My Greatest Shame

The hardest thing I have ever written but it is time. It was December 1977, I was 13; I believe this incident happened during Christmas break. My brother and I (half-brother, same mother) were out on the ridge tobogganing. We had two hills that we regularly tobogganed on. One we called the toboggan hill and the other was the ridge. (It was three ridges and there was a trail that weaved around them working its way down to the bottom.) We didn’t use this one very often. I realize writing this I am avoiding what I am trying to write.

I asked my brother to have sex with me! There I said it, I have told this story a few times but this is the first time it has ever been in print. My brother said, ‘no’. I have probably thrown everyone who is reading this by now but anyway, you see my brother had been forcing, coercing, manipulating, threatening and sweet-talking me since I was very young to have sex with him. I hated it; I really did, so why did I ask him for sex. Honestly I don’t know. I already knew at that time that I liked girls. My brother rarely paid attention to me but many times when we were alone, which was often because our foster parents always sent us out in the woods together to work, he would force me to have sex with him. I think it became for me a way to feel like he even liked me, so for the first and only time ever, I asked him to have sex with me. Second time I’ve written it. I think it scared him, he never even tried to have sex with me after that and the next summer he was kicked out of the foster home for going to football practice after our foster dad had explicitly told him he couldn’t go to.

The month before, the weekend after my 13th birthday my foster sister (foster parents’ daughter who was 4 months younger than me) had a friend over and the friend’s sister also came over as my sister’s guest. My sister who was a year and a half older than me, our foster parents had taken in my mom’s four youngest children; my oldest sister, then my brother, my sister and me being the youngest of the four. Anyway my mom (foster) sent me out with candy bars for my sisters and their friends. My brother was at the top of the toboggan hill and after the girls went down the hill he asked me to keep the door open to the bathroom when they took showers that night so he could see them. I told him no and then he got mad and forced me to have sex with him. That was the last time it ever happened.

Let me give you a little background on my family. My real mother had 8 children we all have different fathers. The oldest two were 18 and 20 and the 16 year old was in a reform home for boys. The 4th son was put in a different foster home because there had been a report made to the welfare system (yes my mom was on welfare) that he had molested my oldest sister who was 2 years younger than him. It turned out to be true and I know this because he also had molested me and my other sister. My first memory of ever waking up is with this brother on top of me.

Unfortunately for me and my middle sister they didn’t realize the youngest boy was molesting his two younger sisters. (Me and T, I will call her) I remember one summer day, I think it was our first summer there, all four of us were sent out to pull stick tights. My oldest sister and I came upon our brother having sex with the middle sister. My oldest sister cussed him out and told him never to do that again. I don’t remember exactly what she said but I figured he never did it again but I honestly don’t know because my middle sister doesn’t talk about it and many times it is hard to separate fact from fiction with her stories. All she said when I told her about the abuse from the brothers is she believed me because it happened to her to, of course I already knew this because I saw it that one time I wrote about and I also remember the other brother doing it with her and then me. (He’s in prison now, the other brother, the one who molested me the most is now a lawyer)

This story is definitely all over the place and I’m sorry for that, my mind is all over the place as I write it. The reason I started out this story like I did is because about 15 years ago (my brother and I were actually very close at this time) I was talking to him about all the abuse we suffered at the hands of our foster parents (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual) and we were just rambling about suing the state for putting us in there. I brought up the fact that he abused me while in their care and he told me that he would just deny it. I was very hurt but it actually got worse.

It was January 3, 1998, I had just moved back to MT in the same town about two months previous and I spent a lot of time with him and his wife and two children. One day the kids (11 and 13) were supposed to come over to the house but only my 13 year old nephew showed up. The 11 year old niece had wanted to stay at her friend’s house. When her parents started scolding her about not following their instructions she told them that I had made her uncomfortable. Of course she had no idea (still doesn’t) about her dad’s and mine history. She knew I was a lesbian, we never hid it from them, but she had asked me if she was gay because she thought Leonardo Dicaprio was cute and she heard he was gay. I explained to her that she shouldn’t listen to rumors and that no, that did not mean she was gay, quite the opposite. She then asked me a question I didn’t know, “what does it mean when a man rolls himself?” I told her I had never heard that. I know that children sometimes have questions about sex and they don’t want to ask their parents about it so they will turn to maybe a ‘trusted’ aunt or uncle. Up until this point I was exactly that. Anyway I did tell my niece that sometimes men will put their private parts to one side or another for comfort. She seemed okay with this explanation and the conversation moved to homework or something.

