Home→Forums→Tough Times→Please Help, I Feel Terrible.
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November 25, 2017 at 10:40 pm #179419AnonymousInactive
*Trigger warning, talks about sexual abuse and suicide*
So I feel horrible, and have felt horrible for quite some time now. I try to distract myself, but it isn’t working. Here’s the story. So when I was in second and third grade, I was sexually abused by my older brother, who was in eighth to ninth grade when all this was going on. I didn’t understand what was happening, so it didn’t scar me as bad as it could have. I was raised Mormon but no longer believe, and after everything happened I felt like I had to constantly repent for everything. I have OCD, so that made it even worse. I didn’t even realized how messed up everything was until years after it happened. The day before my brother left for his LDS mission, very recently, I confronted him about it. I was so angry, and was ready to tell him off. He then nearly broke down and told me how he had been abused at a camp he went to, and it severely scarred him. He did what he did to make sense of everything that happened. I said that I forgave him, and I felt horrible for yelling at him before. But then the anger returned. I know he did what he did out of being traumatized, but I still find it difficult to forgive him. Now here’s where I feel absolutely awful. Please keep in mind that I feel so guilty about this. This is the only place I’ve felt safe to confess this, because of how nonjudgmental you all can be. So here it is, what’s been plaguing me so much: Since I was raised LDS, I had very little sex education and didn’t really know anything about sex besides it’s how babies are made. I was also taught from a very young age that porn is evil, and you will be spiritually damaged for eternity if you ever view it. So when I was in about third or fourth grade and started having sexual feelings, I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that porn is evil and to never view it. In my absolutely clueless head, I thought that in some way, children didn’t “count” as porn. It hurts to type this. So I viewed inappropriate images of children, as I viewed it as a substitute to “real” porn. I wasn’t attracted to the children I saw, I was just desperate and confused. I did this shit up until about sixth grade or so. Then I stopped and never felt any urge to view anything like that again. When I discovered what my fourth grade self would call “real” porn, I discovered a certain arousal I’d never felt before, and point is, I was never attracted to the people in the images I saw beforehand. They were just a substitute in my dumb kid mind. I’m not a pedophile. I am not attracted to children in any way. But when I started to remember what I did when I was young, I felt fucking terrible. My OCD got so much worse, and I would wake up on the verge of a panic attack, constantly worrying if I’m actually some disgusting pedophile. This OCD went on for a long time, but I eventually got over it. What’s really bothering me is how this relates to the situation with my brother. When I come forward about what happened to me, I’m going to feel like a hypocrite. I keep wondering how I’m any different from him, and it scares the hell out of me. I feel like I’m hiding some deep dark secret by not revealing what I did when I was a little kid. I keep wondering how can I do this to my brother by coming forward, but not reveal what I did as well? I feel disgusting and horrible every day. I know what he did is different from what I did, because he hurt someone, while I never hurt anyone, and I stopped my behavior and am not a danger to anyone, but I don’t know about him. He did what he did out of trauma, and I did what I did out of confusion, lack of education, and a fear to disobey my religion. He was way older. I was way younger. But I still don’t think I could live with myself telling my parents what he did, without telling then what I did as well. I feel like I’m lying. But I could never in a million years tell anyone what I did. I can’t. I will never be able to bring myself to do it, and I really don’t want to. I know that I was just a kid, and I would never even think of doing something like that now, but I still feel like I did something terrible. My brother told me that he had thought about suicide before, and I think telling anyone what he did would push him over the edge. But I can’t hide what he did for my wellbeing. Please help. I’m so scared and don’t know what to do. If you think I’m a nasty person for what I did, don’t give me a hard time for it please. Let me do that myself. I just really need advice.
November 26, 2017 at 5:37 am #179449AnonymousGuestDear NamesAreOverrated:
First, my concern about your brother possibly sexually abusing children now or in the future:
He didn’t mention to you what he did and didn’t ask for your forgiveness. You were the one confronting him. When you did he told you how he was abused in a camp. As if that justified his abuse of you (and will justify future abuse of children)…?
People abuse others following having been abused themselves, in most cases, if not all. In some cartoons and movies, cruel people, or bad people, are depicted as happy people who are bad. In reality, cruel people are hurting people. And so, do we say: because this person is hurting, it is okay for him/ her to pass on the hurt, to pass on the cruelty? No. Abuse has to stop, to be stopped.
If your brother excused his abuse of you by bringing up his own, he may abuse others, as an adult. You may want to consider protecting those others somehow. Let me know of your thoughts in regard to him, will you?
Second: you watching images as the child that you were is indeed in the past. Fortunately, you didn’t hurt another person. I don’t see a reason to disclose this. Definitely not to your parents because they … somehow did not see what was happening with you and your brother as children, somehow they didn’t see the distress… maybe caused much distress in him and in you. What do you think?
In regard to your last line: I have no interest to give you a hard time, to cause you to suffer: that would be cruel of me. Look at the guilt that you feel- it would make sense to feel it only if there is something you can do to correct some injustice. And then, the guilt should be gone, once you did what you can do. Telling others what you watched when you were a child does not correct any injustice. I hope you let this issue go. Perhaps you can do something regarding your brother, to correct some injustice being done to another child or to future children.
anita
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