One of my earliest memories is

[Prudence69]

my brother lying on top of me, rubbing his body frantically against mine. He must have been five. I would have been about three. This only happened maybe ten times and stopped before I was perhaps four or five.

From the age of seven or so, he started to profess such hatred for me. He would write to Jim'll Fix It to ask for an AK-47 to gun me down. He would chain my bike up and refuse to let me use it. He would say I would go nowhere and end up pregnant at 16. I was capable of fighting back with a sharp tongue and physically defending myself if I had to but it was all so unpleasant and vicious and looking back, so weird.

He has since got his own family - he's devoted to them. I've never seen anything other than great dad behaviour.

I'm in a bit of a state about all this. Why would a small child of five have sexual urges? Was he himself abused? Why did he have such hatred of me? Was it guilt of what he did to me? He was a child. I can hardly have blame.

This hatred eased as I hit my twenties and I think he realised it wasn't really acceptable to talk to your sister like that especially when she has boyfriends!

He and his wife are decidedly chilly towards me. I don't really mind this but sometimes I get very sad and angry and want to tell him what an effing arsehole he was and he'd better do well by his daughter.

I could never ever tell anyone this in RL not least my DH who would go mental and it would cause such family disruptions and for what? For me to spill my guts. But I feel wretched about it all. I am angry with my brother for being so vile. I don't imagine I was an angel - far from it - but I do remember feeling perplexed and being acutely aware that I felt I knew more than other kids about sex from a young age.

What can I do to progress from this? I lurch from hating my brother to thinking how vulnerable he must have been with also dealing with our parents' vicious divorce.

yes children of that age can have urges - they dont understand them so once awareness hits it stops. your brother sounds like a jealous, angry kid. You cant pick your family so perhaps your best bet is to go and see a councellor to work through your feelings about this - as they are obviously very serious for you and work through how to let go of hopes for a better relationship and how he made you feel about yourself. Kids from broken families can do horrific things to each other so perhaps this will help.

It sounds like pretty normal sibling stuff to me.
I wonder what makes you think of it as abuse?
How would you like your relationship to be now if you had the choice?

It's normal for your brother to rub himself and his erect penis up and down on you?

gosh yes I think experimentation between siblings is almost universal, surely? 5 and 3 is in no way a situation of abuse - the 5 year old is simply not aware of why this might not be appropriate.

Do you think it would help to talk to someone about the whole situation with your brother to try to make sense of it? Honestly, truthfully, from what is written here nothing but normal sibling experimentation happened BUT for you this is intertwined with and inseperable from later relationship problems - which again, for siblings are if not universal then very common!

What you describe could be seen as totally normal but obviously doesn't feel that way to you.

WEll, I have to say I feel so relieved to hear you say that. I was thinking that my brother might have felt a lot of guilt and anger about it hence his vehement hatred a few years on.

I still don't think it falls outside the realm of normal.

but this is a 5 year old - and it sounds perfectly normal and possible for this to be natural experimentation, to me. I also think a little girl who didn't talk about it might hold some worries and guilt about it, that would be understandable if she hadn't had a sensible chat with mum to allay her fears and say "it's normal but we don't do this till we're grown up". So I think that could lead to this feeling of loss of something and a general anxiety about it.

However of course it is not for us to TELL you Prudence, I just wanted to say that I can see how this could have been completely innocent and normal and yet left you with worries etc.

Definitely consider talking to a counsellor; I think they could be great to help you think your way through it. As only you know in your heart of hearts once you've considered all angles, whether this was abusive to you or whether you can or want to or should look at it differently.

I think the main issue, thinking on it, is that normal experimentation is mutual; if you were having something done TO you and feeling miserable then of course that's more complex to deal with feelings wise.

I'm really sorry that you feel this way and wonder if it would be worthwhile discussing this with a professional who was actually able to help you work through this situation with a true idea of how to help you deal with these feelings.

Personally I think that children quite often experiment sometimes in a fairly graphic way and they have no real understanding that it is right or wrong as they are too young to fully understand their urges and within the age range you describe I would accept that to be the case.

I think the other stuff all sounds entirely normal, honestly, entirely normal.
He probably had no idea that this had anything to do with sex for many years (why would he?) rather that it felt nice if he did it but with nothing wrong or shameful attached to the action.

