Multi-Faceted Healing Approach

One of the most unhelpful things I did in trying to heal was going to therapy.

I'm serious. Therapy did way more harm than good. 

There are several reasons why this was the case, and I won't go into them all. In general, though, I felt like my therapist's approach was not empowering, but blaming and shaming. He did not validate my feelings, but dismissed them. That is not therapy. And if a therapist out there reading this disagrees, then I say that should not be therapy. One of the purposes of therapy should be to make you feel better. If it's not making you feel better, but worse, why go?  

What I learned from my terrible therapist is that we are in charge of our own healing. We shouldn't be looking to some sort of outside source to make us feel better. We need to do that ourselves.

....But how do we do that?

There is no one way to heal our wounds. There are actually many, many ways to do that. In fact, healing most likely involves three or four or five or more different methods. And if you strongly feel that therapy is one of them for you, by all means, do that. Here is a list of ideas we can use for healing: 

1. Therapy - Yes, I put this first. Not because I agree with it, but because this is often the first one that comes to mind. I encourage you to try out therapy, but if you don't like your therapist, or if you don't think it's working, run out of that office as fast as you can. Don't waste your time with an idiot or an asshole. 

2. Friends - One of the most helpful things for me was expressing my feelings to an empathetic listener, a.k.a. my friend. If you have a friend in your life who is a really good listener, take full advantage of it. Getting your feelings out and having them validated helps TREMENDOUSLY in trying to heal your shit. This will take some courage from you and some vulnerability, but if you have a truly supportive friend in your life, it will be worth it. 

3. Creative Outlet - Writing. Drawing. Dancing. Music. Creativity is a method many people use to soothe their souls. If you are a creative person yourself, creating works of art can be a helpful way to get your feelings out. 

4. Physical Activity - If it doesn't accomplish anything else, physical activity at least gets you doing something, instead of just bouncing your hurt feelings inside your head. It's a great way to physically release the pent-up anger inside you. This is my go-to method when my own demons attack. 

5. Truth - Speak your truth to the people who need to hear it. Your parents who didn't protect you, your siblings who abused you, and other adult figures in your life who egged on the abuse, or at least didn't encourage it to stop. This is very scary, and may take weeks, months, years of preparation. But if you do it, even if it doesn't accomplish anything else, at least they've heard your side of the story. And that matters a lot. 

6. Punishment - There are many ways to punish a wrongdoer. I've mentioned before about how I'm not against giving the abusers a taste of their own medicine. There are other ways to punish them as well. Cutting them out of your life is one method. Do it temporarily or permanently. Send them a signal that you're holding them accountable for what they did. There will be consequences for this, yes, but I found that those consequences were worth the price of healing myself.

7. Forgiveness - I know you hate this word. And I still feel strongly that you should only forgive once you're ready to forgive. But if you reach a place (like I did) where you're like...."O.K. I might be ready to try experimenting with this whole 'letting go' thing," do it. It feels great. And I need to give you the standard "forgiveness lecture" (I'm sorry): Forgiveness doesn't mean saying what they did was right. It just means giving yourself a break, and not letting their toxicity damage you anymore. 

6. Let the World Punish Them - I saved this one for last, because it's the one you have no control over. I'm just putting it in here as something to keep in mind. In a few families, I noticed that the abusive sibling sort of had the world punish them. In one family I know of, a bully older sister saw the error of her ways when she moved to one of the meanest cities in America. Being around the constant hostility served her a great big piece of humble pie....and she was never mean again. There are many, many ways the world will humble us. And as big kids grow into adults, a lot of them receive this humbling. Just keep in mind that sometimes, things have a way of working themselves out, and all you have to do is sit back and watch (and enjoy). 

So those are just a few things to keep in mind, wherever you are in your journey. In general, do what feels right to you. You are the captain of your ship. And in time, you'll find healing.

