, 14 min read
My Story of Sibling Abuse. I finally speak about my brother.
One of life's cruelest twists.
My brother's funeral
It was my brother's burial and funeral, and the day was so much harder than it had to be, because my family is not a safe place. But the brother, who died, was a good brother. He was my closest sibling for most of childhood, and he was always a good brother. He was my partner growing up, and we did most things together. So here I am, grieving him, a good brother, in the presence of another brother, who is and was my abuser for 10 years.
I say that no one can understand what it feels like to be abused and targeted every single day by someone unless you've experienced it. So I finally broke down at the end of this, this dynamic, this family dynamic, that has followed me my entire life, where they're aware of the abuse. They know that it happened, and they expect, they expect me to just forget about it, just move on, just let it go, just forgive him for 10 years of daily abuse.
My brother Josh
I want to say his name because he deserves to have his name spoken and for me to tell you publicly, to tell everyone what he did. His name is Josh. He's my older brother, and from about 8 to 17, when he moved out, 8 to 17 of my life, he bullied me. He was cruel and violent and sadistic. And sadistic is the perfect word because he took great pleasure. He was gleeful, filled with power, when he would violently dominate me and violently exert his control over me. When he would shove me to the ground or kick me, or punch me, or elbow me, when he would drag me across the floor, when he held a knife over my face, he relished this power. He loved it. He loved to abuse.
I remember myself being those ages now. I'm 26 now, and to imagine, to imagine what he put me through when I was just a little girl, like to imagine how much abuse he put through, put a little girl through who did nothing. He, now that I see him as an adult, I can tell that he's pathetic. I can tell that he has no concept, no sense of self. He gains all of his power and all of his sense of self and all of his self-worth from how much control he can exert over others or how much approval he can gain from others through manipulation, because that's what he does to other people. He manipulates other people into liking him. But nothing about him is genuine or good. Nothing about him is real. It's all either an act of manipulation or behind the scenes, straight-up abuse. He was weak. He, a weak man, and because of it, he bullied. He had to bully and abuse a young girl just to get his fix for the day.
All right, this brother, Josh, first when I was about seven, he started sexually abusing me. My brother, and he sexually abused me for two or three years until I was finally able to talk about it. And even when I brought it up to my dad, I was punished as well. I was always disgusted by him. I can't remember a single moment of my life where I liked him. I was disgusted by him through all these years. And when I finally spoke up about it and was able to get that to stop, that's when his physical and verbal abuse began, and that abuse stayed for about the next 10 years. He would target me when we were alone and no one was there to witness it, which was a lot because my mother was absent, and my father was absent. My brother would take my things to exert dominance. He would drag me out of rooms that I was in. He would take pleasure in controlling me in any way that he could, forcing me to leave rooms or kicking me out of the car that he was told to take us to school in. He had no problem being physically violent, yanking me, punching me, kicking me, dragging me. He would chase me, and if he caught me, beat me up. He chased me once for almost a mile in the middle of the night, and I had to sprint into the woods to get away from him. And then found out later that he had locked me out of the house. And he locked me out of the house at night for a good few hours, and it was cold, and I didn't have any warm clothes.
He would steal my things. He was selfish. The verbal abuse, he would call me a bitch. He would tell me daily to go kill myself. He would say everyone would be happier if you killed yourself. He would say nobody likes you, nobody cares about you. He call, he would call me ugly. He would make fun of me for having a period. He would call me like every derogatory word you can think of. But daily, every single minute of being near him, he would target me with either physical control, physical abuse, verbal abuse, verbal humiliation. He wanted to humiliate me in front of others, and that was his fix.
I honestly, I can't really say much else. There's so many stories, but another one was, when he was mad at me once. I was in bed, like almost asleep, and he came into my room in the pitch black and held a huge pocket knife over my face and just held it there for about 10 seconds. And I didn't know what he was going to do. I thought that he might actually do something, and then he left. That's what he liked to do.
