by Sarah, 8 September 2023
Strange how some situations can feel like a vice-grip tightening around your neck, choking the strength and resolve right out of you. No matter how much healing I've done in recovering from the incest of my childhood, certain things can take me right back.
My brother's wife has been struggling with cancer for a long time. Recently, they made the tough decision to not fight it anymore and she went off her treatments. She is now in hospice care in their home as the cancer spreads and she faces more and more pain. I live across the country from them and told my brother I would try to get out to see them before she passes, dependent on my own health issues. I had stayed at my brother's house the two times I went to visit my mom in her assisted-living facility years ago. It was hard for me since he molested me as a child, but I felt like I couldn't say no. The fact that we "stayed a family" after I told on my dad and brother really messed up my way of thinking as I grew up. So for this trip my brother said they'd want me to stay with them, so I can visit more with my sister-in-law… but this time is so totally different than before when all was 'normal'.
My sister-in-law and I have never been close, mostly because of the geographical distance and that I am far younger than them, but still I'd like to see her one more time. But here's the thing: I simply cannot be around my brother when he is emotional, upset or crying. For reasons I won't go into (I have never shared the details of my abuse with a single soul), seeing him like that will instantaneously take me right back to the abuse of my childhood. Hell, just thinking about it has brought flashbacks I haven't had in a long time. I simply can't go through that. And yet, I feel bad about it and feel like I should be there for him. Do you know how screwed up it is that he hurt me terribly, affected my whole life, and yet I am the one sitting here feeling bad and wrestling with this?
I had a decision to make of whether to plan the trip or not, and after some tears, heart-wrench and heartache, I decided that I won't be going. My husband and I will travel to attend her funeral when it happens and we will stay in a hotel, but out of self-preservation, I won't be able to go see her before she passes. I hope my mom and my family don't hate me for it, but I am tired of being afraid to put myself first, especially for my own mental health. I have come so damn far and I don't want to go back. And yet, I still feel guilty, and I realize that alone is messed up. Many incest survivors out there will wonder how I even have any relationship with my abusers, but with the way my family handled it when I was still so young, I never learned any different. I never got to be mad, to never see them again; those were never options given to me.
And so even though the decision is made, I am still struggling with the emotions of it, and perhaps someday the consequences. My brother made his bed and I am so damn tired of lying in it. I am tired of needing to feel his approval when in truth he should be needing mine. What a messed up, upside down world my family and I live in.
8 September 2023
Sarah
https://breakingsarah.wordpress.com/
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