What Has Helped Me Thus Far

For a long time now, I've struggled with an off-and-on depression and anger that continuously gnaws at me. I attribute this anger and depression partly to the abuse I experienced at the hands of my siblings and partly to the helplessness brought on by my parents' failure to protect me. Sometimes I feel resentful at the resentment itself because it took away a lot of the good parts of my life. I entered my late adolescence and young adulthood not as a joyous, carefree young person, but as a very angry and closed off woman who spent a lot of time being angry at the world, walking around wanting to kill someone. 

Sometimes I would ask myself if this angry cloud would ever lift and I would see the sun again. Because every once in a while I would ask myself, "What if I feel like this for the rest of my life? Will I just be this angry for good?" 

I'm finding more and more that the answer is no. 

Within the past few months, I've noticed some changes within me. I don't feel angry as frequently anymore. And while there are still times when I lock myself in my room and beat the shit out of my mattress, those times don't happen as often as they used to. I was thinking about this recently and asking myself why this is. So I sat down and thought about it and came up with a list of reasons why.

This is what I think has helped me:

Time and Distance: Just getting away from my siblings for a while helped to clear some smoke out of the skies. I'd heard that "time heals all wounds" and I didn't want to believe it, because I thought that nothing as simple as "time" should be allowed to pardon my siblings. But the thing is. . .it did. And I'm glad that it did. Distance as well. I think that distance even more so than time can help heal wounds. Moving out of the house and limiting my contact with my siblings erased some of the painful memories. Distance can also be emotional as well as geographical. I cut off relationships with the two guilty siblings and that was a signal to them that I was punishing them for what they did. 

Expressing my feelings--but not to the guilty parties--was also a big help. In my teen years I wasted my time with a dumbass therapist who told me that all I needed to do was stand up for myself and that would be it. I would make my siblings treat me respectfully and I would no longer be in pain. Bullshit. Looking back, I can see now that I shouldn't have pressured myself so much about "standing up" to the oppressors, because it wouldn't have done anything. But what would have helped me would have been talking to supportive people (not my therapist) about how I was feeling. Whenever my friends sympathetically listened to me and offered support and encouragement, I felt at least ten times lighter. I know someone who also went through a difficult time as a child, and she told me one of the most helpful things she did was just getting all her feelings out, and talking about it. 

Learning about others' experiences: When I heard others' stories about dealing with abusive siblings and parents who were no help, this also helped to lighten my load. Not in a Schadenfraude type of way, but in an "I'm not alone" type of way. Witnessing many different types of people who have gone through these experiences, I learned that I was not to blame for what happened. I also learned that other people were also shouldering big emotional burdens, and this perspective helped to lighten my load in a weird way. 

Empowering myself: Something that I have noticed over and over again: my anger goes away when my helplessness goes away. Whenever I was able to do something that put power back in my own hands, I felt a lot better. This isn't always possible, but when you can find something you can control, take advantage of it. For me, empowering myself meant accepting the fact that my parents and I weren't going to see eye-to-eye about me attending my sibling's wedding, and not to waste time getting angry over them. It meant trusting my own common sense and judgment when I heard an adult using the "it takes two to tango" line in a situation that very clearly involved a guilty party. It meant many different things to me, and I encourage you to find what empowering yourself means to you. 

Fighting back: The few times I did it, I did think that giving my siblings a taste of their own medicine was helpful to me. It reaffirmed that what they did was unacceptable when I saw their reactions. It got rid of some of my anger. And it educated them on why I was mad at them. You can choose whether or not you want to do this. Some mental health experts would say not to. But in my opinion, giving bullies a taste of their own medicine is not necessarily a bad idea.

This blog: Writing a blog is a unique experience. When I kept a diary and recorded my thoughts there, it didn't help me because I felt like I was internalizing my feelings even more. But with a blog I get to write my thoughts publicly, and share them with other people who have had similar experiences. I get to give an issue a public voice, and hopefully educate people a little bit more about this issue. I get to get a conversation going. I get to offer others a chance to share their own personal stories if they desire. This blog has been empowering and has been a public track record of my growth through dealing with this horrible trauma. And I hope learning about my experiences has been empowering for you as well.

