It is an angry situation for me, more emotional than talking about my mother. The emotions are mixed, twisted and overwhelming so I don’t address it much. How can it be “easier” to talk about what the mother did as opposed to what the sister didn’t do? Somehow of all the losses it is the loss of her which seems the greatest. When I left that house I gained freedom but I left a sister I both love and hate.
I think what hurts the most is to have done everything in my power to make that girl like me yet she couldn’t. And I wonder had she shown a little bit of backbone would the mother have focused on me so much? If she thought there was a challenge in beating the sister into submission (which there was not) then would she have focused on me so much? I told Dr. D I realized that was horrible to say. I don’t remember his response. If I did your homework, fought kids off you who beat on you at school, if I gave you my rations when the mother put us on them, if I refused to hit you back and took other abuse from you then you at least owe me the decency of calling me by my right name. “Fat and Nasty” is not my name. This girl you continue to hate thought you hung the moon. What did I get in return? I have no mother. I have no sister. The mother I never needed but you, that grieves me. It grieves me. Is it that hard, really, to like a person?
Okay, I admit it, there was a morbid comfort in knowing it was you getting it instead of me because as long as you were crying out it meant I had more time to prepare for her. If it makes you feel any better, most times in flashbacks its your screaming I hear. I suppose out of guilt or maybe because the mother had me watch. I don’t know. My mind beats me up with your screaming and your terror. It skips around my head like a clown in a sadistic carnival. The kind of carnival with mirrors that distort true images. You never know which is the real you.
Instead of me coming to your rescue you should have been coming to mine. Instead of me helping you with your homework, making sure you got up for school when the mother skipped out for a few days, instead of me mothering you and playing “husband” for you it should have been you caring for your little sister. Okay……that’s not right. We were both kids who needed safety. I guess what upsets me is that it felt like I had so much on my shoulders. It felt like you didn’t even try to fight through. It felt like you gave in. This is where my true hatred for submission comes in. Oh it made me so angry to see you jumping up and down, screaming, mouth open, slobber coming from your mouth, eyes wide as hell in shock and fear. It use to make me so angry. But why would I be angry at you for what the mother did to you? I have no idea and that’s confusing to me. You could feel it. You were being tortured so why was I angry with you? Why am I angry with you for that? But it gets to me, it does.
When you ran from those kids at school it made me furious cause there you were again being a coward. You didn’t face anything at all. You smiled, you took pain, you smiled, you took pain and bucked nothing, rocked no boats what so ever. Now look where you’re at. You’re still at home with her. That pains me too because it seems all is lost for us ever having the chance to get to know one another.
Dr. D said usually adult siblings are an important part of each other’s lives. That one statement made my heart fall. The only part of my life you’re a part of is the nightmares and the realization that you just couldn’t find it in your heart to ……. to just not hate me. I’m sorry.
Maureen
Adult Siblings of Abuse
Thursday, February 28, 2008, 1:31 am EST
There is so much fall out from an abusive childhood . . . seems we never come to an end of digging through the rubble, searching for anything salvagable.
Your pain and anger comes through loud and clear in this post. You lost so much, my heart aches for all you’ve lost.
This may be no consolation, but I believe it’s possible your sister just didn’t have your inner strength. Perhaps her temperament was so different from yours that her method of handling abuse was to retreat, smile, take whatever was dished out. Your way was to fight back.
It reminds me of me and my stepsister. I pretty much went as deep inside myself as possible as my way of dealing with abuse. She was more outspoken, she was the one who stole from people, ran away from home countless times, had sex with boys in our backyard for all our neighbors to see. She couldn’t seem to contain her pain and anger, it was in your face all the time. I was so good at hiding mine, I wasn’t the problem child I was the one who did what she was told and was very responsible.
Sometimes I wish I could have reacted more, maybe not in the same ways my stepsister did, but at least not have buried everything so deep inside that today I can barely get to the feelings I know must be there.
Your sister too must be hurting. Even her seeming dislike of you could be a coping mechanism. Whatever the case, I hurt with you that you had this important relationship damaged beyond repair by one sadistic, selfish woman.
Beauty - when you read this reply please do realize it is a highly emotional response but not one in anger towards you or anything you said. I agree in some places then go on to explain where more confusing anger comes in.
I understand part of her way of handling the abuse was to absorb it. What I’m torn by is why she had the “strength” to hurt me. She was scared to death of the mother, as she should have been, as I was. Despite her knowing how humiliating it is to be sexually abused she still did this to me. So the conflict is, if you were in so much pain why would you be willing to inflict that kind of pain on me? And if you know what it feels like to be hurt sexually why would you be willing to do this to me? Why choose the person who treats you well to find a way to take back your power?
You’re right, my sister and I are made of two different things. She absorbed it. I bucked it or found a way to manage it or minimize it. I struggle with guilt because I’m angry at her responses to pain. I’ve come to know I can’t judge her response to abuse but I can figure out what it was that made me so angry about it. Why am I siding with the aggressor? Why am I siding with the mother by overlooking why the child was screaming and just at the fact that the child was screaming? I guess what I’m saying is that I understand she and I survived differently. What I don’t understand is why … how she could show such fear then turn around and put someone else through it. And I don’t understand why to this day she still lives with that woman.
J of A
Austin - do you think she understood what she was doing or simply doing what she had learned? I’m not at all making excuses for her but you say you want to understand and that might help. My sister and I coped very different. My sister got out, reported Toilet, pressed charges and never went back, never saw him, never spoke to him. I, on the other hand, never pressed charges, stayed at home, treated him like a father, had him walk me down the aisle at my wedding, and so forth. It too me SO SO much longer to realize what all was wrong and how bad it was.
Ironically I felt horribly guilty at not having protected my sister and would not get close to her because of it. I pushed her away. She, on the other hand, was very forgiving and didn’t hold a grudge. It took us a long time and lots of hard work to fet through things. I had a lot to learn about what was “normal” and to find the strength to move out and move on. Maybe your sister hasn’t found that strength yet.
I tend to agree with Enola. My husband and his brother are very much the same way. BIL took what was dished out without to much fighting back. He is the older one too. Husband was more or less somewhat protected, but the one who also hasn’t held a grudge.
I just threw a huge party for my Husband’s 60th birthday. I did invite his brother knowing full well that he probably wouldn’t come. But his rudness just infuriated me and I ended up telling him that I didn’t care what his problem was but that no matter what, he was not going to hurt either myself or his brother with his saddistic attitude. If he didn’t want to come, that was fine but he was going to be polite if it killed him. He did turn down the invite, but he was very polite when he did it.
This was the first contact I’d had with him in almost 15 years, so it wasn’t like I interfered with him to much. I spoke to him like a sister, telling him exactly what I thought. It was almost two weeks after that until he responded to my invite.
In all my life, when it came to abuse, I was and am very intolerant. But I also have no problem with telling people how it is and what they may and may not do to me or around me. I guess I’m the fighter.
There often seems to be this dynamic. One child will be submissive to the abusive parent, another will be a fighter. I can’t really explain why it happens this way. It’s also interesting that your soul coped by dividing into many personalities where hers stayed as one personality. Everyone deals with abuse in different ways. I’ve also never figured out why with abuse one person will become an abuser themselves but one from the same family will not. Or there will be one that is very successful and another that can’t seem to hold a job. It’s very mysterious.