This post was written anonymously and submitted to Blognonymous for publishing on this blog. Please feel free to leave your help and support should you wish, in comments below. Many thanks.

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Today is my brother’s birthday. He is older than me and we are not in touch. I always feel sad on his birthday, because despite everything that’s happened he is my big brother and I love him.

It is very difficult as my parents and other siblings know we don’t talk but I cannot tell them the real reasons why, but I am absolutely insistent with them that I will not be in contact with him. It is for my own wellbeing and I know it is for the best but I do not want to make his relationship with my family difficult.

I find myself wanting to talk about it but cannot do it openly so the discovery of Blognonymous is great. I need to get these thoughts out of my head and I need to know whether I am being fair or whether I am being entirely selfish with my actions.

I am not holding off stating the issue between my brother and I for dramatic effect, it’s more that I don’t know how to approach the subject. So I’ll just come out with it.

When I was a child my brother sexually assaulted me. For years I wondered if I had a false memory of the incident, I also wondered if it had happened more than once.

This is what I remember. I was playing in my bedroom and my brother called me from the bathroom, asking me to get him a towel from the airing cupboard. I remember feeling nervous (which is why I suspect it wasn’t the first time, why would I be nervous of my brother?) I didn’t want to do it but I took the towel to him. He pulled me into the bathroom and trapped me behind the door. From a child’s perspective all I remember is seeing a huge erect penis, I was incredibly frightened and begged him to let me go. He made me touch him, I remember crying and then being shoved from the bathroom.

That is it, a few moments. I’m not even sure how old I was, maybe 9 or 11. He is 7 years older than me. I don’t know how long I was trapped, it felt like an eternity at the time. It had a huge impact on me and my confidence, I remember feeling confused and scared. As a child I adored this brother, absolutely idolised him and I simply did not understand what had happened and why.

When I grew up it had a huge impact on my relationships and how I was with men. I was unable to touch a partner’s genitals without getting flashbacks. For years I had very unhealthy sexual relationships and was messed up beyond belief. I’m not saying it was all just this incident, so much else happened that impacted on me; my parent’s divorce, an absent father, a further sexual assault as an older teenager.

It was about 20 years before I spoke to anyone about what happened, still believing it was probably a false memory I spoke to a counsellor about it. I was told it was probably in my head and it was best not to think about it, such memories were best suppressed. I didn’t go back to the counsellor but I did try to forget about the ‘memory’. I continued to be self-destructive. A few years later I worked up the courage to try counselling again, I had separated from my husband and knew I couldn’t continue to live my life the way I was.

It took me 6 sessions to broach the subject, I had thought about nothing else for a week before. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t raise the topic until near the end if the session, I shook the entire way through the session. My fear was that she would confirm it was probably a false memory, my bigger fear was that she would confirm it wasn’t a false memory and it would be true that my brother had damaged me in the way he had.

My counsellor was brilliant, she talked it through with me and said she really couldn’t tell me whether the memory was true or not. She recommended I talk to my brother, saying he needed to acknowledge it had happened and apologise in order for our relationship to move on. She didn’t stick up for him but she explained what a confusing time it is for teenagers and she doubted there was anything sexually deviant in his behaviour (I worried for years as he had a daughter of his own).

I followed her advice, I spoke to my partner about what had happened and he agreed to be in the house when my brother came to visit. When my brother arrived I explained that we needed to talk and we went into the next room. I told him what I remembered, I told him I needed to know if had happened and if it had I needed him to apologise or I couldn’t continue to have him as part of my life. He told me he didn’t remember and that he remembered very little of his childhood. But the moment I told him what I remembered I knew it hadn’t been a false memory, there was a flash of panic across his eyes that told me everything I needed to know. He remembered, he knew what he’d done and I think he hoped I had forgotten. I explained that I could no longer be part of his life.

My brother left the house and we haven’t spoken since. That was a couple of years ago, I have since had a child, I didn’t tell him, I knew he would find out through my family. My family know we don’t talk but I don’t tell them the real reason why, I know it’s hard for them and I know they don’t understand. I cannot tell them, how could I tell my mum that he did that? I worry about the impact on my mum, I worry how she would feel about not protecting me or that it would ruin her relationship with her son.

The counselling had a huge impact on my life, I dealt with a lot of ‘issues’ and was able to move forward in a better way. I don’t regret for a moment having the counselling or confronting my brother about what happened. I have felt happier since he has stopped being in my life, simply because I rarely spare him a thought these days. I wish he had felt able to talk about it with me, I am not angry with him but I need it to be an issue that is dealt with in order to be around him, otherwise it’s just our own elephant in the room that no one else can see.

So, I haven’t sent my brother a birthday card, but I am thinking about him today and despite everything I still love him. In fact I love him so much it breaks my heart that he’s no longer in my life, but I only think about it today and tomorrow I shall put it away again.