I'm a 20-year-old boy from Delhi, and I need to talk about something. When I was 13, my older brother, who is four years my senior, sexually assaulted me. I was too young to know how to confide in anyone in my family, but he would blackmail me over trivial things, and I was terrified that if I told my father, he would blame me for the assault. This nightmare continued for about a year, until a property dispute between my father and his brother, my uncle, led them to separate from our joint family. As time passed, the sexual assault stopped, but now my past is haunting me. I have big aspirations, but I feel ashamed, and it's as if my brother's presence silences me. Whenever he speaks to me, my past flashes before my eyes. We used to communicate because we were once a close-knit family. Sometimes I feel like lashing out at him or exposing what I've gone through, but I don't think he'll feel remorse because of his ego, and I'll only end up feeling more ashamed.
I'm at a loss for what to do; please help me. I want to live my life. I feel weighed down, and I'll be eternally grateful if someone could assist me or offer guidance. Despite all this, I'm not doing badly in my career – I'm studying at one of India's top-tier universities and interning as a Red Team Operations Intern, where I help plan and execute comprehensive Red Team exercises, mimicking advanced persistent threats to test the organization's defenses.