The last unacknowledged domestic violence

[MangoSeason]

You are a 15 year old girl coming home from school. A 17 year old boy is following you. He shoved you into a wall at school today. He called you a cunt. He knocked your books out of your hand. The teachers just told him to stop being a pest and then walked away.

At your garden gate he suddenly is upon you and slams you into the ground. You get gravel rash. Your neighbour rolls her eyes and goes inside. You get to the front door and get inside. Not safe of course. Your parents are not home and he follows you in because he is your brother and he lives there.

You rush to the laundry and lock yourself in. You stay there until your mum comes home. She’s cross of course. She has been working all day and comes home to this. She says you two are old enough to sort it out yourselves. You must have provoked him. You are too sensitive.

You once tried telling your head of year. He laughed and said all siblings fight and you will be best friends in a few years. You tried again and told the school safe-guarding lead. They took it a bit more seriously and spoke to your parents. Your parents were furious at you. You are called a drama queen, trying to get your brother into trouble over normal sibling rough and tumble. Get over yourself! Your whole extended family is unhappy with you. Fancy speaking to the school about your own brother. What an untrustworthy wuss you are.

There was a school assembly with the local police about domestic violence. You learn what you should do if your parents hurt you. What you should do if your parents hurt each other. There was nothing mentioned about what to do your brother hurts you. You think about speaking to the police officer afterwards but what is the point? No-one cares. It will only upset your parents. It seems it is perfectly acceptable for a nearly fully grown boy to physically assault you if he is your brother.

Sibling violence is an under researched area of domestic violence. Most people don’t understand what it is. They think it is sibling rivalry. The risk factors for sibling violence are having authoritarian parents, siblings close in age and siblings being latch-key kids. The perpetrator is usually the oldest and strongest sibling. Most common is older brothers targeting younger sisters, followed by older brothers targeting younger brothers. Less common, but still frequent is older sisters targeting younger sisters. Older sisters targeting younger brothers is the least common, as the brother will become physically stronger than the sister at puberty. Sibling violence is characterised by the persistent targeting of one or more siblings by a stronger sibling. There is little back and forth. One is the perpetrator and one is the victim almost all the time.

Society doesn’t know how to handle it. Schools and police bat the issue back to parents who are the least able to act properly, as they love all their children and bury their heads in the sand.

Just want to out this out there. If you work with children and they complain that their sibling is hurting them, please take it seriously.

Thanks for this. I am that younger sister who was abused by the bigger. We are no contact now. It took almost 30 years for my mother to acknowledge what was happening to me. Father still calls me the drama queen. Glad its being spoken about more.

I agree this is (was) never talked about. I tried so many times to get help, from parents, friends, school. I was told to get on with it. I still get panic attacks sometimes now, 25 years later. I got hit once while asleep, and things smashed around me, but mainly it was verbal and emotional abuse of the vilest kind. I won’t repeat what he said but it was every day, all day and it was pure evil. I’m glad I got out before the physical outbursts got more frequent but sadly, I don’t think I got out early enough to say it didn’t affect my mental health. My scars are invisible but they are there.

I'm a teacher and we use a safeguarding system that is quite widely used. One of the categories is 'Peer on peer abuse (including siblings)'. Peer on peer is quite 'trendy' at the moment, in that this is the topic most often covered in our training. I don't recall anything specific about what to do if it's between siblings, though.

Thought-provoking post by the OP.

I haven't experienced anything like this but I did have a volatile relationship with one of my sisters, and this including physical fighting at school. Boarding school, so staff had a much higher level of responsibility for our physical safety. At least once a teacher failed to intervene in a physical altercation because we were sisters. I know that wouldn't have happened if two unrelated girls had been fighting! This was the late 90s, not a million years ago.

It wasn’t so much physical from my younger brother but so much emotional abuse and gaslighting and I always got the blame and punished by our mother for being the older one. He grew up to be a narcissist and hasn’t changed at all. He’s just like my mother really and I was an easy target. Other family member all witnessed it but none of them stepped in.
I would never allow either of my children to behave in that way towards each other. Siblings will always fight but there’s a point at which usual sibling squabbles become something else and I’m well aware of that point and will not stay silent on that.

My brother threw a boiling kettle of water over our younger sister and my best friend's brother smashed a glass over her head. Both incidents were put down to sibling rivalry and neither were punished.

What people often fail to understand, is that often these things go unpunished and the brothers go on to treat future partners in the same way.

Good post, @MangoSeason, thank you.

No real occurrence of this in my family but I understand that it needs to be highlighted and more help given to those suffering from it.

