My Story

My first breath, the day that life changed for the better.  The day that I finally said no more.  The day that I said you will no longer control me, my thoughts, my feelings, my life.

Let me take a step back into a time that I have worked so hard to forget.  Those years that I never want to go back to, to even think about.  I was this shy yet outgoing, contradictory I know, toddler growing up in a tight-knit family.  My parents were married not long after high school, in a small town where everyone knew everyone.  After graduation, my father served his term in the military, like so many accomplished, in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  My mother was a teller in a bank after graduation, among other meaningful jobs, in her hometown area.  They grew up about forty-five minutes from each other, but were brought together by a common interest.  Soon after, they married in May 1972, my father driving over the road and my mother as the stay-at-home housewife.  My oldest brother came along in June 1973 and another brother in June 1975.  The third was born in March 1979 and, yes finally, I the daughter in February 1983.  I had two sets of wonderful and supportive grandparents, both who worked hard and helped in many ways to provide and care for us on a regular basis.  They were loving couples; grandfather’s taught us the keys to being productive and hardworking while the grandmother’s provided the love and nurturing that every child deserves.  Not to mention, they always tried to do the extra little things that our parents couldn’t for us children.  Nonetheless, we were a happy, healthy family who was always ‘there’ for each other.

I grew up in the 80’s, wanting to be around my brothers, the older and ‘happening’ brothers.  Our family spent most of the 90’s working a family business, mowing lawns and maintaining properties for a host of customers in our communities.  That business was more than just work, it was our lives.  We all lived to work, and since we were raised from little’s being taught the importance, we knew nothing less than working hard.  Early days and late nights were spent together, as a family, working.  I remember being a mere seven years old, riding my first lawn mower, having my brothers tie-strap the seat down because I was too light to keep the mower running.  Obviously, not the most safe thing for a seven year old, but we managed and that’s what I knew to be okay.  I knew that to be the right thing to do.  As time went on, the family kept working, and life seemed to pass quickly but slowly.  I never knew that life would become so complicated, that I would discover more than what I knew, that what I knew wasn’t right.

So where did it all go wrong – how did I get to such a deep, dark place in life.  When I think back to my childhood, I remember all of the bad times, the worst memories; the kind of memories that no one would want to remember.  But wait, I was in a loving family?  I was surrounded by adults who cared for me and siblings who would ‘take out’ any boy that came near me.  So being the case, how was I wronged?  How was I taken advantage of?  How was I left aside to be harmed by someone who ‘cared’ about me?  But that was love.  You love me, so it must not be wrong.  You could never harm me, because you love me.  Right?  That must be right!

Turn the page to a seven year old little girl, with a family that worked a lot, brothers who were never around and parents who checked out of the reality.  The seven year old girl who became the target of someone else’s desire; that person who’s mind was focused on what he wanted more than what was right.  Enter the older brother born four years before me; the one who in many ways woke up with a mission every day and believed he knew how to accomplish what he wanted, and what he wanted other people to do for him.  He was a sweet talker; the type that could talk his way out of anything or into whatever he wanted.  The rules didn’t apply to him.  The moral compass didn’t include him.  The ethical mindset was never given to him.  He was unstoppable, untouchable, and could do no wrong no matter what the situation.  He was inferior, arrogant, ignorant at times, sometimes condescending, and really liked by almost anyone.  He was the perfect storm, and the parents never knew it.  So now we turn again to that seven year old girl, left alone in her home with the older brother.  He will protect her, won’t he?  He wouldn’t hurt her, it’s his sister.  Enter his addiction; his addiction to the female body, the feminine anatomy, the idea of having what he wanted, when he wanted it.  He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, but yet he did.  More than once, twice, but again and again for a period of time while I was seven and eight years old, he repeatedly molested me.  He would molest me to satisfy his desire, his need, his want.  It was horrible and gross and I hated it; but he was my brother and he loved me.  It wasn’t wrong, I mean it couldn’t be wrong because he loved me; I was his little sister.  I wanted someone to play with me, and what I knew was that if I asked something of someone else, well I should be respectful and thankful.  Time is precious, and I just wanted his time to play with me.  Exit the now eight year old little girl, broken and shattered at the hands of her brother.