I also would like to share with you some things that don't help, and they are:
-anything that makes you feel more helpless
-invalidation (from friends who judge your feelings)
-not expressing your feelings; keeping everything inside

I hope that in time, you will find peace and get rid of the horrible monsters still plaguing you. You deserve to be happy, and I can tell you that in time you will also find the clouds are lifting. 

My Story

To date, I have not yet shared my personal experience with you. A few snippets of "my story" have appeared in some of my other posts, but none of them have fully covered everything I went through. So brace yourself as I tell you all about how sibling abuse has affected me. (Fair warning: some of the following incidents may be triggering to some of you. I won't mind if you skip my story altogether and post your own in the comments below.)

So here goes. (deep breath)

I must first give you some family background. It is important to know that I come from a very large family. While I won't reveal the exact number, I will tell you that we're not quite Duggar-status, but we're enough to turn heads in public places. I am also not the very youngest child in my family, but I was still bullied by my two older siblings. They teased, taunted and tortured me with no mercy. The abuse was never physical or sexual in nature, but that doesn't mean it didn't traumatize me. To this day, I still feel angry whenever I remember what they did. 

After about a year of researching sibling abuse and bullying in general, I have come up with a couple of theories as to why it happened. One of the most important factors in my case was the fact that my parents were uninvolved. If you have not yet read my previous post on uninvolved parenting, I'll give you a brief synopsis of what it is. Parents who are uninvolved are parents who are essentially neglecting their children. They provide little supervision, interest, or involvement in their children's lives, and may not even adequately fulfill their children's needs. This was my family in a nutshell. 

My mother was constantly praised for parenting such a large family, and the other mothers would ask her in amazement how she "did it all." The fact was, she didn't do it all. She didn't even try to do it all. When I think back to my childhood, I think my mother thought that because it was impossible to give all of us the attention we needed, she didn't even have to try. Having a big family, to her, was an excuse to not try. And this lack of trying often meant neglect.

At my elementary school, we would gather outside in the courtyard every day for morning announcements before shuffling off to our classrooms. I remember being in second grade and freezing my ass off--because my mother never made sure I had a jacket on. I don't think I even had a jacket. I remember having a jacket at one point, a purple windbreaker, which was new (rare in my family), and which I wore religiously while it was still in my possession. But I lost it once, and my mom never found me a new one.

My clothes were all hand-me-downs (I honestly think that purple windbreaker was the single new piece of clothing I owned until at least middle school) and didn't fit me. I remember thinking, even as a young child, "When I grow up, my kids are going to have clothes that fit!" I was in high school before I had clothes that fit me. I went up to my mom one day early in my freshman year and told her, "Mom, all of my jeans are from fifth grade, we need to go shopping now." And we went. I still remember how good it felt, trying on pants in the store's dressing room. I was thinking to myself, "clothes that fit! Clothes that fit!" I was ecstatic.

Research has shown that my parents' style of uninvolvement will yield sibling emotional abuse in families. I believe that is exactly what caused the bullying in mine. Looking back, I think my two older sisters felt very insecure and dealt with these insecurities by taking them out on me (and later on, on my next younger siblings). One of my older sisters jumped at every opportunity to embarrass me. I was at a church potluck one day, and she, my mother and I were in line serving our plates. She gets to the beans, looks back at me, and says pretty loudly--and right in front of my mother--"Sybil, don't take any beans. They always make you fart." 

What did my mother say to this? Well first, she LAUGHED and then said, "Oh, guess who shares a room!" to the onlookers. This was a common theme with my parents: they never protected me, and never held the abusers accountable. If anything, they contributed to the bullying. Laughing about it was one of their favorite responses. (As well as saying "Stop fighting!" if I tried to stand up for myself.) 