@SandwichTray

I agree this is (was) never talked about. I tried so many times to get help, from parents, friends, school. I was told to get on with it. I still get panic attacks sometimes now, 25 years later. I got hit once while asleep, and things smashed around me, but mainly it was verbal and emotional abuse of the vilest kind. I won’t repeat what he said but it was every day, all day and it was pure evil. I’m glad I got out before the physical outbursts got more frequent but sadly, I don’t think I got out early enough to say it didn’t affect my mental health. My scars are invisible but they are there.

I am sorry you experienced this as did I. It does have long lasting effects. In my case it was my brother who was controlling, physically threatening, abusive (continually taunting about being ugly and my sisters's acneso destroying personal pride and cofidence), perhaps the worst in some ways would threaten and sometimes actually destroy cherished possessions so you never felt safe about loving something or showing emotion cos that would be mocked and derided. Leaves a total inability to trust. And a paradoxical shame for belonging to such a family or maybe that's just me?

@cateycloggs Sorry about your story, too.

It took me a long time to shake the shame. That was the goal, to make us feel ashamed of ourselves.

I can resonate with not ever admitting to liking anyone or anything. It only made you a target. I spent my school years, when I should have been having fun and hanging out with friends, dulled and withdrawn.

I try to do more of what I enjoy these days, just for me, and without apology. But I still grieve for the lost time, sometimes.

I think this post is over dramatic tbh

I don't think its over dramatic at all. I think it needs raising. I certainly wasn't aware of this (happily)

Interesting thread OP thanks.
I started thinking about this last year after watching Normal People on tv, it was one of the plot threads. At the time I remember thinking how awful that in her supposed “safest place” she was most at risk and how it affected her in all areas of her life. I think it was quite well portrayed in the series,. Hopefully, people are becoming more aware of it.

@BonnieDundee

I think this post is over dramatic tbh

I don't think its over dramatic at all. I think it needs raising. I certainly wasn't aware of this (happily)

I'm sorry I have to say that is the kind of comment ( the over-dramatic part) that might stop someone sharing their experience and then maybe getting help.

As BonnieDundee say people even in caring or educational settings may not be aware it happens or take it seriously but it can have such a bad effect on a life. I am a lot older now and see more context but i do feel it is something that held me back because of the shame of coming from an 'inadequate ' family as it was phrased then.

My heart is beating fast and I feel sick just reading this due to the abuse I suffered at the hands of older brother. I am nc now as he still is / was unable to stop physically abusing me even in his 40’s. The emotional abuse, threats and violence morphed from jealousy of my existence as a child to disbelieving my chronic illness and disability to threatening and physically / emotionally abusing me because of it.

He enjoyed pinning me down, suffocating me, throwing me around like a rag doll. He was also emotionally abusive and sexually inappropriate. He didn’t touch me sexually. But did everything he could to demean me in every possible way in a sexual sense. My sexually degrading Nickname was vile and he encouraged his friends to call me it. An acronym, which was designed to squash me and make me a nothing. So much worse than just calling me a slag or similar.

He would call out to me and I was sweet and naive enough to go to him to discover him naked and stroking his erection. He and his friends used to present their penises in my face….. and when I was 17 his friend (now and adult) walked in my room when I was naked. He knew this would be the case as I’d just had a shower. The only thing, which concerned me was persuading him to leave without my mother realising he was in there as I would have been blamed. And why the fuck did my brother not tell him to leave me alone?

I used to like it when my mother went out as I could run to the neighbour. How could I do that when my mother was there? It was a long time ago and it never occurred to me to report this. Childline was launched when I was 17. My thought when I saw a massive poster was I wish I were younger to report what was going on in my home.

I have learnt to have very strong boundaries. But my bodily reactions are steeped in trauma and I have an emotionally confused understanding of sexuality. And am at times consumed with fear that my dd will be hurt, touched, raped or kidnapped.

I am blamed for nc. Even after the two last encounters, where he was violent with me both times because of my disability. Apparently he just wants to be friends. He is the golden child and my mother talks of him in such glowing terms.

Big hugs to my fellow survivors.

@Stompythedinosaur

I think this post is over dramatic tbh.

There is a body of research about sibling abuse.

Fucking good for you. Thanks for that. It abuses people like me all over again.

@mummyoflittledragon, I am so sorry you had such a horrible brother and such terrible experiences. None of that was your fault and you definitely have every right to have no contact now. If he is violent now could you not report to the police? It doesn't matter if he is your brother or what your mother thinks there is nor justification for him being near you let alone violent. My brother had got increasingly violent with my sisters and me until i told him I would go to the police and then he was also caught out in front of an older brother which finally resulted in him leaving home (at nearly 30).

I think we can seem to have strong boundaries to outsiders but feel fragile inside which is why I never get close to anyone. You are obviously doing better with your daughter.

About what stompythedinosaur posted, I criticised it too but then looked back as it was one of the first, I think they meant the op exaggerated how little such sibling abuse is known and discussed. I don't know if it is or not as I don't read any academic reports.

