I’m trying to keep this as vague as possible to prevent outing myself or my sibling.
I have two siblings - I was abused as child, one of my other siblings was abused by a different adult. My second sibling wasn’t abused as far as I’m aware.
My second sibling was very involved in a particular sport as a child - they reached a very high level and had a very successful coach. They started training with this coach (as far as I remember about 7 or 8). When they got to about 12, at the point where they had a lot of success, they suddenly quit the sport, saying they just didn’t want to do it any more. They said they were being bullied about it at school. They’ve never done it since and are now in their 30s.
I recently met someone whose child reached national level in the same sport - their coach was related to my sibling’s coach. She asked me if I knew that my brother’s coach had recently done a long sentence for child abuse - I had no idea.
I looked him up - this is true, the children he abused were a different sex to my sibling but were pre-pubescent, and there weren’t many children of my sibling’s sex doing the sport. Only two came forward but from my own experience I suspect the actual number of victims is much higher.
My sibling has struggled a lot with their mental health, drug use, drinking, violence etc. They are doing well now but they’ve had a tough road. I can’t shake the feeling that they were a victim of this coach and it has affected them badly, but I don’t know if this is just because of my own experiences affecting how I see things.
Obviously victims shouldn’t be outed and should be able to talk about it only when they feel ready. I’m just worried that if I’m right they may need to talk about it but not know how.
I don’t know whether to try and talk to them about it, or how. We unfortunately don’t see or speak to each other as often as I’d like as they are withdrawn. I’m not sure what to do for the best and don’t want to cause any problems.
What would other people do?