It's been a year . . .

It's been a year since I told my parents I was molested by my brother when I was a little girl.

So much has transpired in that time. My life has changed completely. The world I had anchored myself to, the foundation I had build myself upon, the very ME I thought I was - all have turned upside down in the past year. I have had to completely redefine myself and my world. I have had to find out what matters to me all over again, to rediscover the people in my life who actually care about who I am inside, and to find that my path to God was waiting for me all that time.

I found that the family I grew up in, including my own parents, were willing to sacrifice me and my happiness in order to preserve the fragile facade of 'normalcy' they choose to cling to. There is a natural plucking order in every family. In my family, I fell into the position of scapegoat. My brother Tom held that sorry role before I did, and after he committed suicide, they placed it upon my head. When I broke the code of silence, as Tom did, I was driven out and beaten to a bloody pulp.

Over the years, we did the same thing to my sister Kathy, albeit by degrees. I don't know how she put up with it. Although I was pretty much clueless about what went on with Tom, I was not innocent of what went on with Kathy. Of that, I am very, very sorry. I know how it all feels now to be on the receiving end of such cruelty and torment. Kathy is a better and stronger person than I am. After just a few months of such treatment from my family, I tried to kill myself, twice. I wanted to die. I just wanted to curl up and cease to exist. Even now I can still feel the sting of pain that comes to me when I think of those months of absolute darkness and despair that I spiraled into when my family cast me out.

I remember going through the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - over and over. I'm still going through them over and over again. I keep wondering if the cycle will ever end. I keep wondering if I will ever heal, will ever be a functional person again. Will I ever come to a point in my life where I won't feel like I have an 8-inch across shotgun blast-type hole going all the way through me where my heart should be? The truth is that I just don't know the answers to those questions. No one can really answer them for me.

After a year of betrayal and heartache, and time to heal, how do I feel?

Some days are good, and some days are bad.

That's really the best I can do.

I called and yelled at my parents a few weeks ago. I told them I hated them and wished they were dead. Our dog had died, and my 9 year old son was having nightmares of loss and abandonment, and they included his grandparents, of course. How could they not? I was so angry with my parents for their blatant disregard for their grandchildren! I told them so. If they had died, it would be easier for my kids than to have them just decide my child molester brother is more important than they are. How sick is that, anyway? So, on that day I just happened to wish my parents were dead. I confess I think it would be easier for me too. It would somehow be easier for me to forgive them once they were dead, than to have them living each day over and over, choosing not to care about the fact that they had betrayed me so horribly. Every day they live is another day they choose not to care about me. At least if they died, I know they would have to face the truth, and know that my brother actually did rape me when I was a little girl, and that I am not a liar.

I am not now a liar, nor have I ever been. I am not mistaken. My memory is not inaccurate or flawed in any way. My brother, Fredrick William Cobabe, Jr., sexually molested me. This would have been probably in 1977 or 1978. He is the oldest in our family, and I am the youngest - he is 21 years older than I am. At the time I would have been 6 or 7, and he would have been 27 or 28. He was married and had children then, and worked for my father. Because he worked in the family business, which was operated out of our home, he was around on a regular basis. He and my other brothers, who also worked in the family business, came home for lunch with our dad quite often. He previously had a criminal record as a sex offender in the State of California, and continued to have one after the time he raped me. Later, he moved to Utah where he continued his criminal career as a sex offender. He has always demonstrated a blatant disregard, and almost a disconnect from reality, when it comes to the welfare of family, where his sex offenses come to bear. Although I'm not an expert, I believe this is fairly typical of a truly criminal sexual addict. They just see no harm in what they inflict upon their victims.

This type of behavior seems to have been around in my father's family for at least a couple of generations. I have uncles who have had similar "problems". What do you do with that? In that past, it has always been a subject that has been swept under the rug. And, hey - that's what my parents have tried to do!

Frankly, that just makes me sick. How many other children did my brother molest?

But really, let's just sweep it under the rug, like the Catholic church.

But I digress . . .

It's been a year . . .

Am I better? Am I worse?

I'm seeing my therapist far less. I'm hardly seeing her at all, actually. I'm not a total train wreck anymore. (Between you and me, sometimes I feel like one - like now, for instance. This little moment of retrospect hasn't been altogether healthy, I don't think.) But really, for the most part, I'm seeing more silver lining than rainy day.

I do have a really incredible family. It just consists of my husband and children. That's all - no parents or siblings. Nobody else gets in. Maybe I have some friends. But I love my husband and kids so much. They are my treasures. Man, I just love them so much.

I've learned a lot about myself and I've grown about 40 feet tall. We had to build a separate doorway just so I could get in our house! I couldn't even duck to get in the front door, I grew so tall! Really, though, I'm not so sure about strength or anything. Sometimes I think I might still buckle under the weight, but I've really gained perspective. I don't find myself capable of judging too many people, having been in the gutter for so blasted long, personally.

And most importantly, I really just love my Savior. I just can't really talk about it here, because I can't put that kind of feeling into the right kind of words, I guess. Not right now. Not in this post. It wouldn't be right. Sometime soon, though. Just let me say that without his light, I would not be alive anymore.

So, a year. It hasn't been easy, and it hasn't been fun. I can't even say it has been really good. It has just been a year, and I've gotten through it.

On to the next. Man, I hope it gets easier.