Monday, November 21, 2011

an email from my brother

Beck,

T** and J** still have to answer to me face to face when I get down there.  I don't mind confronting them without you giving me much to go on and cutting me off.  Mom has since confronted them with wild fury.  You wouldn't believe the way it went down since you clearly don't want to.

Regardless,  I'm writing my thoughts, feelings, analysis, and memories in the spirit of putting it all out there and I don't care what you say.  I don't care what you do. 

Your ultimatums, threats, and attempts to control what I do, think, and believe conjure up my clearest memories of how you treated me during my childhood.

The following is an accurate recounting of what you have told me since July starting with your memory of telling mom what happened. 

You told me that you remember telling mom and that she didn't know what to make of it, didn't handle it right, or didn't believe you.  From that you concluded, or rather decided that she did know and was therefore complicit.  I understand that you then blogged that she was complicit.  By 'complicit' you proceeded to speak and act as if she knew and was covering it up in a conspiratorial manner for which you did not cite any of your own memories to support.  Unless you think what you told me was enough to make that illogical leap.  Your anger, intensity, and focus on this narrative observably grew.  Then you told me about your subsequent memory that supported the narrative that you had committed to and invested in because you decided to despite the weak supposition. 

Then you and Johnny both tried to trap me into either saying that I think you are crazy or that you are right.  I did not fall into that trap.  I listened with an open mind and asked you both for your best argument.  I never argued with you.  I only asked that you give me good reasons to believe.  Johnny literally said that I should believe it because he feels it's true.  That was the best he had.  I value and appreciate his feelings but all that he and you have offered me fall hollow on their own merits. 

I do appreciate the horrors of what you are dealing with and I can.  No amount of your rage can change the truth that I have listened and remained with an open mind.  The truth is that I don't believe you are crazy.  I have not in my deepest darkest thoughts questioned your sanity nor in any conversation with you, Johnny, Mom, or Jess.  Rather I have admired and still admire your strength as you fight through this.  I remain supportive of that.  It doesn't mean I have to let you bully me or try to manipulate me. 

That is precisely what you and Johnny have attempted.  You have deliberately chosen to lie to yourselves and each other to push me into the camp of conspirators who, "say you are crazy."  You had to use a lie to do that because it is just not true.  This blind malicious bulldozing of me when you think I'm in your way rings clear from my childhood memories.  I can remember plenty of times when you cared more about hurting people than you cared about the truth. I recognize this, what you are doing now, because I have seen you do it before. I don't think that's who you really are but a way you came up to deal with things.

You are stronger than everything that happened to you.  I have faith that you will keep kicking ass and taking back what was taken from you.  

However, you literally took my words, changed them, twisted them, and acted according to a narrative you made up right in front of me.  It's like messing up a cheap magic trick and then getting mad at me for seeing through it. That's bullshit.  And it's malicious. 

I know horrible things happened to you and that it was mostly done by my biological predecessor.  Treating me like this has pushed me farther away from getting to the truth about what happened to you.  How can I know what to believe now?  How can I hang to my anger at T** and J**?  I have faith in your strength and I love you.  I cannot have faith in your words when you twist mine.  If you're for real, put this out there, on your blog.




1 comment:

Jen Surdam said...

I find this a little odd... The "facts" as this email records them, and the blog don't quite match up, as I recall them. Now, granted, I didn't go back and re-read the whole blog once I got to this point, and it's true that I also have dain bramage (lol), but I think, as I've been cramming all of this in my head over the past 2-3 days so far, I can probably remember an order to things that occurred.

Now, unless you can srsly fuck w time and you're that incredible a computer person, some of the timelines and some of the words, phrases, and "facts" just don't fit bt what this email says and what you've blogged...

Now, who's the crazy one?

No, I'm not gonna judge, it's actually not for me to do that, but I think it's funny--well, probably ironic, that I know a lot about what's going on, what went on back then (as I'm putting these pieces together), and I know all of these people, and it's also interesting how much I can tell who's wanting to get the truth out and who's wanting to hide it.

It's also kinda ironic who can remember what they've said in the past and who can't... This is all so sad to me, and it breaks my heart that your entire family cannot find a way to deal with this and heal, and you're left to find your own way through.

It also brings to mind what you mentioned in a previous post. Why is it that victims must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they've been victimized. Why is your word not enough? Why is it so hard for everyone who has eyes and ears to not SEE what's right in front of them? The pieces fucking fit--so damn well! Even before I began reading this, I tossed it around in my head and just thought, well, whaddaya know... Now a lot of things make so much sense...

It is people like this who either have something to hide, as I said before, or who have NO fucking clue what it's like and will NEVER, EVER understand. Screw them, I agree. I'm sorry it's your family.

It's true what they say when they say you can't pick your bio family, but you sure as hell can pick your REAL family. And I'm glad you've picked an awesome family. Forget your abusers, as hard as it is, and love the family you CHOSE. <3