silent all these years....

SO, this song was the first tori amos song i ever heard. i had remembered reading an article about her and how she had been raped at the age of 21. i felt a kindred spirit with her after reading that. then i heard this song and when i heard the words "Years go by will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand? years go by if I'm stripped of my beauty and the orange clouds raining in head. years go by will I choke on my tears till finally there is nothing left? one more casualty you know we're too easy." my heart was just re-opened with painful feelings. from the age of 4-9 i was sexually abused by my brother. when my parents finally found out, my mother told me that it would be something i would have to repent for for the rest of my life. then we were never allowed to discuss what happened ever again. i will not go into the amount of shear hatred and self-loathing i put myself through from that time forward. but it was significant. so significant that i found ways of trying to distract myself from the hating. i became obsessed with my weight, exercising fanatically. i would organize and re-organize. i would create lists and have goals to be perfect in anything and everything, anything to try and make me feel better about the fact that i was a horrible horrible person. then i met the mister and for the first time i had to tell someone my past. my utter fear of him thinking i was a horrible person didn't come into fruition. in fact, he encouraged me to seek counseling. which i did, and for the first time i heard people telling me that i wasn't a horrible person. that it wasn't me that needed to repent. that above all, this wasn't my fault. what? how could this be? my own mother told me these things, how could what she told me not be right? i did want to believe that maybe, just maybe i wasn't so horrible after all, but i really struggled to believe it. i even by-passed getting married in the temple because i didn't think i was worthy of going. (i got sealed a year later after lots of therapy and persuasion)
after a couple of years of therapy, i was talked into confronting my mother and brother about my past. since i had blocked out much of my childhood, i couldn't remember when or how it started or how long it went on for. trying to talk with them only brought more heart ache. not only did my mother deny that she ever said those things to me, my brother basically told me that i was the one that started it. i was 4. he was 10. a 10 year old boy knows better than a 4 year old little girl. i wouldn't have known any such thing. when i asked my brother if he ever talked with his bishop about what happened since he went on a mission and was married in the temple, he said he didn't think it was necessary because it wasn't that big of a deal. then, he asked me to not say anything because if his wife ever found out he was sure that she would leave him. not wanting to destroy any ones family, i agreed. i don't know why i did. i kept thinking that i was blowing it out of proportion and that it shouldn't really be a big deal. i kept hating myself and thinking i was horrible for not getting over it, for not being forgiving and for not being just happy. the more i pushed it down, the more of a shell of a person i've become. i'd have thoughts now and again, about how i needed to cut my family out of my life. (my mother and brothers at least) but i never would because i wanted to keep hoping for their love and support and acceptance. which never came. i would go to family reunions pretending all was well, while looking at my brother wondering how he had it so together and how i didn't. how he could move on with his life when i was stuck back feeling like that little girl so ashamed and scared.
recently, things have come to a crossroads in my life. i've had to make decisions and after temple trips, i finally have gotten the courage to stop being ashamed, to stop hiding and to stop being silent. i have spent the majority of my life hiding, avoiding people so that they wouldn't find out that i was terrible or disgusting and the worst of all, i have not allowed Heavenly Father to love me because i felt i wasn't allowed to be loved by Him. that alone has been a slap in his face. He has tried to help me, to love me, to protect me and i pushed and pushed him away. i would live the gospel but not feel it because for me i wasn't important or worthy of feeling the happiness and love it gave. i was to horrible and despicable. after talking with my dad the other day about this, he finally broke down in tears telling me that a lot of his gambling addiction was stemmed from the fact that he could never forgive himself for not protecting me, or for not stepping in and contradicting what my mom was telling me about repenting. he knew what she was saying was wrong yet he'd stayed silent. it's destroyed and eaten him up inside ever since. because of what my brother did, he not only hurt me, he hurt my dad as well. i just wish i could have known these things years ago.
i've finally decided to listen to my Heavenly Father. i've decided that if it came up, i wouldn't hide it. i'm telling the truth, and if my brother's wife finds out, then i can't help it. he should have been honest with her to begin with. i'm not destroying his family, he is. even as i'm writing this, i'm desperately scared but i know i need to tell my story, that in a small way this is my beginning of healing and all this will work out in the end. i'm scared to allow some love into my life, being miserable is so much more comforting and i know that this will be a very long long road to go down. but the possibility of having the rest of my life be good, be happy is something that is quite appealing. and if above all else, i might help someone else break their silence then it will make it all worth it.