Kat, thank you so much for writing this. It’s incredibly brave of you to share such a personal story. And reading it, for me, has been an eye-opener in a way I didn’t expect:

My brother and I both suffered at the hands of our father. His experience was very different than mine, but many episodes we shared just by the fact of the two of being there at the same time. A few years ago, I brought up these incidents to him; and he had no idea what I was talking about.

It had never even occurred to me that he wouldn’t remember, even though he’s 4 years younger than me and I probably could have figured it out. I left that conversation actually a little bit reassured: he had escaped. He hadn’t experienced the trauma like I had; he must be doing better than I thought.

A few months after that, he called me. He said that he knew I had told him about a couple of shared traumas from our past… but that he couldn’t remember them, even after I’d told him. “I must be blocking them all over again,” he said.

To know, however, that we can suffer from something we can’t even remember is an eye-opener. And I know my brother must be going through a lot of the same. It will help me be more compassionate and understanding with him moving forward — so, again, thank you for sharing your story.