Following those years, life was ‘normal’ by what I knew to be normal.  We worked a lot, as a family, but we were together and that’s what family was about.  Being together and getting the work done; that’s what we needed to do.  We (brother or I) never looked back on the molestation; once it stopped, he moved on to being a teenager and girls.  I mean, all of the girls liked him.  He was charming and handsome, flirtatious and a true ladies man in his own eyes.  It’s not too often that an eighteen year old young lady takes a freshman boy to her high school homecoming dance.  Or that three senior ladies take one sophomore guy to their senior prom.  He was ‘the man’, and as the years passed, everyone seemed to play in to his personality.  They liked him; everyone loved him.  I loved him, because he was my brother and would never hurt me.  He loved me, he must love me.  That’s it; no gross details, no flaws or crimes committed.  The end.

That’s not the end.  My story doesn’t end with me moving on with my life, as if nothing ever happened.  He may have never looked back, but I couldn’t escape the scars.  As I grew older, I obviously became aware that what he did to me was wrong.  It was beyond wrong on so many levels.  But I need to forget; I have to forget.  I need to move forward with my life and he’s already moved forward with his.  He’ll never tell anyone, so as long as I try to forget, we can sweep it under the rug and it’ll eventually go away.  Right?  I must be right, right?  No, no, we know life doesn’t work that way.  Our memories won’t just go away.  They will never leave us.  I live with those thoughts, those memories, those details, that pain and scars every single day.  I carried that pain around through life and it never went away.  So what do I do?  How do I get out of my own head?

Enter my preteen years, where the family business was growing and everyone was still working hard.  My brothers were falling in love, and I was now a preteen.  My parents were doing all that they could do, in their eyes.  They were providing for us our basic needs, but yet their idea of needs was a bit different from the ideal situation.  Then he stepped into my life.  Brian, the guy who came to work for the family business.  He was dreamy; perfect in what every eleven year old girl thinks is wonderful.  He wasn’t my love, he was my friend and he cared for me as much as my own brothers.  He never left me out of the fun and he was always there to put a smile on my face.  As time passed, I was now a thirteen year old girl, with the older brothers who didn’t mind my company.  We would go out in large groups and that Brian, my friend, was always there.  He was great, but he was three years older than me, so no he wasn’t mine but he most definitely was my friend.  Fast forward another couple of years, to the fifteen year old girl, who had grown closer to this really great guy.  He knew me, he knew my family, and he truly cared about me.  He was my other half, he was becoming the ‘yin to my yang’.  He was the peanut butter to my jelly.  But, in my heart, I was broken in a way that I couldn’t explain to myself.  He wouldn’t want me, at nothing more than the great friendship that we had.  I mean, how do you move forward in loving someone else if you can’t love yourself.  I, for one, didn’t love myself.  I knew people loved me, especially my grandparents, but I didn’t like me.  I was damaged.  I was ‘broken and scarred’.

In the end of the beginning, he did love me.  He cared for me in a way that I never felt before.  He truly loved me.  He was never going to hurt me.  For the first time in my life, I felt like I had someone I could trust.  So, when we sat down and talked about our relationship, our friendship evolving into something more, I knew this was moving in a direction that I had never been.  He was really falling for me.  However, to move on in a relationship with this wonderful young man, he deserved to know my story.  He needed to know how I was hurt so many years before, because if we were going to progress in our relationship, I may face challenges.  The problem became, how do you tell someone that you were hurt, that you were molested?  And how do you tell this person that your own brother is who molested you?  So, I sat down and began writing.  I felt the best way for me to express my situation, ‘my story’, was to sit down and write.  He would read it, and when he gets to a state of shock, he can read it again.  So, I wrote.  I wrote to him to let him know, not to tell him.  I didn’t want to tell him but I knew he deserved to know.  He deserved to know that as we walked the path together, it was going to be difficult at times for me.  I was going to encounter moments where I may become frozen in time, when I may pull back or want to give in to the turmoil.  I wouldn’t want to give up on him, because I truly believed he was the light to my tunnel.  He loved me.  And he knew, he now knew that it may get rough and there may be times when it’s difficult.  He didn’t back away, he really loved me.

