By an Anonymous Contributor to the campaign
“I can’t wait for sex tonight.” Five words written down on a scrap of paper, harmless on their own, together they terrified me.
I was 6, he was almost 9, my brother. My wonderful funny, annoying, loveable brother. We shared a room as most children do, we’d talk at night when we should have been sleeping. Then it changed. He began asking me to climb into his bed, or he’d get into mine once my mum had left the room. It was never penetrative, but it was wrong and I didn’t understand what was happening. He’d ask me to touch him, so I did, which makes me feel sick. If I didn’t do as he asked he’d say that he would tell mum and dad, so I had to. I wish I’d been stronger, but at 6 are you really strong? It lasted for a few years until eventually we were put in separate rooms. My mothers reasoning for this was that I’d be getting my period soon….This still confuses me…Did she know?
He would come into my room. I somehow made him stop, but he started bullying me massively. For years, until I left for art college, he would tell me intimate details of his conquests and try and make me read his sex diaries. I still love him, he is my family, but I hate him for what he did to me.
My family life was hard, I had no one I could confide in. My mother had my father to deal with, a verbally aggressive alcoholic with bi-polar, she didn’t need my problems on her shoulders as well.
At 11, I broke my own arm to stop my father from coming to watch me at a fun run with my school for fear of him being drunk. Self harm became my release. At 13 I became an angst ridden teenager. Hanging out with all the wrong people. Then at 15, I was drunk at a club and I was raped. I didn’t know him, my “friends” did. Being used yet again for someone elses pleasure. But “I deserved it, it’s what I’m here for” – to be used, I don’t matter to anyone, I’ll get over it, shove it right the way into the deepest darkest corner of my mind, joke and drink my way through my later teenage years, meet the love of my life at 20 but wait a whole 16 years before telling him what happened. I can’t tell him about my brother, I just can’t.
I had a breakdown last year. It all came out. I couldn’t live with my demon anymore. My counselling, with an amazing charity CRASAC, has been an absolute life saver. My counsellor has given me hope, I have my last session next week, I’m scared to have the thoughts growing bigger again. I need to be strong, I need to not blame myself, I need to feel no guilt, but it is oh so hard.
I think I can survive this.