Discovering Abuse in my Family

I was going to study longer but I knew that the camera I won on ebay was coming today and I had to pick up the package from our apartment office before 6pm. My parents were very smart and bought a video camera when I was about four years old, so I have footage of myself growing up. It's actually an amazing thing and it's something I would recommend any parent to. The only problem is that my dad loved to tape everything, so we have about a million tapes of my brothers and I doing nothing. No one watches them because there is a lot of "nothingness" and it takes awhile to sift though it to get something good. Also, the analog tapes that are now almost twenty years old are deteriorating and need to be digitized before they lose any more quality. Therefore, I bought this camera because it's the easiest way to digitize the analog tapes. When my parents come for my graduation, they will be bringing all the tapes so I can make DVD's for Christmas presents. It will be fun to do and fun to watch all the memories that we made throughout the years.

While my parents have most of the tapes we used, I have a few that I made. One is a movie I made for my seminary class and the other is footage I took at my last year of EFY (an LDS church camp). I was seventeen and I had my videocamera on during dinners, during devotionals, during dances, etc. People knew me as the "guy with the camera" (and now they would be jealous because they can never relive those memories and I can).

At EFY, there is a big dinner at the end of the week (it's supposed to be the highlight of the week). This year, my brother Russell went with me. Here's a screen capture of him:

Russell at EFY

At this moment, Russell is vitriolically saying, "I hate you Jesse!" I am laughing behind the camera and apoligizing to people on behalf of my family for how "weird" Russell is. As I watch this now, an overwhelming feeling of shame surrounds me. I try to turn off the tape but I force myself to watch it--I'm watching my brother being emotionally abused by me. Tears are falling down my cheeks as I watch the pain I am causing my brother. I can't stand it. I turn it off. I want to go back to that moment in time and yell at myself. I want to hit myself and protect my brother from this evil entity.

The question is sometimes asked if I have any regrets. I usually say no because everything I've done to this point has made me who I am, but when I say that it's always been a lie. I regret being physically and emotionally abusive to a little boy who I was supposed to love and protect as an older brother. Instead of protecting him, I hit him, kicked him, spit on him, told him he was fat, told him he was stupid, told him he was worthless, and did the kind of evil that only monsters are capable of. I never understood what I was doing to my brother. I never understood that I was shaping his self-image that he would have for the rest of his life.

Brothers are supposed to tease each other, but not in the way I did; I was cruel. I could put blame on the problems I was having (stuggling with being gay), but that does not cut it as an excuse. I can't justify what I've done to Russell. I've sinned against my brother, I've failed to be the older brother he deserved, and I can only ask for his forgiveness. If my brother Russell has emotional problems, it's my fault. I don't think victims of abuse ever forget what happenned to them, and now knowing I abused my brother, I will never forget it.

Today, my brother attends Brigham Young University and is extremely intelligent (much more intelligent than I am). He's an English major and has plans to be a writer (which is perfect for him). Russell is witty, sarcastic, and a great guy to hang out with. I enjoy being with him immensely and I always look forward to his trips to Salt Lake. I love him a lot and I look forward to the great things he will do.