I have had a hard week.  As I said last week was the most intense therapy session I have ever had.  This week has brought even more challenges.  We received a notice that we were being foreclosed on by our condo association.  I also went and deposited my pay check in the bank and found that we were $400 in the hole. 

This last week, I struggled with my emotions and my religion.  As I have said, I am LDS, I am not ashamed of my religion.  Realistically, the feelings that I have had this week don't have anything to do with my religion, but of my relationship with my Heavenly Father.  I know that we have a Heavenly Father, and an elder brother, Jesus Christ.  They are clearly to me, two separate beings.  I have been told my entire life that the Lord (our Heavenly Father) doesn't give you more than you can handle.  But, I have also been told, and it is even in the scriptures that he will make our "burdens" become light.  Right now, I know Satan is having his way with me.  The emotions that I have... fear, anger, hate, and confusion, are all from Satan.  I cry a lot because I don't want to feel these emotions.  I have talked with my LDS Bishop this week about these feelings.  I was asked by my therapist to write a letter to my brother and express my feelings to him in writing.  I was asked by a therapist earlier to do this.  I really did my homework, but I have been trying to avoid these feelings, so my first letter to my brother I wrote him 6 pages and when I started getting angry, I quit.  So, when I talked with my Bishop about this letter, I felt almost as though I was asking for forgiveness  before actually expressing my feelings of anger, hate, and confusion.  He explained that I needed to separate the feelings for the act vs the feelings for my brother.  Because, yes, even Heavenly Father has anger towards unrighteous acts.  I told this to my therapist and bless her heart she said "yes, but Heavenly Father is a perfect being", and unfortunately, I am not.  My Bishop told me to just get the feelings out and we will deal with what comes next. 

As I wrote the letter, I felt every emotion that I have described.  Memories of not only the sexual abuse, but also the physical abuse came to the surface.  The fear that I lived in, the humiliation that I lived with, it was all there.  After I married, I had nothing to do with my brother, after he married, he had nothing to do with our family, so the occasions that we met we were acquaintances. 

My parents still know very little about the abuse.  At one point my Mother asked me about therapy.  I told her that I needed to work on forgiving my siblings.  She asked about my older sister (which truly was my mother's pride and joy, and we all knew it), I explained to my Mom that she made life difficult growing up when she became bulimic and then when she became promiscuous and then the drugs and alcohol.  All of those experiences did not just affect her, but affected our entire family.  She asked about my older brother.  I explained to her that he was mean, if our family had any bully it would have been him, she then turned to me and asked "well, do you think that he would ever be sorry for what he did?"  I remember that comment as it has played over and over in my head.  If she asked me that today, I have thought about what I would say.  The answer, would be "yes", he will have to go thru HELL to get there, but he will eventually be sorry for what he did.  No one in my family addresses anything that my older brother did.  I know that I was not the only child he physically abused, I pray I was the only child he sexually abused. 

I wrote my letter as requested by my therapist as well as my Bishop.  I stopped before I could finish, so my homework this week is to finish.  I stopped when it started getting to the point where I began mentally trying to figure out my role in all of this.