I didn't know where to post this but it's been on my mind and I'm looking for support and advice from people who know what it's like being shunned. I was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church, so what I'm experiencing is a little different than most posters on this site. I've been out of that church for years, and my brother's been out for a while too. So what he's doing isn't religious or mandated by anybody in other words: it's a choice he made, and I'll explain why.
My brother started a fight with me last winter because I accidentally hit him with a grenade during a co-op game of Halo (yes, you read that correctly). We're both in our late 20s by the way. He got in my face, gave me a menacing stare down with his body tensed up like he was going to hit me, and threatened to break my wrists, to the point that his wife (the daughter of a Jehovah's Witness) started dragging him away from me begging him to stop. I tried to deescalate but after he insulted me for a solid 10 minutes straight (he called me the c word a couple times) I got fed up and told him to his face in front of his wife and our cousin, "You're an exhibitionist narcissist" (I figured this out a few years ago and told my mother, who told me a counselor he saw at 16 said the same thing then). So at that point he threw me out of his apartment, and I left, after telling him that I loved him and that I would meet at any time to work things out while I was still in town for the holidays. Later, over text, I offered to pay for online counseling. He refused, of course.
I sent him a text every so few weeks after that but he stopped responding so I asked him outright whether he wanted me to text him or not. He told me that he wanted me to apologize for calling him a narcissist and for "disrespecting" him and his wife like I'm 12 or something. I'd already apologized for calling him a narcissist in front of his wife and our cousin, the only thing I thought I should apologize for, although he never took back a word he said to me or apologized for threatening me. So he's drawn a line in the sand and refused to talk to me going forward unless I tell him he's not a narcissist.
I never understood how painful shunning could be until recently. I hear people describe their experiences on here, and it sounds brutal, and now I know... it is brutal. It's downright cruel in fact. How do people cope with that kind of thing?