Should expose brothers abuse or keep quiet

[OddTrek38]

I don't know where to start with this or even if I shld share.
Been viewing this site for years but something has clicked today and I need advice.
Will try not to drip feed.
I'm nearly 50, have a wonderful husband and child but am struggling with historical child abuse issues and am drinking way too much to help me forget it.
But I dont forget and am getting worse the older I get.
My brother sexually abused me for years between ages of 8 - 10 and much as I've tried to forget it, its raising its head more the older I get.
Not sure what I'm asking for, has anyone had this and has advice

I would consider telling your mum, it may lift some of the burden of secrecy and shame that you shouldn’t have to deal with alone.

You can contact NAPAC which is for survivors of childhood abuse or Survivors Trust. Both organisations can recommend specialist therapy.

Op please report the bastard. He can still be charged for it. You could phone 101 now to start the ball rolling then I expect a detective will be in touch with you tomorrow x@

Thank you for sharing.

Luckily I dont have to see him and havent for many years. The downside is that my distancing myself and being vocal about my dislike of him, though not the real reason, has lead to my wider family not speaking to me.

One of the reasons I'd like to shout it from the rooftop and expose him.

Thank you for this. I need help and this may help, will let you know how I get on.

I don't know how old your mother is, but it might be a kindness not to tell her, assuming she doesn't know. But it may become inevitable if you tell other family members.

Get in touch with the support given above, they may be able to help in deciding who in the family you should tell and if you should confront your brother (not person to person) with how much he damaged your life or even if you should involve the police. If you're already not speaking to most of the family it won't make anything worse between you, they may not choose to believe you, but that is irrelevant at least they will know.

I’m sorry that happened to you.

Do you have MIND where you live? It’s a free nhs service and you self refer.

I used MIND for OCD, but when my therapist found out about my incident of childhood abuse by a stranger (I was in my 50s during therapy so it was 40 years previously) he asked if I had considered reporting. I ended up reporting and, while it was difficult as I had to make myself remember detail and I fell out with a family member who didn’t want me to report, I did find it helped to me find closure.

The police were very thorough and did not even mention the time frame - but not surprisingly due to the age they could not find enough information about him (the incident happened at his work place but the staff files had been destroyed).

The thing is - until I reported it felt like an unhealed wound that sat in part of my mind each day festering away. I kept telling myself to forget it, or why waste police resources etc, but I can’t tell you how freeing it has been to finally put it out there to be healed. I know stopped thinking about it each day.

@OddTrek38 it's so utterly unfair that you are the one being judged by members of your family for expressing your dislike for your brother when they don't know the truth and in fact you are the victim. It's like being punished for being abused, when actually you should be supported. I really feel for you. It's dreadful being made out to be mad and unstable when you have good reason to be upset, people just think it's your character and that you're a shitty person. I'm currently feeling distraught about the looming nightmare that is Christmas. I end up behaving weirdly and can't join in the 'fun' as I'm screaming inside and my stress levels are through the roof, but everyone just thinks I'm an uptight arsehole.

Sending hugs @OddTrek38 . I can remember when I finally faced up to childhood sexual abuse by my older brother, just short of my 50th birthday, and within 24 hours my world had fallen apart. It makes you question so many things that happened in your childhood and how it's affected you as an adult. BUT I'm so glad I faced up to it and worked through it, I'm a much stronger person now, and I don't feel any guilt or shame over it.
I never had any professional therapy. I poured it all out to my husband whose really good at dealing with other people's problems, I found the Havoca website really helpful especially the forums where I could discuss stuff anonymously with other survivors, and I also poured all my random raging thoughts out onto the computer ie journalling, which helped me a lot in the early stages.

I'm really sorry this happened.

I went through the same and kept quiet until I couldn't any longer as my family could see me distancing myself from them.

Eventually I told, my parents wanted us both in their lives then decided actually they would just scapegoat me as I was also raising issues of neglect and poor sexually boundaries on their part.

Long story short they told me entire extended family I'd had a nervous breakdown and none of it was true.

I've been no contact ever since. They bought my brother a house and I assume he'll inherited their vast fortune 🤷‍♀️

I am genuinely ok, but just wanted to share this as an example of how things will go - the second wound group mentioned up this thread is for people who have survived all this.

The first wound is the abuse, the second wound is the scapegoating and eviction from the family. More common than you think, sibling abuse tends to occur in dysfunctional families.

Therapy helped immensely.

I told my Dad when I was 25. Luckily for me, he believed me and never wavered in his support for me. My mother, on the other hand- she said she believed me but spent literally the whole of the rest of her life trying to make me believe that my brother was sorry, that he'd 'grown'. I never forgave her for that.

Unfortunately I found out, twenty or so years after my reveal, that one of my other siblings had also been abused by the same brother. He had kept quiet because he didn't want to add to my burden.

Looking back, I can see that he suffered for keeping quiet. I wish he hadn't, for his sake.

I look on it as lancing a boil, or something like that. You have to let the poison out or, as you and my brother have found, it poisons everything inside you.

