A family secrets letter comes in the mail

I'm going to give some of my family of origin background, possibly a bit more than I have before, and certainly more than new readers of this blog have seen.

I am the fourth brother in a family of several children. Brother No. 1, after being sexually abused by somebody (he once, in a pseudo-apologetic letter, said neighborhood kids, and made it sound like a one-time event, which I doubt), sexually abused Brother No. 3, who both then sexual abused me and Another Sibling. For me, at least, it lasted about two years, maybe more. Elizabeth Loftus's theories on childhood memory — some pretty good, some total bullshit — aside, I don't remember a lot of specific events. I remember enough to say that, at a minimum, it lasted about two years.  Abuse was not nightly or even weekly, but it happened often enough to be ongoing, yet intermittent enough to have the additional psychological "reinforcement" that intermittent punishments, like intermittent rewards, have.

Dad was mildly-moderately physically abusive and pretty soundly emotionally abusive. It would be harder to name details, but he as a conservative minister was surely religiously abusive. And, Another Sibling wonders if dad sexually abused all of us. I, for reasons noted above, can't say one way or the other, but it would be no surprise.

Mom was sometimes emotionally neglectful, and other times, even that's not the right phrase. She was simply psychologically absent. And, she engaged in what professionals would call covert sexual abuse.

No broken bones (I think) on the physical side, or burns. But, hits in the mouth/face, among other things. If 1 is totally screwed up and 10 is angelic on child-rearing, dad was 3.5 or so on physical abuse. 3 on emotional/verbal. My brothers were 2.5 on their sexual abuse, and just one act of dad's, if he did it, would be 2.5 or lower. Mom was 3.5 on emotional neglect/absence and 3.5 on covert sexual abuse.

In short, being honest, not the worst of families, but, with all abusive issues combined, a white middle-class family that was in the bottom 10 percent overall, by all races and socioeconomic classes, on family dysfuctionality.

As for that pseudo-apologetic letter from No. 1? Over my first two years of sobriety life, and getting back memories, and getting back emotional connections to them, I grew more confronting (by mail and phone) with both him and dad. He eventually admitted he had done some things, without getting specific, but with claiming the fact that he was a minister himself now showed that was all behind him, and shouldn't this just be water under the bridge? No. He had no real apology, plus, he still seemed to be affected from whatever was in his background. (Note: I of course reject the idea that being abused automatically makes one become an abuser.)

I never have confronted No. 3. He's engaged in his own form of denialism. He's admitted that No. 1abused him, while telling both me and Another Sibling that he wished he'd done more to stop No. 1 from abusing us, but never admitting that he not only was involved in such abusiveness himself, but that at times, it was ONLY No. 3, without No. 1 being around.

Time to tie these last two paragraphs together.

No. 3's wife died late this summer. Rest of family was there for the funeral, and I was out there, as part of vacation, a couple of weeks later.

Apparently No. 1 was out there a couple of weeks later.

He, No. 3, No. 3's oldest son, his current girlfriend, and her son by previous relationship were all gathered together.

No. 3 asked the son to kiss him, "on the cheek," before they left. No. 1 then reportedly kissed the son on the lips then bragged about it.

No. 3 said this brought up "stuff" for him. So, he wrote a fairly detailed three-page letter. Sent one to me, one to Another Sibling, and the third to dad's sister. Brother No. 2 lives in the same metro area as her and her husband; her two kids, both married and with children at home, also lives there. And, Brother No. 1 lives in the same state and his one child also lives in that same metro area.

So, depending on how much Auntie tells, and to whom, various amounts of shit could be hitting the fan at the very time as I type this, for their Thanksgiving. I think she'll play her cards close to her vest, and not tell either of her kids. Whether she tells No. 2 or not, or even asks him to corroborate, could be a different story, and interesting enough.

Another Sibling had not told No. 2 about No. 1 or No. 3 when I got sober and got back memories. I did, in part unawares that she hadn't. He accused me of false memory syndrome.

I told myself, after mom died (dad was already gone), that I had no real need to see No. 1 again. This only reinforces that. And, although No. 3 isn't as psychologically scarred or twisted in some ways as No. 1, now that his wife is dead, I have little real reason to see him, either.

Sometimes blood is far thinner than water.

Expectations after triggering events

Yes, in both the secular sobriety and 12-step worlds, as well as in life in general, we're admonished about not packing too much in the way of expectations in our suitcases.

As for "triggering events"? If you're an abuse survivor, specifically one diagnosed with PTSD, you know what I mean there. I've had a few other things that have had me "on edge," or primed to be triggered, to boot — one of which will be my next post here — as well as my recent move.

The actual trigger?

For me, it was covering the worst fatality accident I've been to as a newspaper reporter and editor. Usually in such cases, the body of the person killed has been taken to a morgue, if dead at the scene. And, if they die at a hospital or in transport, that's that.

In this case, the mother of a 19-year-old was called out to the scene. And, making things even worse, she missed her daughter's body being taken by the hearse by no more than two minutes.

I've never heard such a sound — the old English word "keening" came to mind — in my life. Possibly a mother seeing her kid killed by gun violence or in a war would be the same, or even worse. And, since it was a pedestrian-car accident after dark, I'm still not sure that what I thought was roadkill remains bits of a small animal wasn't ...

Anyway, I checked in with friends on Facebook and a couple of online sobriety groups. And, on the professional side, after emailing the owner of our small newspaper group about the proprietary of a certain picture angle and content, the next day, did a follow-up email to her noting that, well, I was somewhat out of sorts.

Without wanting to focus on the negatives, because a number of people did more than just "like" my Facebook page, they responded ...

I was disappointed that not more people in my two online sobriety email groups responded. And that my company owner, who I would consider at least a close acquaintance, if not a semi-friend, didn't respond, either, whether as a friend, or professionally as someone with years of experience in the business herself.

No, things do not happen "for a reason"

Personally, I loathe this, whether out of the mouths of conventionally religious, out of the mouths of New Ages, or out of the orifices of 12-steppers, for two reasons.

One is that I know my sexual abuse didn't happen "for a reason."

Two, as shown here in detail, it's got a huge, gross, boatload of insensitivity behind it.

This also illustrates why the Silver Rule is better than the Golden Rule.

"Do NOT do unto others what you do NOT want them to do to you."