It All Started When I Was 9 Years Old

[kris]

I am new to this site, and have recently been diagnosed with ptsd, although I guess I have known I have had it for many years.

It all started when I was 9 years old and my older brother forced me to have sex with him. This went on for 6 more years, throughout this time he would force me to have sex with him, to perform oral sex on him, and also him on me and also would use his fingers to stimulate me. I never told anyone this for fear of what would happen to him and me. I thought that my family would think that we were a bunch of freaks, and although I know it wasn't my fault I somehow thought it was.

Because of these horrible events that happened to me I have suffered with depression and ptsd for many years, although until about 7 months ago I never got treatment for the depression and now just a month ago I disclosed that I was sexually abused by my brother.

When I was younger I thought about killing myself a lot, obviously since I am writing this I didn't follow through, but there were many many times I came close.

Well now about a month ago I was persuaded to go to a psychologist, and after that meeting I am far more depressed than I had been in years. I have been thinking about suicide again, although I don't believe I ever would but the thought comes into my head quit often.

Initially for the first few days after seeing the psychologist I could not function, I laid in bed and cried and cried and my whole body just shook, I imagine I was having panic attacks over the fact that I had actually told someone for the first time in my life what had actually happened to me.

Sorry this post is so long, but I had to get my story out.

 

[jo74]

Kris
Thanks for sharing your story, I know how difficult it can be. Speaking from experience, things usually get worse before they get better. This is how your mind is reacting to actually talking about the abuse. It may not seem like it now, but it is part of the healing. It will have less control over you the more you talk about it. Pat yourself on the back. You did great.
Telling your therapist was very brave. Seems you're doing the right thing, I mean, talking about your past. Is there someone you can talk to during these tough times?
Don't let this detour you from talking more about your past with your therapist.
Good luck and take care,
jo

 

[JohnnyM53]

Hi Chris

Welcome to the Forum; a place to express your thoughts and feelings in a safe place, with people who understand the kind of experiences and emotional pain you are in and have been through.

Many, many of us have felt suicidal as a result of our pain. As Jo74 says, it hurts coming to terms with our pain when we first tell someone else.

Sharing our stories at first, admitting we were powerless over events and verbalizing our painful feelings, including suicidal feelings and thoughts is a natural part of the healing process.

So welcome to healing. We're hear for you.

May you find some peace and comfort here.

 

[OMNICELL]

Your not alone. Keep working at the recovery process. It will be rewarding.

 

[tryintobreathe]

Kris,
Welcomem to the forum. I am so sorry you had to suffer through that as a child. I am glad though that you are talking about it now and trying to get some help. I was molested/raped starting at age 8 until almost 12 years old and I didn't tell ANYONE until I was about 40 years old. So I am glad to see you aren't doing what I did...trust me, it doesn't work. Do you have plans to go to the pyschologist again or find another? I'm glad you are here, there is so much support and information and great people!

Jen

 

[kris]

more of my story

Jen, and everyone else thanks for the encouraging/supporting words. No I do not at the moment have plans to go back to the psychologist, I think I would need all the antianxiety meds in the world to go through with that.

I don't see how talking to someone and actually getting my story out in the open helps. So far it has just made things a thousand times harder to deal with. I was perfectly fine keeping all these secrets inside and as my earlier post says, it has made me rethink about harming myself and far more depressed and so much anxiety I can barely function.

I can't tell anyone in my family beacause it was my brother who abused me, and I just can't do that to them and the thought of telling even a psychologist makes me almost puke just knowing that someone else besides me knows what happened.

So I don't think I can/will ever go back into counseling unless someone can honestly tell me that they have been through this as well and are in almost the same situation and that by going to counseling helped them.

Thanks again for the advice already everyone.

 

[Deleted member 541]

Hi Kris,

Welcome to the forum.......If you aren't planning on going back into therapy, then this site most likely won't help either. We write and talk about *our trauma*, in very graphic details...

That's what this site is all about. It's facing the very thing that you are running from, your trauma......In order to heal, you MUST do it through facing your trauma, and going through it, not around it.....

If you come out of therapy feeling good, then it isn't working, or the person isn't talking about their trauma. If you come out feeling worse, well then it's working......Apparently, you did talk about yours, and it worked.....

It does get better over time, but yes, it does take time, and you feel like shit in the mean time.....

 

[kris]

I just am not sure about seeing a therapist again, I am not completely ruling it out, I guess I just don't understand how telling people about what happened helps someone. I am also nervous about what kind of therapy the psychologist would want to use. Since I only went once, the topic about what kind of treatment and how long was not brought up yet.
The reason I am not wanting to go to therapy I guess is it is in the back of my head that by telling him, some how my family would find out. Having my family find out what happened would honestly send all of us far off the deep end. The reason is it was my older brother who molested me, and he passed away about a year ago. During the time while he was fighting for his life everybody talked about how amazing and strong of a man he was, and I agree with them he was very brave and determined to live. Even when my mom hears on the news about rapes ant tortures she will say things about how they should cut his manly goods off and things like that. All I can ever think is if she only knew about her own son, she might think differently. But I could never face any of my family if they knew what happened.
In some ways I guess I feel like my brother not that he deserved what happened, because I don't blame him or me for what happened, but I believe that he died at a young age because of what he did to me. I feel so bad that that thought ever even crosses my mind, but it does.
I also think that I will die at a young age as punishment for what went on. As I feel that is what happened to my brother.

 

[Aine]

Kris,

I understand why you don't want to go back to the therapist. I was very badly abused as a child, so badly that my mind has repressed a lot of it. Whenever I think about talking about it, I start shaking and crying.

However, sometimes we have to go back to go forward. Something I've learnt is that running from something doesn't make it go away, especially when what you're running from is inside yourself. Sometimes, even though something is more terrifying to us than we can bear, we have to turn around and say "No. You don't have any power here. This is my life and you have no business, no right, to be here."

You deserve some peace of mind.

Anyway, I hope that helps. Just remember that you are not alone, no matter how much it feels that way.

Love and Light,

Aine.

 

[JohnnyM53]

Hi again Kris

First, I'd like to talk about your belief that your brother died at an early age because he was bad, and that you think you will die early too because of what went on.

Regarding you, what happened to you was not your fault. Whatever way you look at it, your brother forced you to have sex with him. This is wrong and he was responsible for his actions. You were nine years old and too young to understand what sex was, and what was happening to you. Women and men who have been sexually abused do not die because they were abused, anymore than men and women who were were abused emotionally and physically do. It sounds like maybe you are feeling guilty over what happened which, as I said, was not your fault at all. You were victimized.

So you should really question, preferably with the help of a therapist, why you feel this way.

As for your brother, I sincerely doubt he died young because of what he did. Wouldn't you agree that if people who did bad things, men like: Hitler; Pol Pot (head of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia re: the Killing Fields), the men who ordered the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda) etc. would have died very early for what they did, too?

As far as wondering how talking about the abuse someone goes through helps, the question in reverse works that way too. How has not talking about it for years helped you?

In her book Trauma and Recovery, Dr. Judith Herman states that what helped Vietnam veterans the most was writing or talking about the awful traumas they experienced in war.

Personally, I can tell you that I got a whole lot better from letting all my thoughts and feelings out. It allowed me to question my thoughts and feelings and identify my distorted beliefs (the book Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns is an excellent one to help people do just that). And speaking with someone else, especially a trained therapist, allows someone else to act as a witness to listen to the harm that was done to us, which is very therapeutic.

I hope these words help you some.

Johnny