I'm concerned that what sounds not very different than many of our childhood experiences has left such an impression upon you and I would urge you to seek counselling especially before telling your brother to "do right by his daughter". That sounds pretty chilling especially as these incidents occured well before he was old enough to be considered in anyway culpable or other than a child himself.

dittany I think you have led a sheltered life re the hatred!

I just think it's too hard to tell this stuff on here. Yes of course little kids act out abusive behaviour but likewise, normal, 'innocent' bullying behaviour can include inappropriate physical stuff!

eh?

experimentation is utterly normal and IMO almost univeral. Abuse not.

All that matters is that Prudence is able to pick through this for herself.

I'd agree that this behaviour isn't that unusual. But counselling sounds wise, Prudence. Your brother may well be feeling tangled up and guilty and angry - he probably remembers you doing whatever you did to get back at him, more than he remembers what he did, iyswim.

is your brother giving you the cold shoulder/keeping you away fro his family bc he feels guilty/embarassed he did that.

i totally agree ith dittany, i mean, HELLO, the boy is rubbing himself on his sister and holding her down by doing so. he also wanted an AK47 to kill her.

this is NOT normal sibling rivalry or doctor's play

deffo consult a councillor to mull over what happened and if you come to a conclusion i would consider confronting your brother.

i find it really, really disturbing that some on here said it's normal beaviour. this shouldn't be okay in any family.

Sorry to disturb you again, then, but IMHO it is well within normal limits and as for phoning Jim - surely better than knocking spots off her physically like most siblings do at times.
Lets not forget he was a child himself and as the OP said he seems to have grown into a reasonable adult and good father.
Maybe he is cool toward you because he senses you have a problem with him.

I'm not sure confronting him is a good idea. The inappropriate behaviour took place when the OP's brother was between the ages of 5 and 6 or 7 then it stopped, presumably because he realised what he was doing was wrong. I don't think it is morally right to expect him to have to provide answers for something that went on before he was even old enough to understand what he was doing. If you are going to confront him perhaps you could just ask him why you feel that the two of you are not close and take it from there.

at around the ages of 5 and 8 my sister and I would get into bed together and lie on top of each other and rub up and down. As I recall we thought we were doing what 'mummy's and daddy's do'. I know that in doing it, neither of us felt any sexual arousal (we have discussed it since as adults). I think it stemmed from us both walking in on our parents having sex one night - not a night I care to remember since my parents didn't deal with it very well, they got extremely angry made US feel guilty for having walked in on them and NEVER tried to explain to us what they were doing.

Also, as the mother of a 6 year old boy, I can tell you that although he has a penis and knows how to make it "big", he does this in a completely innocent - wowee look what I can way - rather than a sexually aware way.

So OP I am inclined to think that this is innocent behaviour coupled with a bad, bad case of sibling rivalry. However, this is my personal opinion and if you are feeling unhappy about this I would also suggest you try counselling to talk it through with somebody who is not personally involved in your life.

Dittany, with the utmost respect, do you think your personal experience is clouding your view on this?

I agree that you need to work it through, and try and put these memories in context. In context of 3 and 5 year old children. I would doubt your brother even remembers it?!

I also agree with what Dittany said about feeling like it was abuse, but that does not mean the intent of your 5 year olds brother was to do that, and so the context is so very important to move on.

As for the gun - that is in normal realms of behaviour for me - having an older brother too that sort of thing would be quite a common occurence and hatred was pretty typical. I probably said horrific things to him too that I can't remember that he remembers even now !

i think what foreveroptimistic says is a good idea to get him talking. to ask why your relationship in the here and now isn't close.

normal realms of behaviour? WTF?? normal boys that age do not want to take an AK47 to their sister! how does he even know that weapon name. have you ever held one? it's not normal that a boy that young knows weapon brands/rifle names. what has he been exposed to to know this sort of stuff.

Blimey - he was about 7 at the time of the gun thing - the news often has reports about what types of guns get used so it would be very easy to pick up - this must have been in 70s / 80s I guess - think about war in Afganhistan this was often on news. Boys tend to pick up on naming things from an early age, all models of a certain car brand, dinosaur names etc. So knowing the name is probably normal but wanting one to kill your sister is another.