But I'd say proof, the only proof that you need of his abuse is that it's been 9 years since I've seen him or spoken to him. He's been dead to me, and I'm literally shaking, shivering, and shaking and quivering, because of being in his presence, because of how much fury and anger I have towards him and how he affects my body because my body knows that anytime he's near, I'm in danger, physical danger. Like to imagine when I was a teenager, I was in constant daily fear of my safety, physical safety. I was being physically, violently attacked on the daily, and nobody stopped it. Nobody stopped it. My mom did not stop it. When when she found out about the sexual abuse, she said boys have urges and he couldn't help himself, and I need to be more understanding and learn to forgive him. I am reminded today that as much as I've tried with my family, with certain members of my family, to be good to them and to pour into them and to develop our relationship, I remember now, why there's this massive, massive, massive wall between us, and it's the fact that they support the man who abused a little innocent girl.
I did nothing to deserve any of what he put me through. He did it because he was weak and pathetic and needed his fix. And the entire family gives him so much love. And just watching, like today, burying the brother that was good to me, burying the one brother, saying goodbye to the brother who is kind and good, and to be left with the abuser and to try to hold it together, to not show any weakness in front of my abuser, to try to keep it together in front of my family who felt like enemies because they all support my abuser. And they judge the way that I act around my abuser. And then because of how much I hate him and the fact that I have not spoken to him in 9 years, more than 9 years, I have not spoken to him. Maybe 10 or 11 years, I stopped speaking to him. I won't look at him, and I won't allow him to look at me. I don't stay in the same room with him. I turn away from him because he doesn't have any right to look at me or be in my presence.
I get judged by my family for how I react around him, and they all think that I'm somehow a bad person because of how I ignore him. So yeah, that dynamic, I couldn't do it anymore. I just left.
He, he gave me panic attacks when I was around him. My nervous system is all out of whack, and I broke down. I was sobbing in the car, and I just remember, I remember that this is how I felt. This is how I felt every single day. This is how I felt every day growing up. I was being abused by him every day and crying and having these breakdowns every day, and no one was there. Nobody cared, and that's how it is today as well. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about what he did to me. Nobody cares, and that's the cruel joke is that abusers get to be happy. Watching him be so happy, watching him joking around and laughing and enjoying himself, and people, everyone surrounding him, laughing at his jokes. Watching everyone, who says that they love me, support and love the person who made my life hell for 10 years.
I can't. I can't be close to any of them. His abuse has affected my entire life. His abuse has gotten in the way of all of my family relationships because if people can support someone who did that to me, I can't be close to them. I can't, and that's something that you only understand if you've been abused like this.
He's now in the military. He's in the military, and I think that he chose the military because he needed another fix of power. He needed to be in a place of power. He needed to be in a place where people would honor him. That's all he seeks is power, control, and validation and honor from others, and he gets it. And that's what grinds my gears. That's what makes me so furious is that such a bad, horrible person can live a successful, happy life and be surrounded by people who laugh at his jokes, and he gets to spend today laughing and enjoying himself and enjoying his family relationships, and everyone believing that he's a good person, because he pretends to be one, and them looking at me like,
"What's your problem? What's wrong with you? You, why can't you just be normal? It's in the past."
Panic attacks
If it was in the past, why am I having a panic attack and a meltdown just because he's here? Why is my body tense and ready to fight him? Why am I ready to literally physically fight him because my body and nervous system remembered everything that he did to me? And there's so much more, so much more, and no one understands except for those who have been abused by a sibling, maybe even just those who have been abused by a brother. And thank God I joined those support groups because now I know that I'm not alone, and this happens. Abusers often get the support of the family. The family supports the abuser, and the victim of the abuse is cast out and treated as the problem. Anyway, his name is Josh, and I can't say enough bad about him.
I can't say enough bad about him. I can't wait to not see him again. I only am forced to see him at family gatherings once a year, once every couple of years, things like this, like funerals. I can't be away from him or weddings. When he's near, I can't smile. I can't laugh. I can't show any emotion. I'm emotionless in his presence, like a robot. I was completely, I was completely outside of myself. It just brings back so many memories of how I existed as a teenager. It brings back, it makes me understand so much of why I am the way I am. He, being with him daily, forced me to, to live outside of myself, to not even be present in my own body. That's the only way that I survived. And for the most part, I just took it. I just took his abuse. I just took it.