I'm not going to say it makes it all go away. It doesn't. I still get teary if I talk about it sometimes (in fact I'm slightly teary just typing this). But it makes it bearable and most of the time, I forget.

As for the abusive brother- I haven't spoken to him for years, neither has my abused brother. Most of my family ignore him, as though he doesn't exist.

Tell people. Let the poison out.

@Shodan I'm sorry you went through this. The fact he was abusing your other brother as well is just dreadful. I'm glad you are managing to find some peace.

Op, he's still a paedophile. Chances are he'll abuse other young children if he gets the opportunity. Chances are, he already has...You have the power to stop that.

Please please please report him to the police. It was the fear that my father would start on my young nieces that made me report him 15 years later.
My only regret was that I didn't do it sooner.

You should never feel embarrassed for what was done to you.

Your brother should be embarrassed.

seek counselling, google some sexual assault charities and give them a call.

So I've broken tonight and sent this email.....

You have waited a long time. I hope you get the response you need.

I tried to paste the email here but cant.

In a nutshell, I got a wedding invite this week from said brothers daughter, so my mother must have given them my address.

I tried to hold my emotions but I broke last night, I think my son asking why we weren't going was the trigger.

I've emailed my Mother asking why and suggesting the truth needs to come out now as I'm sick of being painted as the bad one.

I feel awful as know it will hurt her but am sick and tired of holding this in and being painted as the bad person.

You are the victim and you get to handle this situation the way you choose.

Don’t let anybody make you feel guilty for having a voice.

I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through and the effect it has had on your adult life in so many different ways.
I’m a therapist who works with people who’ve been through trauma, and although it’s such a hard thing to do, breaking the silence and speaking up can hopefully help to release a lot of the difficult feelings you hold.
It takes a lot of time and effort to work through things and seems so unfair that you have to do all of the work, especially as you were a child but hopefully the support of a therapist might help.
thinking of you x

Dear @OddTrek38 ,
I'm so sorry to hear that this has happened to you, and that you're suffering the consequences of it even now.
I think several things are contributing to you not being able to process and heal from this - although to be clear, you will never "forget".

First is that your pain, your trauma, your suffering hasn't been properly acknowledged or validated. You've been carrying the wounds on your own for far too long. Part of healing, what we all need, is for others to see our pain and empathise with us, to support us, to cut us some slack, to understand why this pain has turned us into the person we are today. This is a basic human need, and it hasn't been met.

Second, above being seen, you need and deserve the people who carry responsibility to take this responsibility and make amends, however way they can.
Your brother, for what he did to you, even if he was still a child and maybe (athough at 15 it's a grey area) not fully aware of the trauma he was creating. As an adult now, as a father to a daughter, he should know.
Your parents, for not seeing what was happening and not protecting you.
Your family, for the continuation of the trauma and adding layer upon layer of new trauma by judging you rather than examining why you'd suddenly be so negative towards your brother.
None of these people is taking responsibility or accountability. There's no way they can turn back time and take away what happened to you. But there's so much they could be doing to help you heal. You deserved that, and I'm sorry it's not being given to you.

Lastly, you seem to have a very wrong idea of what it means to move on from trauma. Repressing your emotions is never the way you heal.
You're not supposed to be forgetting, repressing, pushing away anything. You deserve to feel. Feeling is how you heal.

@Girlmom35 thank you so much for your post. I'm still processing but am so grateful to feel validated in how I'm feeling and reacting.
I'm feeling so guilty for emailing my Mum knowing the hurt it will cause her but I'm also so angry with what she has done.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

You are doing what you need to do and what you are entitled to do. Its your life and your experience.

In this whole ordeal, no one has ever put your needs first.
Which is a tragedy, because you were a child and you are a victim of what happened to you. If anyone's needs deserved to come first, it should have been yours.
In all the years since, you've also put your needs and your emotions on a back burner. You've continued to care for the needs of others first. You've continued to hold your own pain and suffering to a lesser value than the pain and suffering anyone else might feel.
Unless this changes, you will never be able to heal.

Yes, your e-mail might cause some pain to your mother. However, the pain was already there, except before it was being carried by you, and you alone.
You didn't cause the great injustice that eventually lead to this pain. The pain was done to you, by someone else. The only one responsible for the pain your mother may feel, is the person who committed the injustice in the first place.

All of the ugliness is already here. The injustice was done. The pain and trauma was caused long ago. Making it known, doesn't cause pain. It just passes it along to where it should have been all along.

I can't thank you all enough for the strength you have given me with your advice and kind words.

Had a chat with my husband earlier who is fully supportive and agrees this now needs to be dealt with.

Hearing others who dont know me say I've done nothing wrong has bought me to tears today but in a good way.

Unsurprisingly there had been no response to my email which strengthens my desire to deal with this.

Again, thank you for letting me vent, rant and cry, from the bottom of my heart x

It angers me that you needed the confirmation that you’ve done nothing wrong.

I hope you continue to find strength and heal.