I was fourteen when I was called into the counselors office at school to discuss an earlier statement that I had made. "Everyone hates me, I should just kill myself" I said to my friends as a teacher walked by. Despite that I was joking at the time and didn't actually feel that way, meeting with the counselor changed my life in a drastic way. After questions like "how is your home life?", "what is your relationship with your family like?", I slowly began to process and reflect on my fourteen years of life. Leaving her office, I felt heavy. I wasn't sure why I was feeling so down after talking about my family. I loved my family. Over the next few months, I began to experience depression for the first time. I felt lower than I ever had. I could barely get out of bed, I didn't enjoy time with my friends, and I was fighting with my mom and sister a lot. Eventually, I came to realize that the dynamics of my relationship with my brother were quite a bit different than other peoples. I feel like I was aware that I had a special relationship with him, but it didn't seem to be as inappropriate at the time. Regardless of my feelings, I knew that I had a big secret that I had carried my whole life. Deciding to share this secret was not going to come easy. I knew that I wanted the secret to be out, people to know what was happening, and to know that everything was going to be okay. This was when I decided to write it down on a piece of paper to give to one of my teachers who I felt close to. I attempted to do that, but I just didn't feel safe. A few weeks later, my brother started to text me inappropriate messages, which was not out of the ordinary. I remember just feeling awful after getting those messages. Later in the week, I was with a couple of friends in a class when they asked to play on my phone. I handed it to them unlocked and they scrolled around and looked at a few pictures. Then they pulled up my messages. I think at this point, I felt like this would be an opportunity to tell someone. Before I could say or do anything, they had the messages pulled up and them questioning me if that was my brother. I told them that it was and that it was normal and fine and to just not worry about it. They, of course, did not listen. We were in the last class of the day, so when the bell rang, they had plenty of uninterrupted time to talk with our teacher. At first, my friend nudged me to tell my teacher what had been going on, but I didn't even have the words. I had no idea what to say or call it. This was my normal. As far back as I can remember, this was the way that I had lived, so I didn't necessarily know what to even tell my teacher. My friend eventually told my teacher that my brother had been molesting me. In that moment, everything changed and unfortunately, worsened. Since school was out for the day and my teacher was unsure of what the next steps should be, she sent me home for the night and told me we would meet the next morning to talk more about it. I went home that night and knew that I had, what felt like, ruined my entire family. Even though my family didn't know that I had told someone, or even that it was happening, I felt like they were going to hate me. How could I split up the family like that? I laid in my pitch black room and listened to sad music all evening. The next morning during my first class, the teacher that I had told, came to get me out of class to talk. She told me that she spoke with the counselor and was going to have to report it. I immediately broke down because everything that I was scared of happening the night before, was now going to happen. I spent the rest of the school day in a pretty intense emotional state. My other teachers were confused and concerned with what was going on. As the day went on, nothing happened until my last class of the day. All of a sudden, I got called into the office where I was greeted by an {~State~} Police investigator. She met with me in the conference room, set a tape recorder on the table, and told me to tell her everything that had happened. I was terrified!!! I immediately said "nothing happened, everything is okay". She did not like that answer. She seemed to be getting irritated that I wouldn't disclose what had happened to me. How could she be so mad? This was my story. My life to share with who I wanted, and here this random lady making me feel bad about something that I didn't even want her to know. I ended up disclosing a few minor things, but definitely not more than that. Unfortunately, it was enough for her to call my mom and have her meet us at DHS. My sister picked me up from school that day and drove us to DHS where we would meet our mom and the investigator. During the car ride, my sister questioned me on what was going on. She was confused why my mom wasn't picking me up and why we were meeting at a random office in town. When I told her about my brother, she got mad. She started punching the steering wheel and yelled "I have spent so long trying to forget everything that happened and here you are bringing it all back up". This was no surprise as my sister had been through a similar experience when we were younger. Sadly, the way my family treated my sister after her disclosure terrified me. They never believed her and painted her to be an outcast in the family. This was heartbreaking to watch as a ten year old who knew that her sister was telling the truth because it had happened to us together. But how was I supposed to speak up when no one believed her? I understand why she was frustrated that I told someone about our brother. It would be hard to revisit every traumatic memory that our family has caused us. However, this is