As for my other older sibling, she was a different nutcase altogether. She was the very oldest in the family, and in addition to being mean, she was extremely self-centered. She knew how to get her way by forcefully bludgeoning others into bowing to her will. She twisted others into giving her what she wanted by using manipulation, humiliation and intimidation. Towards my teen years, I really started cutting her out of my life, and by the time I was in high school I hardly spoke to her at all. That didn't stop her from being mean to my younger siblings. 

Alex, one of my younger siblings, failed her driver's test the first time, and scheduled her next one a few months later. Alex's 17th birthday fell over winter break, when my oldest sister was home, and birthday traditions in our family always require an "interview session" of what has happened during the prior year in front of a camera. During her little interview, Alex said something along the lines of, "I'm taking my driver's test soon..." and then my oldest sibling interrupted and said, in her snarky way, "are you taking it or are you re-taking it?" I wanted to throttle her. 

All of this bullying affected me horribly in many different ways. The most horrible effect, I think, was the emotional damage inflicted upon me. In my teen years (which are never easy), I experienced the worst depression I believe I will ever experience in my life. It started when I was almost fifteen and continued until I was about nineteen, and was nothing short of awful. No, "awful" is not a strong enough word. To give you an impression of just how truly miserable those years were, let me tell you this: I calculated (okay, Googled) the hours there are in 3.5 years. It's about 30,681 hours. For me, that was 30,681 hours of either crying or holding back tears. I am not exaggerating. I think I cried myself to sleep almost every single night. 

And when the depression was over, the anger began. For about three years after the three awful years of depression, I walked around feeling very, very angry. Like wanting to kill people angry. I would clench my fists and bite the inside of my lips. I wanted to yell and scream at everyone, especially the people who abused me and the parents who didn't protect me.    

As I grew up, I really wanted to give my siblings a taste of their own medicine. And I did, just a little bit. My second oldest sister once made fun of me one Easter because of how I was wearing my hair. She said it made me look like a hooker. So, a few years later, when I caught her wearing her hair the same way, I went up to her and told her the exact same thing. "I love your hooker hair," I said. She looked at me sort of funny, and said, "This isn't hooker hair, it's just normal hair." I looked back at her and said, "Oh really? Because you thought mine was hooker hair whenever I wore my hair like that." It ended there, and I never again felt a pang of shame or anger when I wore that hairstyle. 

Another time, my oldest sister was making fun of the way my mom was driving (my mom is known for being a bit of a speed demon). Just a few days later, this same sister was driving equally badly, and I went up to her and said it to her face. "You're just as bad as Mom," I told her simply. It was as if I had slapped her. "What?!" she shouted. She looked extremely offended. "I'm better than you are!" she shouted at my retreating back as I walked away from her. This was further proof to me that my siblings really had crossed the line with their teasing, and my hatred of them was not just "super-sensitivity." I didn't even say anything that mean to you! I thought to myself, And you're blowing up at me! 

There were other problems that contributed to the abuse too, like my parents being in denial. Years later, in therapy, my father would admit, "You know, I've seen it, I've excused it, I've thought 'oh you know, a big family,' but no, no more." I felt a mixture of emotions after hearing that. I was glad my parents finally admitted that something was wrong. I was a little bit surprised to find out that they had known there was a problem. In my naive, childish mind I had thought that if my parents weren't saying anything about it, they didn't know it was going on. I felt validated. I knew that I wasn't going crazy after all, that other people had noticed there was a problem too. And I felt disappointed. All this time you knew there was a problem, and you didn't say anything about it, I thought to myself.

Today, I am picking up the pieces. My second oldest sister and I are slowly rebuilding our relationship. She apologized a few years ago, and has shown true remorse for what she did. Once on Facebook, Alex posted a selfie with the same hairstyle that my second oldest sister had made fun of me for. This sister wrote in a reply, "Alex, can you guess what that hairstyle has written all over it? _O_K_R!" In a comment below that, she posted, "Looker! (Not 'hooker!')." That's what's made me happy about that sibling. She has found different ways to apologize. 

