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conflicting emotions


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Story of my life…

 

I live in a different country than my parents and my brother. I have been away for about 5 years now. Recently, my mom has been calling me constantly trying to share her problems with my brother. I am very close to my family even though I live far away. The real problem in the family is that my elder brother is suffering from depression. Although it has been a while since he was first diagnosed, it is getting worse right now. Although he has a full-time, well paying job, he has been drinking a lot and living a reckless life. My mom henceforth, worries about him all the time and is very sad. There is nobody else around her that would help her and get my brother to see a doctor. Even my dad thinks my brother is acting up because of his age, and he needs to be left alone. But the real reason I am writing to you folks is to understand the emotions I am going through right now. Here is another story to this story. My cousins sexually abused me, when I was really small (but big enough to remember it). After that when I was in middle school, my own brother started abusing me. This went on forever. I think it stopped little before I graduated from high school. Being abused is a very strange feeling. There were times when we were like brothers and sisters and would laugh and enjoy a good family environment. And there were times when he would do stuff to me that would make me cry and shout and be mad. Both my parents knew my brother was not treating me nice and they would tell him to stop. But they could not make him stop. I guess they didn’t take it seriously enough and didn’t understand that her own son was sexually abusing their daughter. Back then; I did not understand the whole hula-hoop about sexual abuse. I knew that it was wrong and would protest and cry every time I was abused, but couldn’t put it into words in front of my parents how badly I was suffering. So we as a family never really had any discussion or clarification regarding this. Time went on, I decided to leave home to go to college and came to United States. From then on, I carried on with a normal relationship with my family, including my brother. I even went back after two years to visit them and everything was normal. But since then, I brother’s depression has gotten worse and my family, especially my mom has been struggling really hard to cope with it. She worries and cries all the time.

 

Now my problem is, I want to be there for my family. But as I have grown up, I get flash backs of those nasty things my brother did to me and its hard to cope with it. Although I still talk to my mom and feel very bad for not being close to her to comfort her, part of me feels like I shouldn’t worry about it too much because they didn’t do anything when I was being abused for so long. Part of me has forgiven my brother for everything he did because I feel like his mental problems were part of it that made him make bad moves on me. But part of me wants justice for what was done to me for so many years.

 

Although I know deep inside that I have forgiven my family and I will be there for them, I just want some kind of closure or someone to say that you have been through so much. I do not want to talk to my mom or anyone else about the abuse again because she is already sad and I do not want to make things complicated. I cannot abandon my family for what happened to me because I know they love me. Its just that they couldn’t protect me at that time. I want to help my family cope with my brother’s depression, but I am afraid that I will break down doing this.

 

What does all of my conflicting feelings mean? What should I do?

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Conflicting emotions are for me, definitely the worst kind. It makes any kind of decision impossible. I would advise that you do NOT do anything that will cause you to break down. That is first and foremost. You cannot be helpful to anyone if you are unraveling. I know it must be confusing for you to feel badly about your brother's depression, but remember that you do NOT owe anything to the person who abused you! After all, your brother has your parents close by and he can rely on them. It seems you need to rely on yourself (mostly) and you need to protect yourself in order to do this.

 

If this makes you feel selfish, remember that it may be helpful to consider that by not becoming depressed, you are actually doing your family a big favor. They won't have to worry about you too! Take care of yourself, as you've been doing, and offer support to the people who can help your brother the best - your parents.

 

I hope this helps!

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