something that she has apologized for since. Once we got to DHS, my mom and the investigator were already in a back room. They told my sister and I to wait in the waiting room for them. It felt like a lifetime sitting in that room. My stomach was in knots and I was so anxious that everything was shaking. The investigator finally came out to bring my sister and I back to the room with my mom and her. Once I got into the room, the investigator asked me to show my mom the texts. That was not something that I had even thought about. I felt like my mom did not need to see the messages. They were embarrassing for me. I felt like I was in on this big secret and my brother couldn't be the only one to blame, and as soon as my mother read them, I felt validated in those feelings. She got mad. She started raising her voice, almost yelling, at the investigator saying "you don't know my son or my family, you cant tell me about my family"...etc. I just shrunk. From that moment forward, I have learned to make myself feel small or hide in vulnerability. I learned that shrinking yourself down helps with pain and humiliation. I also learned that maybe I'm not deserving enough to speak my truth and maybe I don't deserve to live without pain. Looking back, that is mostly all that I remember from the initial encounter with the investigator. I do remember us all getting into our cars and leaving to go home. My mom gave me a hug in the parking lot and I just remember it feeling inauthentic. I felt like she was mad at me. I just blew up her entire world. How could she not be mad at me? We have never talked about that exact moment ever since, but I still believe to this day that she was mad. The next day I was required to go to a Children's Advocacy Center (CAC), where I would complete a forensic interview. This was horrific. From the time we walked into the CAC, I felt uncomfortable and scared. Honestly, no one there made me feel any better. The investigator was supposed to be there, but was not able to make it, so I remember speaking with her on the phone away from my mom. She told me to be honest in my interview and tell them everything so that they could help me. I was just confused. Help me with what? You couldn't possibly help me with any of the things that I was struggling with at the time. This was also contrary to what my mom had been telling me. My mom had asked me to not to share anything with them and made it clear that if I told them anything, my brother would get into trouble. That was so scary as a fourteen year old. No one wants to send their sibling to jail, but especially at fourteen? I don't remember the interview as much as I used to, but I do remember feeling uncomfortable and somewhat taken advantage of. They weren't completely truthful about the cameras that were recording the whole thing, exactly what was going on, or what would happen next. Once the interview was finished and we left, we went shopping, like everything was normal. This was my moms favorite coping skill. Spring break was the next week and we actually had a big family trip planned to go see my brother, who was living in a different state at the time. We followed through with our trip and drove to see my brother. I was freaking out. I remember getting to the hotel and everyone just felt weird. You could feel the uncomfortability in the room. We got there late so we just ate dinner and went to bed. The next day, we all went to the zoo and spent the day laughing and hanging out as a family. I remember feeling heavy and like something bad was about to happen. I was just waiting for the ball to drop. Later that night we had dinner at the hotel in our rooms and hung out for a bit. It was pretty obvious that something was going on with my mom. My brother questioned her, but she wouldn't say much. My brother and his girlfriend eventually left to go back to their house. Not long after their departure, my mom and step dad followed behind them. My brother didn't know that they were going to show up their house later that night. My parents pulled up to his house and had him meet them in their car. They wanted to shield his girlfriend from these allegations that could ruin his life. Obviously I was not there when this happened, but my mom and step dad told me how everything played out. They said he got in the car and was confused as to why they showed up unannounced like that. They broke the news to him about everything that happened and they reported that he started to cry and admitted to them that he had messed up. I am assuming my mom told him about the messages because when my sister disclosed about him when we were younger, he denied every bit. I think he only admitted it this time because he knew the messages were there and he couldn't really deny those. We spent a few more days there, but I did not see him again. My oldest sister, mom, and I drove to my sisters house a few hours away, while my step dad and other sister went back to our house. I skipped the next week of school after spring break and spent it with my sister and mom at her house. I remember my sister letting me drink and of course my mom didn't know. I ended up getting so drunk that I told my mom about how I knew I had messed up and I was so scared that I had ruined everything. I eventually started throwing up so it didn't take long for my mom to catch on. The next day I remember sitting out by the pool and my mom came out to talk to me. She asked me a question, but in more a incentuating way than an actual question. She said "I mean you want us to save your brother and make sure nothing happens, right?". Of course I didn't want anything to happen because I didn't want everyone to