Original Post: Mon. May 21, 2007
Saturday afternoon I had what I now consider the most important conversation of my life, in terms of my healing.

BACKGROUND
First, some background information. About 2 1/2 years ago, upon hearing that my uncle was suspected by my sister of sexually abusing his son by my sister, I broke down and called her and told her the truth. He sexually abused me from the time I was 8 years old until I was 12 years old. After that I called Children Protection Services where he lives and reported my sister’s suspitions as well as reporting my past experience with my uncle’s sick nature. I kept calling for the next year and got absolutely no where. They said that they looked into it but found no reason to do an actual investigation.

In my last conversation with them I told them that I’d filed a report against him on an National Online Sexual Assault Database that could be used by any prosecutor, detective, and or police official if he is ever reported in the future. From now on my report can be used as evidence of past reported abuse against him. They said that they made note of my statement but that they had no prior record of my calling (grrr). Even though I’d been calling them off and on for the past year. I still have my report confirmation request saved in my email, sent to me from the database staff on Apr 14, 2006, over a year ago.

I took the time to tell my little sister, twin brother, and uncle (brother of uncle who sexually abused me) because I felt that it wasn’t right to make a report of any kind with the rest of my family unaware. My uncle told me that he didn’t blame me for reporting his own brother. However, when I was 19 I broke down and told my Dad but his response was to call me a liar. I’ve never forgotten how that made me feel.

CONVERSATION I.
My twin brother called me Saturday afternoon after getting off the phone with our older sister who lives out of state. All that he would tell me was that I needed to call her because there was some information ‘I might be interested in knowing about’. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was. I couldn tell nothing was wrong but his urgency seemed strange, like he was hiding something.

So I called my sister. A few months ago I announced to my family that I was writing a book about my life growing up with them. They knew that this would eventually include probably some mention about my claims of being sexually abused by our uncle. My sister explained to me that my older brother called my uncle and confronted him about what I said he’d done to me.

His answer? Silence. He stayed silent for so long that my brother thought he’d hung up on him. My brother was very taken back by this. Why wasn’t he pleading his innocence? While he did deny his actions there was no emotion in his voice and there were long periods of silence. This is not what anyone was expecting, definitely not me as my sister explained it all to me. Now, finally, after 2 1/2 years they believed me? I got off the phone with my sister, explained to my boyfriend what had happened, and just sobbed as he held me. My tears were out of shear relief.

CONVERSATION II.
I called my older brother yesterday whom I hadn’t spoken to in almost 2 years, and I thanked him. Through my tears I explained to him how I’ve felt like I’ve been carry so much guilt and shame for so many years…now finally, its on him. My uncle now has to own it. I think that his silence is an indication that me must be feeling some amount of guilt. I’m glad. Not out of spite but out of some conscious knowing for how much he’s put me through.

“Its like it’s over now… its all on him,” I explained my brother.
“It is,” he told me.

CONCLUSION
I can’t begin to explain how huge this all is to me. To hear that my mother doesn’t want to talk to her brother. To hear that my brother told him that he doesn’t deserve his own son. I have the people that I was afraid to tell all these years because I was so afraid of their reaction now supporting me - not even because of my claims but through my abusers reaction when confronted? My God, I’m shaking just typing this. I stayed up until 4am Saturday night just journaling about it. I still can’t comprehend that, after all these years, its really over. After all these years I’ve been set free.