My oldest sibling is a different story. She apologized...ish. But her actions never matched her words. Even after "apologizing," she continued to bully my siblings. I eventually decided that enough was enough. She has been unfriended and blocked on my Facebook for over a year, and I no longer speak to her. She will be getting married soon, and I have already told both her and my parents that I am not going to the wedding. I told her recently that I no longer trust her or love her, and that years of having been abused by her has made her lose a relationship with me. 

I started this blog in January of 2013 because I felt like this topic was in serious need of discussion. Many, many children are suffering at the hands of their brothers and sisters, and many, many parents are not doing a thing about it. I hope that in sharing my story I can shed some light on this issue and inspire you to share yours.

So what's your story? What has brought you to War on Sibling Abuse? Please comment below... 
          
  

A Taste of Their Own Medicine

The aftermath of sibling abuse can be very difficult indeed. There is not enough research out there to analyze all the long-lasting effects of having been traumatized by a relative. What can we do, as former victims, to support ourselves and give ourselves what we need so we can heal? Researchers have yet to find the answer to that question. However, some everyday folks think they have. For many former sibling abuse victims, a big part of the healing journey is growing up and giving their abuser a taste of their own medicine. In a process I call Attack Back, former victims march up to their oppressors and give them a nice dose of what they deserve. What does that accomplish? Quite a bit, actually. Here I have a few reasons why dishing back what your sibling dished out can have a positive effect, on both the abuser and the abused.    

A Release of Your Anger
One of the most immediate effects of Attacking Back (and also one of its driving forces) is the release of anger it provides the victim. One time, I was in my room, bubbling over with fury with memories of abuse. I decided to take matters into my own hands and write a nasty Facebook message on one of my siblings' walls. I knew there would be consequences (there were). I knew others would see her as the innocent victim (they did). But I'm glad I did it. Because the next day, I felt a huge relief. It was like all of my anger had disappeared. And it felt good. (A word of advice for anyone who has decided to Attack Back; for best results, try not to get third parties involved. It's better if there are no witnesses.) 

Providing Consequences
Even if Attacking Back accomplishes nothing else, it can provide the former victim with a sense of closure, that the aggressor has been punished. Something that has always bothered me about the concept of forgiveness is the lingering question of what happens to the aggressor. Do they get off scot-free? Especially if said aggressor is a family member, is it acceptable to carry on a relationship with this person by pretending nothing ever happened? Because that sounds more like denial than forgiveness to me. By providing consequences, the victim can take ownership of the relationship and give the aggressor an acceptable punishment for what he or she did.  

It Can Genuinely Be Helpful
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," says Gandhi. I beg to differ. In many life situations, not just with sibling abuse, I have seen positive consequences result from an aggressor receiving a taste of their own medicine. We all operate according to our own feelings. And part of the reason why survivors of emotional abuse develop a strong sense of empathy is because they understand how much it hurts to be picked on. In some families, I have seen aggressor siblings develop a true awareness of others' feelings once the victim-aggressor roles switched. Sometimes, it's not the sibling that provides this awareness, but the real world. Maybe it's moving to a rude city, or dealing with a jerk boss, but real-world consequences often open the eyes of a mean sibling who once thought that teasing was no big deal.    

Reaffirmation
One of the biggest reliefs for me when I started dishing back to my siblings what they had given to me was a sense that I had been right all along: what they had done to me had been wrong. You can easily convince yourself that you've just been "too sensitive" all these years. Teasing isn't that big of a deal, is it? Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. When I saw my siblings' reactions, I saw reflected back at me my own emotions: shock, embarrassment, rage. I honestly didn't say something that mean to you, I would think to myself, and now you are feeling the exact same emotions that I always felt whenever you did the same to me. I would walk away with a sense of satisfaction, even more confident that what I was fighting against was something worth the fight. 