On the 3rd of January my brother, the one who molested me for years came by my house, actually he had been staying there for a few days because he and his wife were having problems and I had a spare room. His wife was with him and he confronted me about the whole thing with his daughter. I explained to him what was said but he said that his daughter felt uncomfortable with the conversation. A conversation that she started and I was just trying to assure her without judgment, I realized she told them this in order to avoid getting into trouble herself. To this day at 25 (this month) she is still manipulative and I don’t have a relationship with her but it isn’t because of her but because of her father, my brother.

You see, he gave me an ultimatum that if his children asked me questions about sex I wasn’t supposed to tell them anything, he wanted them to come to him about him. Now imagine this, let’s go back to 1986, when the niece was 3 weeks old. My oldest sister had committed suicide and the night before we buried her. My brother and I were at a bar and he was asking me about being gay. I had only come out the year before and hadn’t seen much of him and hadn’t talked to him. He had heard it from one of our older brothers. I told him yes, I was gay. He then asked me if it was because of what he did. I told him, ‘no’ and I still believe that to this day. Both of my sisters were molested and neither was gay. Anyway I did tell him that night that if he ever hurt his baby daughter in that way I would kill him personally, and I meant every word.

So now fast forward to the conversation in my kitchen in 1998, here was my brother reprimanding me about having an open honest conversation with my niece about sex, which she had initiated and he had molested me for years and now wanted me to tell her to talk to her father about it. Now honestly I don’t think he ever would hurt her in that way but I do remember one time he was adjusting himself in the living room in front of her and me and his daughter told him, “That was gross” and he just laughed about it.

My brother essentially told me that I wasn't welcome in his house or around his children if I wouldn’t abide by his rules. His wife had gone out to wait in the car and I started in on what he did to me as a little girl. You know what that SOB said, he said that I asked him for sex, that’s right; it is like he had wiped his memory bank of all the times he raped me and only remembered that last time, when it didn’t happen. I remember being in tears as he went to leave, he came to give me a hug and I told him, yelled at him actually to stay the fuck away from me and not touch me. That moment set me back 25 years in my recovery. I can’t think about my brother now without thinking about the abuse. I can’t see him, talk to him; see him on facebook, nothing. He repulses me.

Before this time we had a normal relationship, I still thought about the abuse once-in-awhile but when we would hang out it wasn’t a constant reminder. For two plus years after the incident I refrained from seeing him; however, one of our little foster brothers who was staying with me after being released from prison had threatened me and I called up my brother to help. We spoke a few times over the next two months before I moved to UT. Three months later his son who was now 16 passed away one week after his 16th birthday. I loved that young man so much and he was a much better man than his father ever will be and I don’t say that because he has passed. He was so smart and accepting and good and I missed out on the last 2 ½ years of his life all because (well yes I was stubborn) but the real reason boils down to what my brother had done to me and I refused to be a victim any longer.

I remember most of the incidents and I’m not going to go into all of them but I will tell you of one that I had forgotten about (it was in the recesses of my mind). A few years ago I was playing 10 fingers with a couple of people, one of them and I were left and it was getting pretty out there. He said he had had sex in a church and I said I had too. I couldn’t remember when or who but I knew it had happened. I thought about it over the next few days and all the sudden the entire memory came back.

About every 2 years our family had to clean the church. I think it was done monthly and there were probably 24 to 30 families so every 2 to 2 ½ years. My brother forced me into the men’s bathroom and around the corner by the urinals and he forced me to have sex with him. Of course it was quick; it always was because there was always the fear of getting caught.

I remember one time threatening to tell mom that he was, ‘doing it’ to me, I was actually in our garage and could hear mom in the kitchen, honestly I believe they knew, one time he forced me to give him a blowjob in the back of the car, mom was sitting right in front of us and turned around. He pushed my head further down and said I was sleeping or something. A few times out in the woods our cousins would fly over head in their plane and we would both get scared. We skinny dipped once at the waterfall at the back of our property and he forced me that time as well.

One time after Bible school we could hear the Indian kids from the reservation making their way to our house down the road and he still made me have sex with him in the barn. Another time he said he would play croquet fair and so I let him. I mean let him isn’t really appropriate because if I hadn’t said okay he would have anyway, but I did say okay. Just being honest, remember that is what this whole chasing demons series is all about, speaking my truth.