My brother has reached out to me again, this time insisting we have a 'series of heart to hearts this summer' about emails LAST YEAR that were hurtful to him. E-mails he already had the opportunity to respond to, and with a great deal of anger, at the time.

I told him last year. I told him again recently, I will NOT meet with him in person. He flies into rages and gets very scary. My father is scared of him, my stepmother is, and my mother accused him of being abusive to her about 6 months before she passed away. his ex-wife accuses him of being abusive.

But the texts keep coming... It's awful. His behavior, his pattern of behavior, is a very long story, but it is harrowing.

I, of course, talk to my T about him, but also my pdoc. I'm fortunate in that my pdoc doesn't just refill meds, we really talk, for some 30-40 mins each time. I have talked about my brother extensively to her.

She had brought this up before, but this time was absolutely sure, that he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He needs and tries to get total control over me, through different means. This is true. My pdoc tells me I need to be strong with my boundaries and disengage when he barrages me with texts. When I spoke to her on Thursday, not for the first time, she said she was proud of me in how steadfast I am being with my boundaries with him.

I could not have done so without the consistent support of her, my T, and my best friend. He can be very hard to resist: he's my brother and I want to love him, he's very charismatic and can appear loving at times...

It's heartwrenching. I feel like I'm in an abusive relationship, though he is my brother.

He abused me as a child... I'm not ready to talk about it at any length with my T, so we did a guided imagery thing where I buried it in a chest with a lock at the bottom of the Monterey Bay, near where I used to live. One of these days, when I feel I finally can, I'll bring it up to the surface and open it. But for now, Pandora's box remains in the ocean.

He has been controlling me since I was a child. He crushes my soul. But my pdoc is right: I've gotten better and better at establishing and maintaining boundaries with him. Let's hope I will be able to hold fast.