Sibling abuse by a sister (What Katie did)

I'm still working on my impending post about what happened at therapy this week... I feel I need to get this off my chest though...

A few days ago I asked my sister, Katie how to sharpen knives: just one of the many useful things I never got round to learning despite being a straight A (or A* to be precise) student. I was scraping the knife on the sharpener but not really getting the hang of it so she put her hands over mine to show me the sweeping movement as it should be. 

That's the end of the story about what happened. 

The knife didn't slip and cut me. I didn't accidentally stab anyone. Nobody got hurt. 

But that moment when she put her hands on mine was the reason my hands felt like they were burning for what seemed like hours afterwards and caused me to want to furiously scrub them clean with soap and hot water. That moment is the reason I have been having horrible, horrible nightmares and flashbacks for two days since.

Growing up with Katie as a sister was not a lot of fun. As she was the closest in age to me, we were together all of the time. We were both on the receiving end of my father's anger and issues, we also both had two other older sisters who received the brunt of my father's anger and issues and in turn took their anger and issues out on us. You'd think having those two things in common might have meant we would be closer and look out for each other; but my sister Katie, had one thing I didn't have. She had a younger sister who she could in turn take out her anger and issues on (and she had a lot to get rid of). 

Given that we were together all of the time and our other sister's were a little bit older, it meant I was the handy target for all of her abuse. We shared a bedroom and went to school together; there was never a minutes rest from her. My sister psychologically abused me. Every word she spoke to me from I was five years old onwards was full of spite, hatred, bitterness... designed to cut me and make me feel bad. It's hard to imagine how a child could successfully psychologically affect another child; you'd think a child would not be affected by hurtful words from another child... but I was and still am. 

What is harder still to understand is the other way in which my sister abused me. I can't say it in words but you will know what I mean as you read. I have struggled for a long time with thinking that this couldn't have been abuse if it was done by a child and by another girl at that. I still struggle with this concept. I've felt guilty for feeling so affected by the things that happened. The fact is though, it was not just child's play or healthy developmental exploratory play; I remember what those times felt like... kissing my cousin... it was innocent. What happened with my sister was different. It is so hard to think about this and even harder to put into in words. 

I still don't know if I was affected so much by it because of things that had already happened to me at the hands of others. I feel sure that my sister must have already been through some things herself to have had awareness and desires strong enough as to lead her to coerce me into fulfilling them for her (it's killing me to write this!). 

I have never read about anyone else being abused in this way by a sister. I've heard of big brothers doing things to little girls... but sisters? I hate that it happened but I also hate that it was her. I feel that because of who it was, I shouldn't have been affected. I should just feel it was child's play. But at the same time, I know it wasn't. I hate her for it. I am disgusted by it. I feel sick when I think about it.

Needless to say, I have been pretty angry with my sister throughout my whole life. She continued to psychologically abuse me throughout our teens and even after she left home, when I would see her, she would still cut strips off me with her tongue. It only recently occurred to me that she probably felt reminded of what she had done to me by my very being and this provoked her to hate me. I certainly hated her. I wished so many times for her to be dead. 

I stopped seeing her for a good few years after she left the cult (while I was still in it: you weren't allowed to have much to do with people who left) and in that time she seemed to mellow out a lot. Nowadays, I probably find her the easiest of my three sisters to get along with. I push all of this stuff to the edge of my mind and try not to remember her as she was. I try to think of her now as a different person. She seems like a different person for the most part.

Last year Katie got married and asked me to be her bridesmaid. Despite her being so different now, I still found the process of being her bridesmaid very trying. I guess I do keep myself at a distance. I think I got through the occasion by dissociating myself from the awareness or emotions. That was the only way. I guess it wasn't surprising that I went and got all my hair cut short the week after the wedding (symbolic 'getting rid of' something), crashed into a deep depression and started self harming again, which I hadn't done in a year and a half. I also stopped contacting my sister and actively avoided spending any time with her as much as possible. I just didn't want to think about her.

In recent months however, I have felt guilty for doing this (because after all, she is a different person now isn't she?) and have seen a bit more of her. I do well to keep all of the feelings of the past separate from the here and now when I'm with her. She's someone else... I keep reminding myself. 

 

But I am obviously not dealing with anything by doing my best to leave the past in the past. How something so simple can bring it all so vividly back to the present. I feel sickened by the images and nightmares. I want to forget it all. I want it all to never have happened. How can I ever move on when the tiniest thing takes me back to square one?

Nightmares and Daymares

I've been feeling ill the last few days. I'm not sure if it's because of an actual infection of some sort or if it's stress related. I haven't had much sleep lately so it could be over tiredness. At the moment I have some bad stomach cramps but at least my headache has eased off thanks to my old friend ibuprofen (I should buy shares).

The last week or so I have been having really weird dreams. I can't always remember them well but I wake up with a sense of something strange having been the content. Sometimes I dream that I have to engage in some kind of sex with someone from my family (not always the same person but usually one of three specific people). Obviously, this is really disturbing and I feel freaked out at the prospect. In the dream though I am always just trying to get on with it and get over the feelings of repulsion because I know it is something I 'should' do. I never stop and think: "Hang on, this isn't something I 'should' do; this is really wrong. Why don't I just say 'no'?"

I've had this dream a few times over the last week. It's horrible and scares me. The images of last night's version of this dream keep popping into my head today: trying to kiss that mouth when I want to run away; my body doing all the right things while my mind is screaming for me to stop. The scenes don't just go through my mind as dreams, sometimes they're there when I'm awake, like a waking dream that I can't stop. They are more likely to happen when I'm eating; if someone touches me (e.g. if a family member gives me a hug or if Ad wants to be intimate) or if I hear about 'bad things' (I still can't type those words).

It's hard to think about all of this and stay focussed. Thinking about it makes me feel ill. A lot of my energy in life goes into avoiding it. Today I seem to be braver than other days. I am able to write about this without really allowing the images to interfere too much at the moment. When I can tolerate thinking about it, I try to push how long I can stay on the subject. Most of the time when images like that come into my head I block them out as quickly as I can or I feel too anxious and sick. Sometimes though (not very often) I feel stronger and try to look at them and keep my mind open. I tell myself: "Try to remember." Sometimes I feel like I'm right on the edge of remembering but it always gets too scary and I shut it down again. I don't think I'll ever be strong enough to get through that. Or maybe there's nothing to get through.

Despite all the intrusions of images, the feelings in my body, the anxiety and the other people inside me who are so troubled, who the research would say are there as a result of something bad happening... I still end up thinking that it's not possible that those things could be real. I still tell myself I've made it all up. I know my parents loved me. I know they did their best for me. I can't see how those things could fit in. But there are bad things I do remember and how do they fit in with 'love'? I go round in circles.

That's enough now.