blame me for sending my brother to jail. So I agreed with her. My mom then found a lawyer for my brother and hired him. I remember having to go meet with the lawyer before we finally drove back home after our two week "vacation". I had to defend my brother to the lawyer. I felt like I was the one in trouble. He told my mom and I that we needed to destroy any evidence (the text messages) that we had. I tried deleting them off of my phone, but for some crazy reason, my phone at the time was not letting me delete messages. I would try and they would pop right back up. I assume a glitch in the cloud. That was when my mom came to the determination that she would buy me a new phone and I needed to throw mine in the lake. So that is what I did. I threw my phone in the lake to destroy the evidence of what my brother had done. And that was it. I never heard more from the investigators, the CAC, or any law enforcement. I remember my mom telling me that the case was transferred to another state, but that was the last thing I heard. As time went on, things were rough. I was silently battling PTSD, having flashbacks constantly, always suicidal, and seeking drugs to numb the pain that my family left me with. Two years later, I was now sixteen and my brother was twenty five. I was staying at my dads house for a couple weeks during the summer. It was the fourth of July and my dad was having a family get together. Of course my brother and his girlfriend were there. During the day I had worn a plain black swimsuit. Later that evening when we went night swimming, I wore a different swimsuit because my other was still wet. The new one was cheetah print. After we swam that night and everyone went home, my brother sent me a snapchat. I already knew what it was about before I opened it. He eased into it, but eventually asked me to send him nude pictures. He made comments like "I liked the cheetah swimsuit the best, it was so sexy". What he didn't know was that I was secretly screenshotting each snapchat. I never did anything with them or had intentions to, but I liked to look at them when I was feeling sad. I think because it made me even sadder, which felt good. I deserved to be sad. A few days later, my sister was asleep in her room and my dad and step mom were at work. I was sitting in the living room by myself watching tv when I heard my brothers truck pulling up in the driveway. I immediately started sweating. Nothing had happened other than the previous snapchats in two years, surely nothing will happen now, I thought. I was wrong. My brother walked into my dads house and asked where everyone was. Once he realized that my parents weren't home and my sister was asleep, he knew he had an opportunity. He picked up a short metal pole and begin to poke at me with it. He tried to poke my vagina and was messing with my boobs. He sat next to me on the couch and asked me to give him a kiss. I froze. I just kept repeating "no". He followed each no with a "why". Each time the only thing that I could get to come out of my mouth was "because". He wouldn't stop. I didn't know how to make it stop. I didn't know how I was going to get out of this situation and I couldn't believe this was even happening again. It was my oldest sisters birthday and we had dinner plans with the whole family. I was going to have to see him again that night. I couldn't be mean and make things weird. Once he realized that I wasn't going to do anything with him, he told me that if I flashed him, he would leave. I believed him, so I did. Then he said "that wasn't long enough, I barely even saw them". I sat there, frozen, in disbelief that this was actually happening. I just wanted him to leave. I flashed him again, for longer this time, and he finally grabbed what he came for and left. I burst into tears the moment he walked out of the door. I was in shock. I got into the shower and sat in the tub and cried for thirty minutes. Then I got out of the shower, woke up my sister to get ready for dinner, got ready, and left for dinner. I sat with my family, including my brother, like nothing had happened earlier that day. I didn't tell anyone about this for a long time. I started taking my moms hydrocodone in her medicine cabinet not long after it happened. I loved it. It made the pain from my family bearable. I was able to make it through the day with those pills. Eventually my mom realized that I had been taking her pills and confronted me about it. That was when I told her about what happened that week at my dads house. She was upset and somewhat mad that I hadn't told her sooner. But why would I? I had already seen what had happened when I did tell her about those things. This pattern continued until I was eighteen. I was constantly trying to find drugs to cope with all the pain that I had gone through. Not long after I graduated high school, I lost one of my favorite jobs because I was using drugs. That was when I decided to go to rehab to get help, and that was exactly when my healing journey began. I am now twenty three years old and have been on this journey for five years. Healing from a childhood full of trauma has not been an easy path. It has taken vulnerability, trust, and strength to be where I am now. This is a wavering journey that I will be on my whole life. I am grateful for the people who have helped me to get where I am now because without them, I wouldn't be here. While I have a ways to go, I am proud of myself and how hard I have fought for the life that I live now. I am also grateful to all the amazing women who have shared their stories with me along the way that helped me to embrace my own. We can get through hard things together... #metoo