Thanks for this thread OP. It doesn’t seem to be as recognised as other child abuse as you say, it is swept under the carpet. Some very upsetting and powerful voices here I hope you are all in much better safer places, we are all responsible for the safety of children and should never dismiss their concerns and fears.

I relate to this, but unfortunately, I was the bully (I'm female though). I can remember tearing my sister's hair out, head-butting her, hitting her etc. I was SO insanely jealous of her - that's my main memory of my feelings. My Mum never tried to stop it, she just put it down to sibling rivalry, but it was all me and never her. And it was so, so easy to manipulate the situation so she got into trouble rather than me. I feel terrible about it now, of course, and I do think my treatment of her caused her lifelong mental health issues. We get on OK now, although we're not close.

However, I now have 2 girls of my own, and for years my older daughter tried to bully my younger daughter. I stepped in every time I saw any bullying, verbal or physical of any kind. I could tell my older DD had the same feeling as I did (jealousy). The worst thing about it is though, my older DD is a bit of a 'golden child' within our wider family, so I've had my sister (different one to the one I bullied) and my Mum complain that I'm always 'getting at' my older DD and it 'must be your younger DD who goads her'. Errr, no.

Yanbu. It's not talked about and people always assume having 2 plus kids is best so that theu have eachother. Unless the siblings are the same sex i have rarely met close boy/girl soblings, especially when there are only 2 kids.

@astuz

I relate to this, but unfortunately, I was the bully (I'm female though). I can remember tearing my sister's hair out, head-butting her, hitting her etc. I was SO insanely jealous of her - that's my main memory of my feelings. My Mum never tried to stop it, she just put it down to sibling rivalry, but it was all me and never her. And it was so, so easy to manipulate the situation so she got into trouble rather than me. I feel terrible about it now, of course, and I do think my treatment of her caused her lifelong mental health issues. We get on OK now, although we're not close.

However, I now have 2 girls of my own, and for years my older daughter tried to bully my younger daughter. I stepped in every time I saw any bullying, verbal or physical of any kind. I could tell my older DD had the same feeling as I did (jealousy). The worst thing about it is though, my older DD is a bit of a 'golden child' within our wider family, so I've had my sister (different one to the one I bullied) and my Mum complain that I'm always 'getting at' my older DD and it 'must be your younger DD who goads her'. Errr, no.

Thank-you. It is brave to be so honest and speak out from the other side. I am glad you are ending the dynamic with your daughters.

And hugs to everyone on this thread who has gone through similar.

Thank you so much op for raising this.

@cateycloggs
Thank you for your post and I’m sorry to see you experienced the same. We do not live near one another and have been nc for a few years now so a fair bit of time has lapsed since the threats to deck me and punch me but at the time I didn’t know these reached the threshold for reporting. And I was still in FOG. But these were also never witnessed. Sneaky iyswim. After a couple of nasty incidents including pushing me over and helping me then dropping me as he doesn’t believe I’m disabled, I decided I am not to be in the same room as him. If anything ever happens again, I will not hesitate to report him or anyone else.

This is quite extreme and not every day?

Dh and I would never tolerate this crap from either of our kids towards each other. As a neighbour if I saw what you described I would speak to the parents, if it happened repeatedly I would ring the school/social services and raise it. I think many people would.

@astuz

I relate to this, but unfortunately, I was the bully (I'm female though). I can remember tearing my sister's hair out, head-butting her, hitting her etc. I was SO insanely jealous of her - that's my main memory of my feelings. My Mum never tried to stop it, she just put it down to sibling rivalry, but it was all me and never her. And it was so, so easy to manipulate the situation so she got into trouble rather than me. I feel terrible about it now, of course, and I do think my treatment of her caused her lifelong mental health issues. We get on OK now, although we're not close.

However, I now have 2 girls of my own, and for years my older daughter tried to bully my younger daughter. I stepped in every time I saw any bullying, verbal or physical of any kind. I could tell my older DD had the same feeling as I did (jealousy). The worst thing about it is though, my older DD is a bit of a 'golden child' within our wider family, so I've had my sister (different one to the one I bullied) and my Mum complain that I'm always 'getting at' my older DD and it 'must be your younger DD who goads her'. Errr, no.

I’m glad to see you’ve seen the light. So many don’t.

Have you sincerely apologised to your sister? Perhaps if you want to be closer to her (if she will permit this) you could heal your relationship by reaching out to her and asking for her help with your DC’s dynamic?

Unless the siblings are the same sex i have rarely met close boy/girl soblings, especially when there are only 2 kids.

My two siblings and I each have a boy girl pair and they get on so well, its lovely. My kids are little but they are best friends! I know lots of people with a sibling the opposite sex whom they are close to both as children and in adulthood.