Court tomorrow - psycho nephew who bashed David

It's been a long time coming but finally tomorrow is the day for my witness testimony at court. I am the main witness into my psycho nephew's bashing and head stomping of David on new years in the hallway of our home.

At the moment I'm glad it's finally come as I want to get it over with and done. This last week however has been hellish for my head. Have had huge trouble sleeping, often not being able to fall asleep until 2 or 3am. Been getting up, taking Panadol, having something light to eat. Grumbling around the lounge room pissed off.  Have been having a lot of nerves, particularly in the mornings been physically shaking. Nightmares about my older brother when I finally do fall asleep. 

Have also been getting the onset of migraines but only very mild migraine pain. I used to get them severely as a teenager but seemed to either grow out of them or deal with whatever was causing them in my head. These days I may get the onset of symptoms maybe once in a year and a very mild pain following. The symptoms as such are mainly my vision being very blurred sort of, hard to explain, and feeling nauseous. A couple of Panadol and a good lie down usually settles things. This week however it's come in a cluster, almost every day it's been happening. Just hoping I'm OK tomorrow.

The last court date ran out of time for my witness testimony, hence another three month delay. I expect my older brother (father of psycho) will have to fly over from hickville New Zealand to provide his testimony too. 

It became apparent last time during negotiations to try and reach an agreement without entering court, that the stomping on David's head was a clear issue of contention. They'd agree psycho to plead guilty if we left the stomping out of the police report and David and I's testimony. Completely unacceptable for both of us, so the case went ahead into court. To me it was a lie by omission to do that and as I've had this fuckin memory playing over and over in my head since new years I certainly wasn't going to let psycho off the hook like that, be he my nutty nephew or not. The stomping was the worst thing about it, sending the whole assault to a new level.

As I've said, I still remember what happened in that hallway like it was yesterday. Such moments of horror and trauma tend to stay in one's head like that. 

What's more I've had to deal with it pretty much on my own so far. My psychologist, the professional that he is, has said he can't help me until after my testimony as the defence would consider the intervention as "contaminating the witness". So because psycho hasn't been man enough to stand up, admit his mistake and express remorse for it to the court, has instead lied and made excuses to defend himself against (according to him) lesser actions than what he actually did, David and I have had to deal with this since new years. For both of us the psychological impacts of having to relive the event at each court date have been profound.

Presently I'm feeling much more calm today than previously. It's the lead up to it that's been so hard for me this time. Anxiety, severe depression at times, sadness, loss, all rolled into one. Yet today the anger is returning, the rage at what they did and how much they hurt both of us. No apologies provided by them. No remorse expressed. Just lies and excuses.

I will of course post about what happened after the court tomorrow.