My baby brother is going to be 33 in just a few days. I can't believe it. I'm sure my lack of communication with him has made me lose track of the years, but I am acutely aware of the his birthday every year.
Being only 14 months old when my first brother was born, I was too young to really understand what was going on. I only know what I was told by my grandma. Having a new baby brother at 14 months old pushed me out of diapers and off a binkie or bottle before he was born. My grandma said I was walking by the time I was nine months old, so potty training me at just over a year old was ok. I wonder if I was ever allowed to progress normally.
At three years old, I was much more aware of my impending new sibling. That was back before you learned what the sex of the baby was earlier than birth. I don't know that I had a preference of brother or sister, but I knew I was getting something and I was excited.
My baby brother came into the world on the cold, snowy morning of January 22, 1979. I don't have any memory of how I was as a big sister until he was a few years old.
When he was still a baby in a diaper, I colored him purple with a magic marker. It was magic alright, it turned my cute little brother into a purple little monster. When I was a little older, I thought it was fun to trick him into eating cat food. It might sound like I was mean, but I really wasn't. I was just a kid, sorta. I actually loved my brother both very much and did my best to take care of them.
Every year on his birthday, I found myself being very angry. I'm sure the adults in my life probably thought I was a jealous sibling because the baby of the family was getting the most attention. That might have been an accurate assumption had I grown up in a typical family, but I didn't.
It took me many years, but I did come to understand why his birthday made me so angry. Sibling rivalry would have been a better reason, but sadly it wasn't.
My parents and grandma headed to the hospital late the night of January 21, 1979, leaving my other brother and myself with my grandpa. We were both tucked into bed with my grandpa before grandma walked out of the room. My brother was asleep and I was restless with excitement after my grandma told me that my mom was having a baby.
What would happen next would feel as though it lasted a lifetime. As I lay looking out the large bay window at the head of the bed, I saw the snow blowing. The wind whistled through the crack that ran from corner to corner. With my finger, I traced around the window and across the crack. I could feel the cold bite of winter as the wind howled. The window became my whole world for the moment so that I could escape what was happening to me.
Years later when I was remembering exactly what happened to me, it was as if I remembered it looking down on the scene. It was like watching a movie, a really bad one. The little girl was just a nameless little girl and what was happening was surreal. Yes, this was my first memory of being sexually abused.
It was my first memory of abuse from any adult. My grandma consistently gave accounts of abuse by my dad as young as when I was cutting teeth, telling details of a time she saw him throw me across a room. So, I have every reason to believe that my story of abuse started younger than three years old. But this was my first memory and it was with my grandpa. Sadly, it would be only the first of hundreds, if not thousands of memories of abuse.
This is also my first indication that at three years old, I was already developing a sophisticated defense system to escape my abuse. I would go somewhere else mentally to avoid the reality of abuse. It's a system I am tied to today, a system that controls my life.
As January 22 is quickly approaching again, I know I don't have unidentified anger. Maybe the anger this year is looking back at the past 33 years and knowing the stronghold abusers had and still have on my life. I long for the day when January 22 is just a day when I think fondly of my baby brother being born. Oh how I wish I could do that now.
No comments:
Post a Comment