Personal testimony from a woman who submitted her story to be shared with others.
I don’t know how old my brother was when our cousins started molesting him. He must’ve been very young- around five years old. I knew it happened during thanksgiving because that was the only time we saw those cousins. The boys were seven or eight and five or six. I was too little to even know if something like that was even happening in our home.
I don’t know why he and I never had a good relationship, all I know is that pornography was directly related to my abuse and that I am determined to educate everyone of the consequences of it. He started his addiction to pornography when he was ten years old (he told our mother this later).
He groped me. We were playing hide and seek and I hid behind the couch. It was a small space and he followed me, took out his penis and groped me. This is my earliest memory of unwanted and unwelcomed sexual acts of abuse that would become worse over time.
This was my brother who was only a few years older than me… And I was an innocent age of only four years. I know I didn’t understand what was going on and I left and played a different game by myself instead. I guess I had blocked this memory from my brain until I started talking to a therapist sixteen years later. It came back very vivid and I then understood exactly what had happened.
Over the next few years, I developed a hatred towards him. I always felt that there was something wrong with him. He was mean and cruel, he had a very short temper and was very violent. He threw anything and everything. He grew out his nails to scratch me and my siblings. He has left many scars. He did not do well in school and received detention almost daily. He would take me into the basement and throw me to the ground and cover my head with a blanket and tried to suffocate me. Another brother always came to the rescue and they would physically fight it out. He has attempted to drown me on several occasions, once he came very close to succeeding. He would claw my mom and shove her, hit her and slap her across the face.
He wasn’t just “a boy being a boy”. He had something seriously wrong with him.
We just moved into a new home and unfortunately, my bedroom was next to his. I was 13 and just started junior high school. He was 15 and would constantly make fun of me, call me names and physically hit me and another sibling. Daily. He would scream at my mom and tell her everything wrong with her. He would punch holes in the walls and break the locks on the doors. This was my brother. I hated him.
I found his stash of porno videos and I broke them in half. He would wait until my mom was gone and then he would watch porn in front of me on the computer in the middle of the day!! He didn’t care if I saw. I remember him saying strange things to me like he would be sobbing and telling me that he loves me. I would tell him that he doesn’t and that I hated him. This happened for a few nights in a row about once or twice in a year.
I remember waking up with him grabbing my private parts and fingering me. I didn’t know what to do and felt paralyzed. I begged God to kill him in that moment or at least make him stop. We were a very religious family and I counted on God to save me. And when God didn’t open the heavens and stop this injustice from happening- I immediately lost faith in God and I hated him as well as any other male figure.
My brother was much bigger than me. I weighed 80 pounds and he was well over 130 pounds. He was aggressive. He didn’t know I was awake the first time. I was too afraid to do anything and pretended to be asleep. Eventually, he stopped, crawled out of my room, and went back to his. This was the typical night for me for the next year. I tried locking the door- he broke it. I tried sleeping with a knife- he threatened to kill me or kill someone else in our family with it. I decided to let it happen. Occasionally, find a video camera in my closet that he would use to watch himself molesting me the night before or he would gather his friends and watch me undress.
I saw no way out of my hell and I wanted to die. One night I decided that death was good enough for me, I didn’t want to live anymore and stood up to him. I choked him and kicked him and threatened him. He didn’t kill me. He was afraid of me and left me alone. He never came back into my room again. But I still wanted to die, he made me feel like it was my fault. I went out on a rampage of anger and hatred and I hit him across the face with a metal baseball bat.
And he deserved it.
He is a liar and a coward.
I struggled through my teenage years with depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies. I became strong and could defend myself if I needed to. I wasn’t social and only found joy in animals, sports, and cooking. I hated people and thought that people would only become corrupted and evil at one point or another. I didn’t have friends by choice and slept with a butcher’s knife under my pillow for seven years. I was NOT ok.
I came to a point in my life where I was now officially an adult and decided that I was either going to commit suicide or I was going to go to therapy. I am eternally grateful that I chose therapy. My therapist was the best person for me at that time.
Over a two years span- I started to feel again. I started hugging people, I started believing in God again.. I had many experiences in which I have felt the pure and perfect love of God and through the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ, I have felt the healing of my soul. I no longer hate my brother. I do not dismiss the evil that he has done, but I am starting to forgive him. I want to help him.
This cycle of abuse ends with me.
I am married to a great man. He struggled with pornography in his youth after he was sexually abused as well. He got the help that he needed and we talk very openly about any concerns or temptations to ensure safety for our home against the evil and the damages of pornography. I actually slept through the night for the first time in ten years. It is because of my husband and the peace and sense of safety and love that he gives me. We have a very healthy sex life and we love each other endlessly. We hope to have children who will be brave and stand up for what is right no matter what. No matter the consequence. No matter the threat. I am so happy with my life now. I have a very good life because of God. I am happily married, educated, employed, loved, and very healthy.
As for my brother- he has many regrets in life. He constantly lies to family, himself, and to God. He has admitted to touching and harming others, including members in our family and neighbors as well. My mother and siblings don’t talk to him, and they don’t trust him. He screams at his wife, doesn’t have a job, is very overweight, uneducated, and absolutely hates himself. All because his sexual abuse turned into a pornography addiction. He was longer the victim when he became the predator. I am in the process of filing a protection order against him.
Listen to your children. Be open with your siblings, and put faith in God and Jesus Christ. If you are addicted to pornography or have been a victim of sexual abuse, get the help that you need and END SEXUAL EXPLOITATION.
This is my story and my life is just beginning.
