Replies to '12/08 Extreme Follow-up'

Every time I hear Dr. Phil say, "You do have to forgive..." I feel like there is something wrong with me.  I can't forgive my brother.  I have paid a high price for standing up for what I believe in...the right to speak about the damage child sexual abuse has done to my life and my children's lives, and not feel like I am a monster for outing the family's dirty little secret.  Do I have some kind of moral flaw?  I have been thinking a lot about this for the last couple of months.  I tried imagining forgiving my abuser and I was able to do that even though I don't know who he is...I imagined forgiving my family for "paying me back" for putting my brother who sexually molested my son out of my life, by putting me out of their lives...and choosing sides...I would never have asked them to do that.  That was a little more difficult but I could imagine coming to an understanding of how they were unable to find a balance and felt like they had no choice but to choose sides even if it was out of anger and vengeance for bursting the "pretend" bubble my family lives in.  But when I try to imagine forgiving my brother for what he did to my son I am overcome with anger and rage and pain and I don't think I can ever forgive him...I don't want to be a bad person who is unable to forgive but the years of pain that I don't see ending anytime soon because of what he did keep me from coming to forgiveness.  The ripple effects are still strong and ongoing...I had a dream...I had a dream for me...for my kids...for my life...for their's ...for my family...my kids are my family and it is a broken family.  It changed me....it changed what I could have been ...it effectively destroyed "potential" in my life...I look around at the devastation in my life because of how I self-destructed for so many years because I hated myself and how that affected my children...the stigma my children carry and I hurt...my daughter was thinking of being a teacher and in the middle of writing an essay about why she wants to do that she came into my room and told me she's afraid if they find out about the history of child sexual abuse in our family they will wonder about her...I cried after she left.