Perpetual Estrangement
"Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement."
Anne Elliot, Persuation by Jane Austen
I rereading Persuaion and also ruminating over my abusive childhood, adolescance, and early adulthood. The abuse I suffered at the hands of my family and the and the efforts my family has gone to in order to ensure my silence has lead to a perpetual estrangement between me and any close blood relation worthy of continuing a relationship.
I think of my cousin Brian, only a few years older than I am, and his early kindness and affection towards me. As we got older and suffered through our seperate abuses we drifted apart. Part of it was geography. Brian turned to drinking and drugs to ease his pain. I turned inward. Where I had once been a happy and gregarious child, I was now sullen and withdrawn.
The last meaningful conversation I had with Brian was on the occassion of a death in the family. My cousin-by-marriage (Brian's step-brother) was killed by a drunk driver. Brian said to me, "I don't know you, but I do know that you are very smart." How lamentable that 20 years had seen the dissolution of a close family bond with my favorite cousin.
I escaped from my family in 2014 and I have not seen or spoken to Brian since. I already know that my reputation within the family is destroyed. No one eached out to me when my grandmother died, when my godmother died, when my great-uncle died, when my aunt died. In many ways my relationship with Brian is already long dead, but I still fear the perpetual estrangement that will hit me as I go about claiming my inheritance.
My uncle, Brian's father, was my abuser during my early childhood. He was the first man to sexually asault me and to have me perform sexual acts with my younger cousin, Beth, for his pleasure. I required surgery before the age of 5 to correct the fistula from the sexual assault. He is the souce of my revulsion towards sex with both men and women.
I will have to speak to all of this as I hold my uncle accountable for stealing my inheritance which was to assure my safety and security in a world where I cannot opperate as a fully functional human being. I've tried to be a fully functional human being for the past 5 years and I am simply not, I have failed every time.
The likelyhood that during all of this I will cross paths with Brian again seems inevitable. I am not expecting a positive response to any suit for the accountability of my uncle withholding my 1/3rd Beneficiary Interest in Probate and Non-Probate assets. Much less a positive response to the public unveiling on my uncle's pedophila, which my family concealed and rendered me voiceless for 30 years.
It is going to be hard to see Brian again, perhaps even speak to him, and to know that we can never be cousins again. Maybe I'm wrong, but having hope is a danger I choose to avoid. I can only break so many times until the pieces become too small to glue back together, the cracks too large to mend.
Anne Elliot, Persuation by Jane Austen
I rereading Persuaion and also ruminating over my abusive childhood, adolescance, and early adulthood. The abuse I suffered at the hands of my family and the and the efforts my family has gone to in order to ensure my silence has lead to a perpetual estrangement between me and any close blood relation worthy of continuing a relationship.
I think of my cousin Brian, only a few years older than I am, and his early kindness and affection towards me. As we got older and suffered through our seperate abuses we drifted apart. Part of it was geography. Brian turned to drinking and drugs to ease his pain. I turned inward. Where I had once been a happy and gregarious child, I was now sullen and withdrawn.
The last meaningful conversation I had with Brian was on the occassion of a death in the family. My cousin-by-marriage (Brian's step-brother) was killed by a drunk driver. Brian said to me, "I don't know you, but I do know that you are very smart." How lamentable that 20 years had seen the dissolution of a close family bond with my favorite cousin.
I escaped from my family in 2014 and I have not seen or spoken to Brian since. I already know that my reputation within the family is destroyed. No one eached out to me when my grandmother died, when my godmother died, when my great-uncle died, when my aunt died. In many ways my relationship with Brian is already long dead, but I still fear the perpetual estrangement that will hit me as I go about claiming my inheritance.
My uncle, Brian's father, was my abuser during my early childhood. He was the first man to sexually asault me and to have me perform sexual acts with my younger cousin, Beth, for his pleasure. I required surgery before the age of 5 to correct the fistula from the sexual assault. He is the souce of my revulsion towards sex with both men and women.
I will have to speak to all of this as I hold my uncle accountable for stealing my inheritance which was to assure my safety and security in a world where I cannot opperate as a fully functional human being. I've tried to be a fully functional human being for the past 5 years and I am simply not, I have failed every time.
The likelyhood that during all of this I will cross paths with Brian again seems inevitable. I am not expecting a positive response to any suit for the accountability of my uncle withholding my 1/3rd Beneficiary Interest in Probate and Non-Probate assets. Much less a positive response to the public unveiling on my uncle's pedophila, which my family concealed and rendered me voiceless for 30 years.
It is going to be hard to see Brian again, perhaps even speak to him, and to know that we can never be cousins again. Maybe I'm wrong, but having hope is a danger I choose to avoid. I can only break so many times until the pieces become too small to glue back together, the cracks too large to mend.