It was nice that your other brother appologized to you that way.

I am not telling you to feel sorry or excuse your other brothers behavior and I hope that is not what you are taking away from my posts.

My older brother never appologized to me for his behavior, I have not spoken to him in years and he doesn't know I suffer from PTSD either. I know he has had years of therapy and is a born again Christian though.

My brother was a problem child, perhaps may have been on the autistic scale or Asbergers. It was not known then about these challenges and the answer was always dicipline. My older brother was constantly being hit/spanked and often taken out to a shed out back. He was severely bulled on the bus, he was constantly hit and diciplined by teachers too. He really struggled to learn too.

I really struggle with remembering my past and there is a big part of me that feels sorry for him because he was "abused constantly". And he took his frustration and anger out on me because I was smaller, younger and just "there".

What I can say is Children are being studied and they now know that children do not understand empathy. Children see themselves as the center of the universe and things around them are things/people they try to control somehow. Boys mature much slower than girls do, they are at least two years behind and can be more so if they are abused in some way. We also know that females are more emotionally intelligent then males are, which is why we often struggle with how our male counterparts "do not remember or feel the way females do".

I do not try to make "excuses" for others, but what I "do" do is I try to understand the "whys" as much as I can. I do know that some children block out abuse and do not remember, while other children, especially females remember more, especially if they had to constantly find ways to be safe somehow. And because children are the center of their own universe, often they are more aware of "their pain and challenges" then they are of others around them.

It has been very hard for me to look back on my childhood, which I do alot of in flashbacks, and with my adult mind, realize that I really did not have capacities to understand things when I was a child as I do now. It was extremely hard for me to open up and talk about my childhood in therapy too. My subconscious mind had a very strong set message that I should not "tell" or that "no one would understand or hear me" or that "I should have done more, known more, asked for help more" and it took me a long time to realize that I simply did not know how and I really believed that if I did tell, it would make "everything so much worse". I have never stopped feeling that way, and so I have never really told my parents everything. Like you, I feel it would only hurt them, I don't know, I feel deeply that I do not want something that hurt, to cause even more hurt. If you notice, see how you all still hide it from your mother? The worry, "did you tell mom?"

I am still working through it all myself, it is a challenge to sort through, yes I know.

OE