Ridding Yourself of Fear and Shame
When siblings bully, the memories attached to the bullying stick to the emotional messages. For example, maybe your sister made fun of a way you styled your hair. From then on, whenever you saw that hairstyle or wore your hair that way, you couldn't shake the memory of your sister bullying you. Something very normal, like a hairstyle, provoked feelings of anger in you. Something very similar happened to me. When I grew up and saw my sister carrying the same fashion statement she had made fun of me for, I went up to her and gave her the same snarky comment she had given to me. She got angry, but I walked away feeling satisfied. Whenever I saw that hairstyle again, it was just....a hairstyle. The negative emotions were no longer attached. 

Rebuild Relationship
As weird as it sounds, when a sibling decides to take revenge on their oppressor, it's often the go-light for the rebuilding of their relationship. In most families I have observed, the aftermath of the Attack Back was of course ugly, but it also was the action that cleared the air between the siblings. To the former abuser, the attacks served as a message, that the abused knows what the abuser did and will make them pay for it. What's probably the best message from the entire experience is the overall, "we're even now," that each side feels after the formerly abused rises up. For many siblings, Attack Back bridged the gap between them. Both were able to move on.   

Now, if you are reading this post, here's the question that is at the back of your mind. The question some of you are trying your utmost to avoid. Actually, it's really two questions. The first one is this: Is it absolutely necessary that I do this? And the second is this: If I don't seek revenge, what does that make me?

I don't have the answers to those questions. I cannot tell you if giving your sibling a taste of their own medicine is something you should do. But what I promise not to do is lecture you with ridiculous bullshit like, "Don't be the aggressor. Choose the higher road." That advice has never been helpful. Someone who is bubbling over with anger should never be told to repress their feelings. But I have a few questions for you to ask yourself to better help you decide what you should do.

The first is this: Has your sibling expressed remorse in any way? Sometimes mean siblings see the light all on their own, and don't need any extra help from you. I didn't have to be a bully to one of my siblings who had already seen the light and found ways to apologize for what she did. 

The second is this: Are you prepared for the consequences? Because there will be consequences. Your sibling will get angry with you. This can be satisfying, but it can also be frustrating, because your sibling will claim innocent victimhood when they are definitely not an innocent victim. Other people in your life may get involved, and may also side against you. To outsiders who don't know your story, you look like the bad guy, and they will try to intervene and pick sides against you as well. 

The third is this: Am I making the right decision for myself? Am I doing it because it feels right, or because I feel like I need to copy what I saw in someone else's family? Is there another option that appeals more strongly to me?  

If, after answering all of those questions, you feel you should Attack Back, go for it. I wish you luck, and hope you get what you need from it. 

An eye for an eye might make the whole world blind, but turning the other cheek will eventually kill us all. Whatever path you choose, I hope it's one that does not ignore evil, but turns to it and fights it head on.    

It's No Big Deal...

One thing that many victims of sibling emotional abuse experience is denial. 

A large contributing factor to the perpetuation of sibling abuse is that the parents are in denial there's a problem. For parents, there are few things harder to bear than the fact that there's a serious problem in their family. It is far easier to bury their heads in the sand than to confront the fact that something is very wrong. After all, the abuse isn't happening to them. When they see one of their children bullying the other, they can tell themselves that the teasing is not a big deal. In fact, it's totally harmless. Even if the victim goes straight to the parents and tells them directly that their sibling is walking all over them, these complaints often fall on deaf ears. Parents who are in denial will often talk the victim out of their feelings, trying to force their own inward script into the mind of the victim. 

We all know that emotional abuse is a very big deal. This is apparent in the consequences of abuse. "Long-Term Effects of Sibling Abuse" is my most popular post so far, by far. Many people who have been abused emotionally experience serious long-term effects like low self-esteem, depression, rage, and learned helplessness. 

But let's forget about long-term effects for a minute. Something even simpler than psychological research waves a big red flag in my face that bullying is a very big deal. Have you ever noticed that it's always a big deal when the abuse is happening to the abuser? In many families where the victim has grown up to give the abuser a taste of their own medicine, they'll often find that the abuser is feeling the exact same way they did when they were the victim. In one family I know of, where the abused younger sister grew up to dish right back to her sister what had been done to her for years, I found an interesting reaction in the older one. During one of these incidents, the older sister threw back at the younger one, "You're so mean to me! You verbally abuse me!" Hmmmm I thought to myself. You didn't think it was that big a deal when you were doing the same to her. 

