oh brother

Dear Reader,

I have spent my life so far trying to live in the space between letting people feel as if they really know me and guarding my pride by keeping my secrets. When I tell deeply personal stories, I edit and delete enough to feel protected and to keep that gap between You and Me from getting unmanageably small. This blog is meant to be a conscious step -- albeit a baby one -- toward changing my immediate reaction from hiding to openness, so I think it's time to tell you one of my biggest secrets.

I have mentioned my "brother's daughter's mom" a few times, without ever talking about my brother himself, which is completely normal for me. Most people are very surprised to hear that I have a brother or easily forget that I do, because I mention my sister rather often and never talk about him. "My Brother" is actually my half-brother from my mom's previous marriage; he was 8 months old when my mom and her ex-husband divorced. She moved from Pennsylvania (her ex-husband's hometown) back home to Ohio with my half-brother, met my Dad, got pregnant with me, and married soon after. Later came a little sister. Our mom was strict, and my brother's dad was lenient (smoking pot with him at age 11 while hunting -type lenient). Our mom had full custody, until my brother came home from a summer visit with his dad and told our mom that he wanted to live with his dad instead. After thinking about it, my mom acquiesced because she didn't want to put him through a custody battle. That summer, my brother moved to Pennsylvania to live with his father, with the stipulation that my brother would spend summers and vacations with my family. He was 12 when he left. I was 8.

Years later, when I was in 7th grade, I was in the health class about Changing Bodies and the like. While I was in that class, I had my first flashback to being molested by my brother in 3rd grade. I'm finding myself editing out the harsher parts of this story because I'm not sure what level of detail will make this too difficult for you (and frankly, for me) so I am going to tell you all of the difficult broad strokes without dwelling on them:

      A. At the time, I just thought we were playing.

      B. I have no idea if I thought it was wrong or not as it was happening.

      C. I don't believe it was recurring.

      D. While having the initial flashback, I recalled my mother being aware that something was off afterwards. This, of course, could be that she actually did have some sort of suspicion, full-out knew, that I had a guilty conscience, or I was misremembering due to projecting my guilty conscience. My therapist is convinced that she was aware of it, that she effectively sent my brother away because of it, and that she's treated me because of resentment of the situation.

I am 90% sure this happened, but I also have had powerful false memories in the past, especially due to dreams. That said, the effect on me has been the same. To make matters worse, I had discovered Christianity at the beginning of that year, and having this in my past made me believe I was dirty, used goods. I remember becoming a Christian at a summer camp, crying my eyes out in the hope that this would make me feel clean.

It didn't.

As far as the effect the abuse had on me...I'm unsure. Sometimes, I rarely think about it. I've gone years without thinking about it in the past. Sometimes, I think about it a lot, and try to dissect the effect it had on me. But if I learned anything in the past few months, its that humans internalize more than they would ever guess. But this is one of the reasons I don't tell this to people....thinking that it might not have affected me seems completely abnormal. Shouldn't this have devastated my life?

When my brother left to live with his dad, my mom changed. I know that my mom has always been a bit of a nutjob, but this definitely worsened it. I don't recall any of this, because I was young, but she maintains that my brother and I were always bickering before he left, and that my sister and him were close. Because of this, my mom openly blames my father and I for my brother leaving, saying that my dad always favored me in these fights. After my brother left, my mom overcompensated and always sided with my little sister. From then on, I couldn't do anything right and my sister could do no wrong.

When my brother was in high school, he was suspended several times. He stole jewelry and diamonds from my mom to give to his girlfriend and pawn. He brought a friend with him from Pennsylvania, and my mom found weed in the room they were staying in after catching them outside. My family had a New Years Eve get-together at a hotel, and my brother disappeared. He came back in the early morning high and drunk, and we woke up to him choking on his own vomit in his sleep.

As you might expect, he barely graduated high school.  And then his girlfriend got pregnant, which is the one good thing that I've seen come from his life.He couldn't keep a job; he'd start one, get his first paycheck, and disappear on a drug binge. Soon after, my brother went to prison for drugs and criminal trespassing. When he was out on parole, he cut off his ankle bracelet and threw it in a dumpster, they found him, and they took him back to prison. He was given a time range for his sentence, and was going to go the minimum....until he stabbed a guard with a pencil. When I was a sophomore in college, completely living on loans and buried in schoolwork, I got the one and only letter I received from him. He was in prison and asking for $100. My then-pregnant 18-yr-old sister got the same letter.

After that, I stopped talking to my brother and started refusing to talk to my mom about him as if he has been wronged by the system. I will not let him manipulate me; somebody has to refuse to be seduced.  He is completely unreformed, often saying that he's going to sue to the state of Pennsylvania for wrongful imprisonment and live on the paycheck for the rest of his life. The last time they spoke, he told my mom that he's going to "take care" of people like my Grandpa did -- alluding to an incident where my Grandpa got drunk and threatened my Grandma's life with a gun to her temple. My mom called my brother's counselor to tell her of what transpired, and the counselor said that my brother had been refusing treatment, except for the drugs. Including heavy doses of anti-psychotics.

Recently, my brother told my mom that my Grandma sexually abused him. I have no idea if this is true. I would be unsurprised to find out my Grandma, another person in my life with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, did abuse him. I would also be unsurprised to find out that it is yet another manipulation tactic from my brother to prove that his life isn't his responsibility. But what I know is this: for over 10 years, I have been cursed with a flashback that I was molested -- by him, no less -- and I haven't stabbed anyone with a pencil.

It makes me so nervous to share this with you that my heart is beating out of my chest. I don't want you to know I was sexually molested, by my brother, no less. I don't want you to know that I must be dead inside for it not to have had major tangible effects. I don't want you to know that I do not feel an ounce of pity for my brother as he rots in prison. I don't want you to know that my husband, who I've known for 6 years, has never met my brother and doesn't care to. I don't want you to know that I dread the day, less than two years from now, that my brother is out of prison, because the thought makes me scared for everybody I love.

But there it is.

Melissa

PS -- As a happy sidenote, my family has an excellent relationship with his daughter and daughter's mom. His daughter's mom has put herself through teaching school and is living on her own with her daughter. My niece's mom has lost patience with my brother, and has moved on. Only time will tell if he has.