Very Triggering - sibling sexual 'experimentation' - how would you have dealt with it?

[Stuck38]

Apologies if anyone finds this upsetting. Very hard to talk about this IRL.

In my perception it was abuse not experimentation but I am looking at this from my mother's POV.

I was 8/9, sibling 3 and half years older.

This was in the early 80's so not much in terms of support organisations. Definitely no one outside immediate family could know.

Older sibling was very much a golden child who could do no wrong. I was viewed as a demon.

I have no memory of my mother knowing about it but it has come out recently that she did and it explains her behaviour towards me.

Really difficult but how would you deal with it?

I think I'd take an awful lot of time to think about it.

I would try and arrange counselling so I can work through the implications.

I would need to talk to someone about what I want- what my family relationships are like, etc.

Sorry OP. It sounds like she's minimising your experience which must be awful.

There is some research into sibling sexual experimentation done by the organisation Stop it Now. I'd have a read of that, see what you think in relation to your life and go to counselling to start to explore this in a safe space and make sense of it with an expert. Until then I guess it'll be hard to talk about with your mother.

I'm not speaking from experience though.

Best wishes.

Thanks for your replies.

I've had counselling. That was to help me with the way my mother's view of me impacted my self esteem/severe anxiety. Never really explored the sibling stuff in terms of my mother blaming me for it. Arrgghhh don't want to go back again!

Would it really be possible for an 8 year old to initiate sexual acts with an 11/12 year old? Both females. I have always blamed myself but I have been thinking about my mother's reaction when I finally asked her about it. At first I said I couldn't remember who was involved (deep shame, disgust etc) so she said it must have been a teenage babysitter (she didn't say whether the babysitter was male or female and I can't remember one), later when I said who it was, she denied that she knew about it but didn't deny it happened or try to argue that my memory was wrong.

My feeling is that she was abusive to me to keep me fearful of speaking out and demonised me to discredit me if I ever tried to tell anyone.

I don't want to believe she was capable of that.

Hi Stuck - that must be really difficult to be dealing with. If you post this on the Relationships board you'd get lots of support

I don't know what is possible sorry but I am just aware of that organisation referring to research.

It sounds like you would benefit from talking this aspect of things through with a professional.

Sorry you're going through this.

It's totally inappropriate to blame an 8 yr old in that situation. I'd not necessarily blame the 11yr old, either. That would need a lot of unpacking.

What seems important to me now is, do you want these people in your life if they are downplaying your emotions?