Fast forward two years, to a time when my brother struck again.  He became infactuated with yet another woman.  She was close to me, and after a period of time, she couldn’t withstand him any longer.  She had to share her story, she needed us to know that she was no longer willing to allow my brother to ruin her world.  At that point, he had ruined enough and she was out.  We sat down as a family, with my two older brothers, my parents, my now boyfriend Brian, her and myself, and we talked it out.  She was frightened, overwhelmed with fear, that he was on a mission after her.  She was done dealing with his behavior and his lack of respect towards other people.  He felt immune; no one could ‘touch him’ and no one would cross him.  Not to mention, he could talk his way out of any situation, so no matter what, he would never be in the wrong.  I remember that night as if I was sitting there today; the look of fear in her eyes as she wept and the lack of response from my parents.  Now remember, no one knew what he did to me except Brian.  And in that moment, I became enraged and was not going to allow this inhumane person ruin another life.  I looked at her, and I looked at my parents, and I said “I believe her.  I believe what she is saying.  I believe he is doing what she says because I know he’s capable of it”.  In that moment, my middle brother bolted out of the house in a rage filled with tears.  He cared for her deeply as a friend and he couldn’t possibly be placed in between his brother and his friend, and I wasn’t even a thought in that moment.  After nearly an hour, we calmly settled back into our seats and that’s when my memories turned into nightmares.  My father looked at my brothers, and calmly told them that they ‘needed to handle the situation, that he needs to be stopped and they need to handle it’.  Although this sounds like a step in the right direction, it was nothing but a leap backwards.  Here I am, a seventeen year old young lady, who believes that I just attempted to tell my parents that my brother had harmed me, and what do they say?  What is their reaction?  They tell my brothers to ‘handle the situation’, as if we can stop him now and sweep the past under the rug.  Now remember, we live in a small town where everyone knows everyone.  In my parents eyes, we certainly couldn’t let anyone know about this.  We, as a family, have a reputation to uphold, so handle it, close the book and hide it forever.  I was complacent.  Our family was a family, and we needed to stick together and move forward.  I most certainly didn’t want anyone to know what happened to me, the details and disgust, the story.  Unfortunately, she never found safety and left not long after.  I didn’t blame her.  She did what I wished I could’ve done on many occasions.  She escaped, although never removing the pain, she removed the problem that caused the pain.  For the next decade, I often thought about her and wondered how she was doing.

That next decade consisted of high school graduation, my wedding day, shortly followed by the loss of my grandmother on my mother’s side, a thriving business with my now husband Brian, working a full-time job, wonderful friends, two wonderful children, and living a ‘normal life’ with my family.  I spent the last few years caring for my grandfather.  He had become depressed after losing my grandmother and his own illnesses, that he was ready to leave this earth for a life with her again.  During that time, his mind checked out but his body just wouldn’t.  So, I did everything that I could to make his days as wonderful as possible, caring and visiting and making sure he knew that I loved him.  That’s what he needed from me, and he never wanted anything more.  He was beginning to live a normal life again.  So, they were all happy, and I needed to be happy too.  Life was good to me and I had no reason to be angry or mad or sad.  Those memories, they were just that, memories that I needed to suppress and try to forget.  I needed to sweep them under the rug.