There was one time I did fight back when I was young, and I'm proud of myself for doing it. I'm proud, and I can tell, maybe this is the tiny glimmer, I can tell that I have outgrown him. I can tell that he is intimidated by me, and I can see that he is weak. I can see that he's a weak man, and that's why he did it. When you're young and when you're being abused, you kind of feel like they are powerful. You think that they have control over you, but when you grow up, you can see that they're so weak, and that's why they had to target you when you were a child. That's all. I wish there was justice. It's not true that bad people come to bad ends. Often, bad people thrive, and good people, like my brother, good people, like my good, kind brother, they have a bad end, and a hard life. Sometimes good people have a hard life, and bad people have a great life, and there's literally nothing that makes me more angry than that.
Bullying people
Now, whenever I see any bullying happen, I always stand up for the person. If I ever see a child being bullied or abused by a person who reminds me of my brother, I stand up for them and stop it. There's nothing that I hate more than bullies and weak people who target the truly vulnerable. I truly believe that there's nothing good in this person. I think he is bad through and through. I think he takes pleasure in pain. He took pleasure in my pain. He took pleasure when he would break me. He took pleasure in it. That's not just me assuming it. It's me knowing it because of how he reacted. He wanted me to suffer. He wanted me to cry. He wanted to break me. And guess what? I'm not broken. Apart from my family, I am thriving. Apart from this horrible family situation, I have a good life, despite my background, and I'm stronger, and I have a sense of self, and I know who I am, and I know that I'm a good person. I have an identity. I have integrity. I am a good person, and I have always, my entire life, treated other people well. I take care of bugs. If I see a bug that is suffering, I try to save the bug's life because that's how much I care about living beings. And my brother threw a nest of baby birds into a fire. That also says a lot about who he is. All right, somehow talking it out calmed me down, but I had a full-blown breakdown. And again, I had breakdowns like this every day of my teenage life because of him. And every day, the last 9 years of being away from him and not seeing him every day, I am grateful to be away from his abuse. And every day, I try to calm my nervous system from the havoc that he caused me, the absolute havoc of a nervous system constantly on alert of the next attack, the next actual violent physical attack.
It's still 9 years later. Still trying to calm my nervous system and let my nervous system know that it's safe. But being near him retraumatizes me, and it brings me back to where I was. And not only did I feel unsafe, like my body was prepared to be attacked, but I felt so much rage. And I can't, I can't tell you how much rage I feel. So much rage. It's this deep, deep rage because can you imagine the helplessness that you have when someone who's twice as big and twice as heavy and twice as strong is abusing you, and you're just taking it?
Fighting back
One time he shoved me to the floor, and I got up again because I'm strong. And then he shoved me to the floor, and then I got up again, and then he shoved me to the floor, and then I got up again. And this happened a few times, at least five times. Every time I would get up, he would shove me down. Then I finally attacked him, and I'm proud of that story. The only time that I ever fought back.
Honestly, that's another thing, is I'm proud of myself. I'm proud of myself for enduring it, just getting through it. I'm proud of myself for getting through it and being completely and totally alone with someone who didn't care. Like my mother knew of some of the abuse, and she did nothing, nothing, nothing. Because she's a mother, and she remembers when this person was her baby, and she views him as her baby. She didn't do anything for me. She didn't stand up for me. She didn't stop it. She didn't do anything. No one stood up for me, and I just took it.
I'm proud of myself that I was able to endure it for 10 years of my life, being targeted by my own personal bully who completely destroyed me for years, a lot of years. And he is the reason for most of the issues that I still struggle with because, of course, I struggle with a sense of worthlessness and unworthiness when that was happening and nobody stood up. But yeah, and I'm also proud of myself for how far I've come despite it. And even though today felt horrible, at least I can be away from him. I'm an adult, and I've created my own life and my own friendships, and I have a good life, and it's all in spite of him.
All right, that's it. That's it. There's something I just needed to say it. I just needed to get it out. This is the story that I've wanted to tell for my entire life, and one of the biggest reasons I haven't said it is because my mom and my family could disown me for this. Can you believe it? My family could disown me for saying that my brother abused me because they don't want me to tell anyone what happened. They want me to keep it quiet. They want me to shut up and move on and forgive him and be a happy little family where everyone is happy except for me.
All right, I'm not doing that, though. I'm speaking it. I'm speaking it, and I am posting this because this is exactly what they have stopped me from doing and forced me to do my, my entire life. This is exactly what this is, why abusers thrive. It's because people shove it under the rug, and nobody speaks it, and victims who do speak it are punished.
All right, that's it. I'm ending it here.