I actually feel somewhat lighter today.
My father had a volatile temperament and could be physically violent. He physically attacked and threatened to kill each one of us at different points. He also told me more than once that I was "mental" when I was telling the truth. My brother did rape me, I think I was about 13. He was younger than me, but bigger and stronger. I was afraid my parents would blame me because I was the oldest. I was afraid they would kill me or him. I was afraid one of us would go to prison. My brother was also a compulsive liar and I was terrified of what he might conjure up about me.
So in that way "I married" my brother, the man I did not want. By married I mean not speaking the truth about his evil in public or in private which is exactly the wife that my mother was to my father. I think I have been angry about that for a long time, internalizing the humiliation and turning it into shame (I am a bad person because I let it happen and I am so angry and I want to kill him). "In the backyard", at my parents house, "they said I went after someone younger than me because no one my age would want me." That is what I was afraid my brother would say about me...that I was the aggressor and no one my age wanted me because I was fat and ugly...which I was told many times by my parents and siblings.
That urge to kill my brother has stayed with me. There was a question on a Facebook page I am on today "If you woke up in the body of the opposite sex, what would you do?" My first response was to kill somebody.
I felt tremendous compassion for my brother as my father's son. He has deep scars on his back from when my father whipped him. I would change his ointments and his dressings. But something snapped in him where he needed to have power over someone like my father had done to him. Maybe I felt something like Stockholm Syndrome. I was also the golden child, because I did well in school and was pretty obedient to my parents out of feeling terrified. My parents held me up as an example or model to my siblings, which of course they hated. I always felt enormous guilt about my successes as my parents used them to make the other ones feel bad.
After my brother raped me, I dropped a lot of nourishing activities I participated in...making art, choir, hiking, camping, and friends. My parents told me I had to get a job when I was 15, that is also when I got my license and I was the chauffer for my mom and 3 siblings. Dad was off with his girlfriend I guess even though I did
not know it at the time.
Dating and other boys and men...if I was treated badly I internalized the humilation and it became shame and I wanted to kill them...acting out punishment and revenge instead of saying no when my intuition to protect myself told me to. I would feel sorry for them...the trauma was repeated...I hurt myself instead of them or more than I hurt them.
Last night my dream was the following:
I was in the Wellness department of a local natural food store, in the section where they sell bulk teas, herbs and spices in giant glass jars. I pull open a long thin light colored wooden drawer...which was almost hidden...and in it are 4 or so plastic zip lock bags. It looks like black tea leaves in them. The bags are labeled with white labels and some sort of red and black splotches. I do not know why but opening the drawer and seeing them I felt relieved. maybe something to do with containers.
Sorry for going on...this will be helpful to print out and bring to my therapist.
