My brother (28M) passed away and left me (26F) with a secret only the two of us knew about and no answers for what he did. It has been a year and I am more confused than ever

My brother (28M) passed away a year ago, and I loved him very much, and have admired him my entire life. His passing changed my life completely and hurt me more than I ever imagined losing someone would. I had never experienced the loss of someone I loved this much, and had no idea what it would be like to go through something like this. He was the star of the family, he had an amazing job, he was engaged, he had finished his masters and was soon going for his phd. He was the IT man. I've admired him ever since I could remember, he was 2 years older than me and I just grew up wanting to do everything he did. If he played a sport, I wanted to play that sport, if he went to a certain school, I wanted to go to that school when it was time for me to be in hs, I just always wanted to be as amazing as he was.

The problem with losing him so suddenly was that I've kept a secret to myself my whole life (I am 26 now). Something only him and I knew about but that was never ever brought up. When I was 11, and he was 13, he abused me. Not once, but 3 times. I was not allowed to watch anything with any type of sexual content or had my parents ever talk to me about precautions when it came to sexual behavior, so I had no idea what was going on and what he was doing or why he was doing what he was doing to me. It wasn't until I got a little older, that I understood what had happened to me and what he did. I just didn't understand why, I still don't understand why. It was never brought up, after those 3 times, he never did it again and we just kept on with our childhood like nothing had ever happened. Once I got older and understood what he did, I never brought it up to my mom because I knew she wouldn't have believed me or would have probably downgraded whatever happened, and not because she is a bad mom or didn't love me, but because I know in my heart that he is and always will be her favorite child and she would never want to admit that he would be capable of doing something like that. As we got older, he got meaner, and I couldn't understand why, because I loved him and I would make it known to him, how much I admired him and wanted to just be like him. I had somehow trained myself to completely block out what had happened.

The older we got, the shorter our conversations got, the colder his hellos were, even though we would only see eachother about once/twice a year due to him living in another state and him leaving to boarding school when he was about 15. The more time went by, the more resentful I got. It just did not make sense as to why he would act this way with me. I never said a word, I never asked him why he was cold or why he didn't really ever want to talk to me or just have a casual conversation with me to see how I was doing like siblings normally would. Sometimes he would be talkative, and whenever he was, I would get so happy but that was rare. Towards the end, I had a lot of resentment but I always kept it to myself. I always imagined that one day I would confront him about his behavior towards me, and ask if it was because in the back of his mind he felt like he needed to push me away because we both knew what he had done, but I never got the chance to. The last father's day he was still around for in 2019, he sent my dad a card, sending a message to all of us, and the message for me was "I miss you and I hope to see you soon to talk about whatever you want. Send me a text to talk, I miss you" and this was the first time he had ever said anything like this to me and I can't explain how happy my heart was to read this from him. The last message we ever exchanged was me congratulating him for his engagement, and him saying that I should come visit him and his fiance, and that truly made me the happiest, but we didn't talk after that. He passed away 2 months later. My heart couldn't handle all of it, I fell into a really bad depression for a while, I didn't go out unless it was for work, I didn't talk to my friends for months, I was just so broken I really couldn't handle all of my thoughts. There was so much I wanted to say to him that I never got the chance to, so many things I wanted to ask, so many things I wanted to do with him in life, and it was all taken from me. The truth was taken from me, a simple sorry was taken from me. Now I live everyday not knowing why, and know that I will never get an answer. I miss him so much, he was a great person, he really was, kind, smart, joyful, I just never understood why he wasn't all those things with me, but the last message he sent on father's day, makes me think that things could have changed if he didn't leave us. I know he loved me, he must have, I was his baby sister, but I never got to hear it, I never got to hear if he was sorry, and if the excuse I had made up in my head for him and the way he acted towards me was right.

Grieving has been extremely hard. For a long time, for some reason I blamed myself for what had happened thinking that maybe this resentment somehow manifested into the world, but I knew that was impossible. For some unknown reason, I felt so much guilt. I finally realized that it wasn't my fault, it was never my fault, but now that it has been a year, I am just left with all this pain and no answers. I forgave him, I love him and I will love him until the day I die, and I will keep this secret with me forever but with so many unanswered questions. My mom gives me a lot of shit all the time because she doesn't understand why I am not expressive when she cries about him or when people talk about him or why I don't cry around them. I can't do it, I always feel a tight knot in my throat when I'm about to break in front of my family, but I rather go cry in the bathroom before letting anyone see me cry about it. I don't exactly know why, but I don't share the same feelings of grief she does or that everyone else does and she does not understand that. I've thought about telling her what happened and why I feel the way I do, and maybe that will make her understand, but I can't do that to her, she is already suffering so much, and I can't do that to him, he is not here to defend himself and it just wouldn't be fair. I tried going to therapy for it and that was the second time I ever spoke about it with someone (first time was with my significant other) but it didn't help at all and I don't ever want to tell anyone else because I just can't do that to him.

How do I deal with this?

TL;DR - - I am just so confused and in so much pain and it's a pain I can't share or explain to anyone and it's eating me up inside. It doesn't let me grief or live in peace. I've prayed to him so many time to please just somehow come visit me in my dream and explain to me why, or just tell me that he did love me. In the 25 years we spent as siblings, I never got to hear it. I know he did, but did he actually if he never said it to me? I know it doesn't make sense but a lot of things just don't make sense. I don't know what I'm looking for, I am just so confused and I know I probably won't ever stop questioning myself, maybe someone on here can somehow help me figure all these emotions out, or maybe someone has lived through a similar situation? I don't know what I am looking for really, but I needed to let this out somewhere where no one will know who I am and won't judge me or him. I am not atall looking to speak badly about him, I just needed to finally write this out and let my emotions out because I am scared of falling into a bad depression again.

Submitted August 31, 2020 at 10:13AM by Truecrimexo https://ift.tt/2EB5SON