Hi @jaybutterfly; I'm so sorry to hear of your situation.
If you are still under the care of your counsellor, I would discuss this with them.
There simply isn't enough information here for me to answer your question.
By saying there are "two halves," do you mean that they are separate letters to be delivered at different times? If you do intend to post them, I think leaving it a period of time between them would be a good idea.
The other thing that comes to mind is that it's possible your brother and your father have mental health issues of their own that need dealing with. An abusive personality is unlikely to change overnight. The "one warning" thing really limits your options.
Those are my thoughts, anyway, and I hope it helps. - E
If you need more, I can give you it.
Basically my brother was physically abusive and threatened me repeated through my teenage years, with repeated assaults, some he acted on, some he didnt. My father used to gaslight me, claiming these never happened (even when I had marks to show) and used my mother as leverage to manipulate me into staying quiet. 'We can't talk about this or it'll hurt Mum, you need to stay quiet, it doesn't matter.' When confronted it was always 'it's brotherly shoving not assault' or 'people get worse injuries than what you've had in
real domestic violence elsewhere so it's not an issue'
My brother also used to call and threaten to kill himself if I didn't talk him out of it, and used threats like this to get out of punishments for acting up, being verbally abusive at home to his parents, etc. He also had a hand in bullying me out of school in a smear campaign in my teenage years, which led to serious depression, which coupled with gender dysphoria made things very difficult for me.
I actually had my home situation used as something i need to 'fix' by an NHS counsellor before they were willing to refer me to the gender clinics on the NHS, and even the clinics voiced they weren't willing to diagnose me in case it was 'escaping my troubles' and I would need to 'fix things with my family.' Private care did not have the same view, so in other words this even led to my transition being delayed, and now I fear I won't ever pass (Which really bothers me a lot as my male frame contributes significantly to my dysphoria and operations to fix that like clavicle shortening and hip augmentation are massive financial barriers).
My father has also threatened me in the past to cut me out of the inheritance when I've been critical over what's going on and voicing how his behaviour isn't fair. He has told me I'm 'not allowed' to be sad about my mother's passing but when it's my brother, he calls me and asks me to make a fuss of him. It's like Im a second class citizen in my own home. Not to sound like I am motivated purely by money, but my family are actually very wealthy, and my mother planned for a 'below tax amount' of money to be fed to my account on a monthly basis to help me before she died. This is now under my father's control due to the nature of their shared accounts and banking. If he did this, I could be significantly worse off.
He tried to gaslight me again saying if I feel that the behaviour is wrong or a problem I clearly need my head 'fixing' and began the push for a counsellor. I went and they came back saying what I went through was sustained abuse in multiple forms.
My father has been behaving better, which is odd, in the last three or so months (I suppose me not living nearby and being in India for the first Christmas since Mum's passing may have hit him hard and forced a realisation), saying he recognizes maybe he did '1 or 2' things wrong (understatement of the year) and he wants to do better and know what the counsellor said.
I was going to structure the letter like this:
first half covers the counsellors feedback and confirms I'm not crazy and what he has done, intentionally or otherwise is abusive and may have contributed to my mental health problems (which he would often tell me to just 'snap out of'). The point of the letter is not about judgement, just so he understands, and I have a proposal for how he can make things better, so long as he understands that none of this happens again. If I am attacked, I will consider my legal rights, if I am threatened, I will decide if I speak to the involved parties again or not.
second half is detailing my gender troubles, dysphoria, the rocky road to diagnosis and how the family dynamics have interfered with me living life on my own terms, and then explain I am in a place to finally transition once this lockdown eases. Ending with I'm willing to have a better relationship and try real hard to give him a clean slate if he is willing to support me through my transition.
I don't want to feel manipulative, but I think given what I've been put through, me having terms for moving forward isn't unreasonable, especially when they are as simple as: No more violence, no more threats, we're not going to lie to each other and we're not going to backpedal on what we say we're going to do.'
