Have you ever told anyone about it? Man, I know a relative hurting you is horrible but you're own brother? That sounds like a nightmare, especially because they dont usually hold young people accountable of their actions..
Hello. I know it's been a year, but I guess I wanted to vent about this now that I'm becoming more active/actually trying to post on this site instead of lurking a lot.
I wasn't planning on telling anyone about it. But in recent years I tried, though every time I did tell someone (except one, who was very supportive and angry at my brother, but they weren't very available due to their own shitty hand that life dealt them. We still try to support each other, though contact is extremely limited due to circumstances in their life), it didn't go over well, and it's caused me to only close up even more about it.
When I told my mother, she was distressed, but she excused my brother's actions. She summed it up to sexual exploration and kids being sexually active at that age, and that he didn't mean any harm. I know that he knew it was wrong and that I didn't like it, but he kept abusing me. He didn't fucking care if I got harmed, he cared about only himself and his own desires. He only felt guilty if he got caught, but for as long as he abused me he wasn't guilty as long as he got his fill. He wasn't fucking sorry. If he was sorry, he wouldn't have let the abuse go on for that long. I'm just glad that my abuse wasn't as bad as other people's.
Plus, my mother wouldn't be saying that shit if it was a person that wasn't a relative who had sexually abused me. I get that he's her son and she would love him no matter what he did... only reinforces my personal belief that the whole "blood family gets unconditional love" and "blood family is more important than anyone else" is bullshit and a double standard, and I hate my parents for believing that crap.
Another person I told was an ex-friend of mine (let's call them person A), who went and told person B about it when person B and I were not on good terms at all. I understood that person A was trying to salvage person B's friendship with me by trying to get person B to understand why I was acting out against person B, but person A didn't know that there wasn't anything that could have been done to fix the friendship. I already decided to cut off person B from my life (+ the people person B associated with, which included person A unfortunately). Even though I understood why person A did that, I trusted them. It only made my trust issues worse than they already are.
Another time was when I was at another extreme mental low, and I impulsively decided to vent to one of my professors at university (which I'm dropped out of currently for mental health issues, for the time being). I hate myself for doing that because I was being selfish, oversharing and forcing someone to listen to a bunch of my problems/dumping a bunch of emotional crap on them without even bothering to know if they were comfortable/okay with that. Even if on the outside, they said they were supportive/wouldn't judge me, (trust issues) I didn't believe it. This has more to do with my me hating myself/me being in the wrong rather than the person I talked to being in the wrong. A battle against my mind. After that, every time I had to go to that class, I was just constantly reminded of what an emotional wreck I was. Even though my professor definitely has had to listen to a bunch of stories/problems from students and that some were definitely better and some were definitely worse than mine, I always felt guilty. And I was always worried of what my professor thought of me. Did they pity me? Maybe they thought I'm broken, or disgusting? Maybe they truly felt uncomfortable and wanted to avoid me. Or maybe they didn't care at all, and I'm being self-centered... thinking I was a self-centered, selfish person only made me feel more guilty. And I knew I was just projecting my insecurities onto other people by doing this, which only made the guilt and shame I felt intensify.
I tried to talk about me feeling guilty of oversharing to my professor to another friend. Said friend kept trying to pry as to what exactly I said to my professor that was so bad. Even though I was clearly hesitant to state that "oh yeah, I said that I was sexually abused my brother, haha, yeah," my friend kept pushing me and I told them. They said something along the lines of "I don't want to invalidate you or anything, but people have gone through worse things you know." Which to me, sounded pretty invalidating. It didn't help that they sounded dismissive, I might have even detected him sounding condescending. I felt really resentful that they kept pushing me to talk about something I wasn't comfortable talking about, and I'm sure they could see I was uncomfortable. Yet, knowing this, they kept pushing me, and it was in such a passive-aggressive way, like I was obligated to tell them or something because they're my friend. "What is it?... It's okay you don't have to tell me... but seriously, what is it? Just tell me, just tell me... it's fine you don't have to, whatever..."
Even though I never fucking pushed them to or forced them to tell me/talk about things that they weren't comfortable talking about whenever I listened to them vent to me about their problems/past trauma. Whenever I listened to their problems, I expressed sympathy. I was patient, kind. I genuinely listened. Unlike them, I didn't sound bored and act dismissive and demand they get to the point and cut them off when they rambled and went off on tangents.
Yet, when I needed someone, they were impatient and frustrated with me, and it seemed they wanted to imply that their trauma was worse than mine and that I was making a big fuss out of nothing. And it hurt, because I already know that. I know that what I went through is nothing compared to the things my friends have went through, compared to the things I've read online, I fucking know, and I hate myself for being so ungrateful and that I'm still not over something that's so minuscule. Even though people say that I shouldn't be comparing trauma, that just because someone else is sadder doesn't mean I can't be sad...
And I hated myself more because it wasn't my friend's fault, right? I was the one who didn't enforce my boundaries and put my foot down and say I wasn't comfortable disclosing that. I did this to myself. Now, every time I talk to this friend or hang out with them, I'm fucking reminded about all of this, about my abuse, and that I also shouldn't be so self-centered and bitter. Still, this instance of telling someone about my abuse only confirmed my fear that if I told someone, I'd be invalidated.