Turn the page to April 2012.  Grandpa had become very ill, and as the days passed and he stopped eating, he became more and more frail.  I knew our time together was limited, so I spent everyday by his side, letting him know I was still there for him.  That’s all he wanted, nothing more and nothing less.  He passed the evening of April 23rd, and my life changed that day.  He was my protector.  No one would hurt me, because no one in my family would want to disappoint him.  I certainly couldn’t tell him the truth; he would’ve been devastated.  So, I swept it under the rug for decades; but now he’s gone and there’s no ‘need’ to hide my pain any longer.  I don’t need to hide.  I don’t need to keep the peace.  I don’t need to be the glue that holds the family together.  Later that week, we buried grandpa next to the love of his life – my beautiful grandma.  There was an inner peace over me that I knew although life without him would be lonely and a piece of me went with him, he had greater ambitions for me on my horizon.  He believed in me, and now I needed to believe in myself.  The night of his burial, Friday April 27th, changed  my life forever.  That night was the beginning to my new end.  That night I came home with Brian, sat down at our dining table, and just wept.  I was inconsolable.  I was at a loss for words.  My heart was broken and my mind was in turmoil.  Brian and I sat there and all I kept saying was ‘he was my protector, but now he is gone.  He was my protector, and he’s gone’.  Brian kept saying to me ‘I don’t know what you mean, I don’t understand’.  The next four hours, late into the night hours, would then change Brian’s life forever.  Here I am, crying to my husband who wants nothing more than for me to be happy.  I begin to explain to him how the secret has been forever ‘swept under the rug’ because I would’ve never wanted grandpa to know; but now the rug can be pulled out from under me.  I can pull out those memories, I can share the story, I can let everyone know just how terrible of a person my brother is, and there’s no one that I need to cover up for.  I could open the wounds, revealing the disgusting, humiliating truth that has plagued me for the past twenty two years of my life.  After those four hours, we were both in tears.  I was overwhelmed to finally talk about this; although such painful memories, I could cry out loud.  Brian, on the other hand, cried for my pain all while the anger was growing in him.  Brian is not a hateful person, and he never carried an angry bone in his body nor the ability to harm anyone.  But in that moment, he was ready to destroy my brother with his bare hands.  He was ready to destroy his life just as he had destroyed mine.  Remember, he’s the light to my dark tunnel.

The following weeks involved more discussions with my husband, my dearest friends, my closest cousin, my oldest brother, and finally my parents.  My oldest brother said “I didn’t know what you meant, they obviously couldn’t have known what you meant.  You have to talk to them, they need to know”.  So, Brian and I sat down with my oldest brother and my parents that next Friday evening May 4th 2012.  I couldn’t live with this pain, the constant tears and fear.  I needed to make sure they knew the truth.  They loved me, so they needed to know the pain I was enduring.  As we sat down in my brothers living room, I was shaking so terribly and my jaw was so tense, I just kept muttering ‘I can’t do this.  I can’t do this’.  In that moment, Brian stepped in and said “we are doing this” and proceeded to take my parents back to that night when I was seventeen, sitting in that family meeting in my oldest brothers living room; the night that I said I believed her because I knew what he was capable of.  As Brian proceeded to take them back to that scene, I watched my father completely shut down and ‘tune out’ of the conversation.  He closed his eyes, faced his head to his lap, and began to twiddle his thumbs in hopes that he could just sweep it back under the rug.  My mother sat there, with her arm propping up her chin, on the arm of the couch, looking at Brian and I straight in the eyes.  As I watched and witnessed their lack of reaction, I realized in that moment that they knew; they must have known what he had done to me and they had made a choice.  They had chosen to dismiss my claims and never help me.  They didn’t help me.  I started to become enraged, seeing that they could dismiss the molestation, the harm that he caused, the life-altering actions that had changed my life forever.  In that moment, I knew they had chosen his wrong over me.  They had chosen what they could control over doing what was morally and ethically right for their daughter.  They chose his wrong over helping me to deal with the pain and scars.

To be continued . . . . .

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