We all have family members who choose the wrong direction and consequently land in the hands of society. My family isn't any different. My older brother has spent the bulk of his life in prison. So many times, I see people post things about freeing their family members or friends, but you'll never see me do that for my brother. In my whole heart, he's where he should be, and I'm safer with him being there.
My brother has been in and out of the system since he was a teenager. This is his second time in prison, and he was sentenced 55 years in prison for harm to a child. The last time we saw him was 13-14 years ago. My mom and younger brother reached out and tried to visit him, but always came to bumps in the road, just like this last time. They drove all the way to Huntsville, TX, only for my older brother to get into a gang fight right when my mom was checking in to visit him.
I know you're reading this like, What kind of family doesn't see their family member for over a decade? Honestly, I'm not keen on seeing him because the scared little girl that I used to be still surfaces when I think of him. All I can think is:
It could have been my son.
Whenever I think of my older brother, I see this evil person who still scares me even in his absence. When I thought he was going to be getting out soon, I was extremely scared. I only felt comfortable with sharing my feelings with my oldest sister, who used to be our protector from him. When things went left between her mom and our dad, she stopped coming over and it was a wrap for us. By that, I mean me, because I was the one he seemed to torture and hate the most.
Growing up with him was pure hell and I hated when my parents would leave to go to work because this was his opportunity to be the evil villain he embraced. I'm starting to cry just thinking about it. This wasn't your typical "big brother" bullying.
When no one was around, he enjoyed beating us or finding other mental manipulative strategies to make us fear him, and it worked. I can remember sitting at a table crying because he would purposely fix me everything he knew I didn't eat and threatened that if I didn't eat it, I would get beat. I remember crying trying to force myself to eat and jumping at any slight noise because I knew he was coming around the corner with his evil laugh.
I'd get beat from him, and then my mom would come home and whoop us all because he'd come up with some lie. My mom didn't want to believe that her oldest son was a lying sack of shit, so she did what most parents did back then—whooped us all.
One experience that I've never shared with anyone except my oldest sister just the other day, was the time he climbed on top of me and pinned my arms down in my bed. He didn't do anything sexual to me, but I knew it wasn't right that he was straddled on top of me holding my arms down, threatening he'd do something further to me if I made a sound because everyone was in the front living room. He stayed on top of me for about a minute or so, and I just laid there. Without my oldest sister coming over on the weekends, I felt helpless.
I endured every beating and evil act until my sister gave me inner courage to stand up for myself like she did.
I'll never forget the morning I took back my power. My best friend's mom used to pick me up for school, but this time they were running a little late. Well, that wasn't flying with my brother. He wanted me gone. He was adamant about making me catch the bus, which I hated doing because I'd get interrogated by the bus driver since I didn't ride frequently.
After I told him I wasn't riding the bus and went to the restroom to finish getting ready. While fixing my hair, I heard the restroom door fly open in anger. The way my brother looked at me still stings me in my stomach. He rushed in and grabbed me by my head, then started slinging me all around, but this time I made it my business to fight back. We were in there tussling.
I was losing the fight, but I was winning the war of not letting him hit me without defending myself. The last thing I remembered was him having me pinned down on the bathroom floor and me swinging wildly trying to get up until the car honked from outside. He got off of me, laughing with that evil laugh he'd do whenever he'd torture me.
I left my house that day house feeling empowered and stronger. No longer was I that weak little girl. Did the torture stop? No. But I fought back every time. It wasn't until he actually got locked up and sent away the first time that I could actually breathe and live freely in the house.
It finally felt like home without him there.
Unfortunately, that fear still reigns heavily inside of me. I'm terrified for him to get out. On top of him being evil growing up, he took it upon himself to begin worshipping the devil and getting demons tattooed on him while in prison. Who knows what he is capable of doing?
I know I shouldn't be scared of someone, but I can't help it. This is something that I am still working on trying to heal from, and it's not an easy thing when you have lied to yourself for years that you actually loved your brother. There was no way I could love someone who treated me so horribly. Funny, but my relationship with my brother is how all my relationships were.
I feel like I never had a chance of having healthy relationships with men because deep inside I expected to be treated like shit because I was used to it and continued to allow it because it seemed "normal."
It's true that your childhood reflects heavily in your adulthood.
Despite my true feelings for my brother, I don't want anything bad to happen to him. I pray for God to heal him internally because I hate seeing my mom beat herself inside about what she did wrong. I'm a mother, so I understand her pain.
I still don't want to see him and prefer him in there versus out here.
I will continue to pray that I can fully heal from all the damage he has caused me. At times, I feel robbed of experiencing the "big brother" relationship that I've heard so much about. He did evil and damaging things to me as a child that still haunt me as a woman.
I'm still healing from it all and asking the Lord to remove the hate that I had buried inside. I'm working on pushing through my trauma, and eventually my torturer will no longer have this hold over me.
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