Violence versus non-violence, in the vaguest sense

"It is better to be violent if there is violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence."
- Mahatma Gandhi
(from Criminal Minds, 1x17, "A Real Rain")

My grandfather is getting worse. I haven't been able to go home on weekends lately, so I try to at least take one night during the week to spend at home. I try to talk to him, say "namaste," engage him, but he's barely aware of his surroundings; I'm instead met with his singing voice, steadily increasing in volume the more I try to interact with him. I think it makes him happy (the singing), but I'm not even sure of that. I can only hope.

My father is chronically stressed out, because he has to watch as his own father deteriorates in such a painful, drawn out process. His own dad doesn't recognize him, sometimes curses at him. I can't even imagine what that's like.

My sister is struggling in school. She was always closer to my grandfather than me, and she's lived with him at home for the past four years as his condition has worsened, as he's gone from doting on her to pushing her away, physically and emotionally. She's surrounded by stress, unhappiness, a tense environment, trying to make her way through school while everyone else is busy with their own thing.

My mother... well, they always say every house rests on the woman. It's definitely true. She's trying to keep everything together, keep everyone happy, and is stretched to a breaking point. The guy who's looking after my grandfather... well, he's a character of his own, a different kind of thorn. All of that is compounded by her re-aggravated right arm/shoulder injury, which makes her feel useless, helpless, and dependent. I think she's starting to reach her mental breaking point, and it freaks me out.

This is less about violence and more about aggression. I don't harbor violence toward any person, object, or idea. But lately, particularly given circumstances at home, I've found myself feeling increasingly helpless, useless -- and following that, restless.

The restlessness has led to an increasing itch for physical aggression. I started finding myself wanting to punch a hole in my wall, to kick something inanimate really hard but not have it budge. It hasn't manifested itself in any negative way -- I go to the gym a few times a week or work out in my room, burn it off, and for the most part feel better afterward. The physical restlessness temporarily abates, but it doesn't always help with the mental agitation.

It's driving me nuts. I can't do anything. Even when I go home, the most I can offer my parents and my sister is a hug, a listening ear, but what good does that do, really? It doesn't alleviate their day-to-day burdens in any way. It doesn't magically boost my sister's mood or self-esteem, which has taken quite a blow in the past year and a half. It doesn't make my mother's physical pain go away, or my father's mental anguish diminish.

I'll be home for awhile after graduation, before med school starts up. But then I'll be back at school, and it'll be status quo all over again for them.

And it leads to the most difficult rhetorical questions:
What am I good for?
What can I do?