To wonder if this is normal or physical abuse

[Brum1992]

I am in my 40’s now, and have been thinking about my childhood. There was physical violence. My mum towards my dad, and my brother to all of us. My dad would just take it. My brother would hit me a lot, but I’ve always put that down to sibling stuff - although it was also one sided. He would steal my lunch money every day and force me to buy sweets for him with it. He would also hold the handset to my ear and force prank calls. I was painfully shy, although I’m not anymore. One thing that sticks in my mind was from when I was about 17/18 and I argued back for once - he told me after that, that he would slit my throat in my sleep. We now have an ok relationship, and that’s because I moved far away and we barely see each other.

I always wonder how this affected me. In my 20’s I suffered from bulimia and depression. I saw therapists and it would tend to go back to my mum and her mental health.

With my brother, is it just sibling stuff, or worse? When I did bring it up, he dismissed it and said it’s not who he is. But he is a bit of a bully and controls every situation

I’m not an expert but this is no way normal.

I had three siblings and do not recognise that behaviour. My closest friends when I was a child all had at least two siblings and I don’t remember them reporting similar things. So, no I would definitely not put that down to sibling stuff.

Yes, that’s abuse. Perpetrating domestic violence in front of a child is abuse (not only of the direct victim of the violence, of the child too). And your brother’s behaviour too. I’m sorry you went through that.

@Verbena87 I never thought of it like that before. Just observing things did have such a huge impact. That feeling of constantly being on edge and afraid things would blow up.

One of the odd things is that I mentioned it to my mum recently too, and she completely denied anything like that had ever happened, and if it did, she said she didn’t know. But she was at the centre of it all with my brother. It utterly astounded me that she would say that, to the extent I wondered if I had dreamt it!!

I went through similar with one of my brothers OP. It is absolutely abuse, it isn’t part of the normal sibling dynamic and you don’t have to just push it down and ignore it to make other people comfortable.

Like fuck would I have an ‘ok relationship’ with a sibling that abused me in the way you describe. Your mother also sounds abusive.

Plus you don’t need your mothers permission to feel any which way about it. Live your own truth. You feel like your brother was an abusive bastard? Then that’s good enough for me. Cut him out.

If you have to ask if this kind of behaviour is abusive then you are still suffering from its effects. It's your life, assess it frankly, and make any adjustments you feel necessary to improve it. Your family has a very damaging dynamic going on and you definitely need to take a break from all of them. Don't facilitate them.

Definitely abusive. And your parents must have enabled your brother's behaviour. There's no way my DS could behave to my DD like that without me knowing. So they let it happen.