. He learned that he had that kind of power over others and never learned to be kind or caring. When the world demanded that he act with any kind of consideration for others' rights and feelings, he got pissed off and called them "liberals" and fantasized about killing them en masse. He told me the reason he hasn't done anything to humans yet is because he doesn't think he can get away with it.
But I think I'm a bit different... I'm the original person he had power over, and if I disappear from right under his nose, the relationship that justified his entire identity is gone. I think he'll become obsessed with getting that relationship back even if it has life-threatening consequences in order to avoid losing the basis for the violence and domination that form the very core of his being. I think my submission keeps him stable in a sense, and now that I refuse to submit, the system is about to violently explode. The fallout with my parents will be minuscule compared to what's coming.
At the end of the day, I think one or both of us is fucked. I just have to do everything I can to make sure it isn't me.
You gotta live.
Be your own advocate for not being dead, lol.
Sucks, but impossible situations rarely have Disney endings irl.
Bro sounds like a proper fucking maniac, yikes.
Intentional violent animal abuse/murder is like, number one giant fucking red flag for 'probable psycho killer'.
You are definitely correct to get as far as fucking possible from that.
Generally that info isn't really easy to find if you aren't a property owner. Renters don't get listed as being renters as such.. what gets people in databases is using online services most often tied to property taxes (which you'll not be paying as a renter) and car registrations (if a loan has been taken out on the vehicle..) Where you work is only available if you make it so. No linkedin. No social media. Just put your head down and stay schtum about your new life.
If you really want to be invisible, you use the US Postal Service money orders to pay your bills and have a PO box for the return address. It's an archaic paper system and it actually costs for someone to access it, and they would have to have the money order stub in their hot little hands for the Post Office to search for it to track what money order it was and who the money was sent to and what Post Office it came from. And that is all they will get.. and as someone that paid for a search for a lost money order - it takes time because the Post Office moves at a snail's pace.
Getting your online profile reduced by stepping into the slow lane and pivot to the cash economy puts you into a much more privacy oriented world.