I just want it to matter to someone.

I am turning 31yrs old in a few months and I sometimes wonder what I would have been like if not for the abuse. I was 8yrs old when my brother started touching me. It was one year after my dad walked out on us. Then he started crawling into bed with me at night and having anal sex with me. He did it everytime my mom went to work. It went on until I was 13/14 yrs old. I hated myself, I hated being touched by anyone. There was never enough soap in the world or baths I could take to make me feel clean and the nightmares. God the nightmares. When he suddenly stopped I knew in my heart he would go after my little sister. So we played this game of cat and mouse. I watched him. I tried never to leave her alone with him. He caught on quickly and was furious. That's when the beatings began. But you see that was my plan if he was hitting me he wouldn't be hurting my sister. God one day he beat me so badly I thougt he was going to kill me. I was 14yrs old 5'4" and barely 90lbs and he was punching me after I again prevented him from going after my sister while mom was at work. I remember crawling across he floor to a window while he hit me and I screamed loudly and for a long time until the neighbors came. I couldn't even talk when they came my voice was gone and mom was angry at me when she got home for drawing so much attention to the place when she wasn't there. You see HE is her favorite.

At 15 I couldn't live with the nightmares and the constant battle with my brother so I decided to kill myself. I went to the bathroom late one night with a knife. I was going to slit my wrists. That night I prayed to a God I hated because I couldn't go on. I had no more fight left in me. That's the night I told my mom the truth. She never questioned me, never hugged me there was nothing. Except one week late she came to me and said she had talked to HIM and that it was all ok. Do you know what it is to look into your mom's eyes and KNOW she doesn't believe you? And even worse now HE knows mom knew and chose to do nothing? I thought I knew fear before I learnt what terror was. He kept on going after my sister and I kept on trying to protect her and the beatings kept on going. This went on till the day he got married and left.

Now HE has a wife and a son while I am 31yrs old with no kids and haven't been in a realtionship in years. I havent been able to have sex with a guy. I'm still afraid of the damn dark I sometimes sleep with the lights on. My mom and I don't have a good relationship because she still defends HIM no matter what. She remembers my brother and I fighting all the time. She remembers me being angry and upset all the time but when I talk about what HE did she just says I shouldn't bring up things in the past and why am I always trying to say bad things about HIM. I've never told this story in its entirety to anyone. Sad to say no one in my life ever cared enough to listen. I just wanted to shout this out into cyberspace and say this happened to me, that this is not a lie. I was 8yrs old and HE destroyed who I would have been. HE moved on like it didn't matter, my mom pretends like it didn't happen, that it doesn't matter. I want it to matter to someone not just me.