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...