The truth I'm having to face in therapy is agonizingly painful. It's something I've tried to forget, deny, explain away, minimize, pretend didn't really effect me, etc. I hate the ugly words my therapist keeps on using to describe what happened, but I can't argue with the accuracy of those words.
My beloved older brother, the guy who was my best friend in the whole world, sexually abused me over several years, beginning when I was 13 or 14. I don't think I'll ever understand why he did what he did or why I let him. The truth sucks.
After therapy, I was getting angrier and angrier at my brother. My therapist had brought up forgiveness and I realized I was nowhere near being ready for that. As I was driving home and my anger was mounting, I thought, "I don't want anything to do with my brother. As far as I'm concerned, he's dead to me!"
Then I remembered...oh, wait...he IS dead. I guess I have a weird sense of humor, but this actually struck me as funny.
There is all this confusing back and forth about what the truth is. This morning I'm thinking that what I wrote here just now can't possibly be true. Maybe I should just delete the whole thing. It's not that I'm denying what happened. It just seems so extreme to call it sexual abuse. That makes it sound like my brother was some horrible person who snuck into my room at night and forced himself on me in my sleep...or that he overpowered me or threatened me. Abuse sounds so...abusive. I'd rather think of it as something weird and inappropriate.
But then I remind myself of all the things about my rape that I have tried to minimize or deny. For example, I remember my attempts to convince my therapist that it was a consensual sex act when I came to and realized some guy was fucking me -- and didn't even know who it was at first. I actually tried to argue with my therapist when he asked how I could give consent when I was unconscious.
So maybe my attempts to call this not-really-abuse are the same sort of denial that I've become so good at over the years. Or maybe I'm trying to call it abuse so I can absolve myself of my guilt. I don't know.
Part of me wishes I'd never brought this up on therapy. Then again, my mind-reading therapist has a way of knowing when I'm holding out on him, and he somehow manages to get me to disclose stuff I've sworn never to tell anyone.
Working through this confusion, made worse by the typical self-blame we survivors tend to heap on ourselves, was nightmarishly difficult. I could never have done it alone, without a good therapist and a group of awesome survivors to support me.
The truth does set us free. But first it often has a way of hurting like the dickens.
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