Can't Decide What To Do With This?
If anybody has thoughts about this, I would be interested, because it's one of those things that just keeps hanging in my mind. Thanks to therapy and support on here, I am finding that my understanding of my abuse has grown, but this is something I still don't have a good place for- I have mentioned it before briefly on here.
My primary abuser/pimp was my older brother, from about age 6 to 14, but I did not recall the abuse until last year, some sixty years after it started. That brother disappeared, literally, for decades. I didn't care, and for me it was as if he did not even exist. While I had no memory of what he had done, I only felt that I wanted nothing to do with him in any way. Then one evening I got a call from his then girlfriend, who asked if I had a brother named_____. She told me that he was dying, and that he wanted to see me, as well as where I could find him. I did not want to go, but my wife kept pushing, and so I did. I had no emotions, no tears. He was a shell of a man, unable to stand or move around. I stayed for a few hours and left. He died a few weeks after.
Here's the thing. Because I was the only relative they could locate, his ashes were sent to me, with instructions for where to scatter them. I then drove hundreds of miles to do that. I did not want to do it, but there seemed to be no choice. I scattered the ashes of the man who almost destroyed me.
I struggle with having done that. It can't be un-done, but there's a side to me that feels like he won again. I did what he said, again. He controlled me, again.
And at the same time, I am angry. I didn't remember the abuse when I went to see him, but he could have said something to me about it- expressed some regret maybe? Since he knew he was dying?? Of course if he had done that, it probably would have triggered recall of the abuse, and who knows how I would have dealt with that?
Maybe, I just need to chalk it up as some sort of weird irony.
My primary abuser/pimp was my older brother, from about age 6 to 14, but I did not recall the abuse until last year, some sixty years after it started. That brother disappeared, literally, for decades. I didn't care, and for me it was as if he did not even exist. While I had no memory of what he had done, I only felt that I wanted nothing to do with him in any way. Then one evening I got a call from his then girlfriend, who asked if I had a brother named_____. She told me that he was dying, and that he wanted to see me, as well as where I could find him. I did not want to go, but my wife kept pushing, and so I did. I had no emotions, no tears. He was a shell of a man, unable to stand or move around. I stayed for a few hours and left. He died a few weeks after.
Here's the thing. Because I was the only relative they could locate, his ashes were sent to me, with instructions for where to scatter them. I then drove hundreds of miles to do that. I did not want to do it, but there seemed to be no choice. I scattered the ashes of the man who almost destroyed me.
I struggle with having done that. It can't be un-done, but there's a side to me that feels like he won again. I did what he said, again. He controlled me, again.
And at the same time, I am angry. I didn't remember the abuse when I went to see him, but he could have said something to me about it- expressed some regret maybe? Since he knew he was dying?? Of course if he had done that, it probably would have triggered recall of the abuse, and who knows how I would have dealt with that?
Maybe, I just need to chalk it up as some sort of weird irony.