And it's also always a big deal when the abuse happens to the parents. One time, I remember my sibling saying something relatively minor to my mom. It was something along the lines of "Oh, great!" and then her going to her room and slamming the door. My mom didn't take it, asked my sister to come out, and told her not to speak to her disrespectfully.

It was devastating to me that my parents would stand up for themselves, but not for me. While abuse is devastating to the victim, denial has just as much of an impact. Denial may not be done out of malicious intentions, but it is malicious in its effects. Denial leads parents to not protect their children from harm. And similarly to abuse, denial leads to a lack of trust from child to parent. 

Someone once told me that, contrary to popular belief, it is not impossible to change others. But to change others you must change yourself. Parents who want to end the abuse in their families must first change themselves. Get out of denial. It's too dangerous in there.

One Simple Reason

What makes a sibling mean? 

I would be a bad blogger had I not researched that question myself. For quite a while, I have read psychologists' theories  and closely observed many families in order to find an answer. My own observations and experts' findings have revealed various risk factors. Uninvolved parents will develop a problem with sibling abuse. A very insecure child will often take it out on a sibling. The arrival of a new baby sibling will often cause an older sibling to feel threatened or jealous. He or she will want to harm the baby as a result, and this dynamic can continue throughout the relationship. Different personalities are more likely to feel threatened or jealous than others.

I'll explain all these more thoroughly later. I've seen these traits in many families struggling with sibling abuse, and believe all of them to be true. But something still doesn't sit right with me. I've seen cases where none of the aforementioned factors is present, yet one sibling is undeniably, unquestionably being mean to another. So what's the explanation behind this behavior? 

There's a very simple reason. It feels good. There is an intrinsic reward in being mean to someone. It makes you feel powerful. It strokes your ego. And if there is any pleasure in the world a human being most enjoys, it is having your ego stroked. 

The abusive child doesn't care that he's making his sibling "feel bad." He doesn't see it as a big deal. The bad feelings aren't happening to him, so why should he care? All he knows is that it's fun, it makes him feel powerful, and he gets away with it. It's similar to how people feel about junk food. They know on some level it's bad. But that knowledge stands no chance against yummy, fatty, sugary goodness. Especially if you never gain weight, there is nothing standing between you and that diabetes-on-a-stick dessert.    
The delusional ones aren't just the abusive siblings. Parents are often guilty as well. Because the disrespectful behavior isn't happening to them, they can lie to themselves about it. They can convince themselves that what they're seeing is "no big deal." This is another contributing factor to sibling abuse: The parents are in denial that there's a problem.   

Both you and I know that emotional abuse is a big deal. Mean siblings can eventually learn this. Getting a taste of their own medicine will often do the trick. One family I know of had a problem with the older sister bullying the younger brother. The sister grew up, moved out, and got a job in one of the rudest cities in the U.S. After living there for a year, her personality completely changed. She went from mean girl to girl-next-door. She became so much more caring, friendlier and nicer. And she never bullied her brother again.

That experience was exactly the rude awakening she needed. Being picked on made her realize: "Oh. This is how it feels when people are mean to you. This is why we don't insult people for the cheap thrill it gives us. My previous feelings were lying to me. Being mean always made me feel good. I never imagined that it feels this awful when someone is mean to you. So this is what they meant when they said to treat others the way you want to be treated. I guess I'll start doing that." And she shaped up.

Now this story has a happy ending, and you might be inspired by that. But a message to any parents out there: This process needs to happen earlier. Don't wait for your child to enlist in the military. Nip bullying in the bud at a young age. If you hope the mean sibling will just "grow out of it," you're letting the victim sibling be picked on for the duration of the mean sibling's time at home. Children are capable of shaping up much sooner.

Oh, and there's another warning I must give you. It turns out that junk food catches up with you too...