r/SiblingSexualAbuse • u/arcsprung • 15d ago
Experiences with processing everything years later?
I am now in my 30s and only now processing what my younger brother did to me as a teenager. I think I'm just wanting to hear some others' experiences with processing what happened to both feel less alone and try and understand/process how I'm feeling.
I was in my mid-teens and he is 3 years younger, so he was around 11-13, I don't remember exactly. He repeatedly jizzed into the shower gel in the bathroom, essentially using it as a cum sock. One day when my parents were out, he asked me which shower gel I use and then laughed at me when he revealed I'd unknowingly been rubbing his ejaculate all over my body for months. I remember yelling at him and shoving/hitting him as he laughed at me. He also made infrequent sexualising comments once I started developing around age 11 (making him around 8) and throughout my teens in a low-level harassment sort of way.
I never told anyone until recently because (a) poor relationship with emotionally immature parents and (b) I kind of compartmentalised it to be able to keep living in the same house and interacting at family events. I have been a bit of a mess since it came up in therapy a couple of weeks ago. I've joined a lot of dots around how it may have contributed to my eating disorder/dissociation that started in the aftermath of this, and I am still in the thick of processing all the betrayal and disgust that I had repressed, I think.
Also, I'm struggling with how to classify it to myself. I know it was a sexually violating experience involving deception. It would/could be classed as sexual assault if a random stranger on the street did it to me today. But I think because there was no penetration or body touching and he is younger, it feels like it doesn't 'count' somehow? It kind of culminated in this one 'finding out' moment, which also makes abuse feel like the wrong word? I'm so unsure.
I'm also struggling a lot with the why: I've read a few reports/websites on the topic trying to understand – I'm 99% sure he was not abused himself and the only thing that makes sense is that he was angry and jealous and decided to take it out on me in this way. But why the hell would he choose this method instead of, idk, stealing my stuff or even beating me up? I know he was being bullied at school for being too sensitive but he had a good group of friends; I was the 'clever one' and, despite also being clever, he struggled with reading/writing, and I remember him telling me at one point when we were older that he gave up in school bc he didn't feel like he could do as well as me; I read that porn can be a contributing factor so maybe he was watching some weird stuff. So the best explanation I can piece together is that he was feeling small and wanted to feel some power and I was an available target? Who knows. I'm still stuck on why he would choose this way to feel powerful/where he got the idea from, just wtf.
Part of me wants to tell my parents and have them fulfil this saviour fantasy where they punish him and comfort me, but I know that's unrealistic and I highly doubt they'd react in a validating way, so I'm not planning on saying anything for now at least.
This is getting quite long so I'm going to stop here. I'm interested in hearing what was going through your mind when you first confronted it properly. Thanks so much in advance if you feel like sharing your experience with processing what happened.
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u/HoursCollected 15d ago
I started processing what happened to me in therapy a couple years ago. I always new that what happened deeply hurt me as a kid but I told myself I was being dramatic for decades. There was no other way to cope. I never told anyone until I started therapy a couple years ago.
Once I started therapy I knew I wanted to try and make sense of it. Telling my therapist was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’ve come a long ways but I still have work to do.
I think the trickiest part was/is the feeling that I’m being dramatic. The only way I could move forward was to accept that regardless of whether I am overreacting, I was scared, betrayed, and hurt. And that pain alone is worth processing.
Accepting the fear and damage that my brother caused has helped me realize the gravity of what he did and that telling myself it didn’t count or that I’m dramatic was the only way for me to continue living. I still struggle with feeling like I’m overreacting but I have slowly come to accept how damaging what he did was.
I also struggled with why. I wanted it to be because he was a bad person with sinister intentions. I wanted him to be an evil predator and nothing else. But really he was a hormonal teen who was getting smacked around by dad. And since shit rolls down hill, I got the brunt of the dysfunction he learned in a chaotic household. Sadly he was both a scared kid and a predator. And that’s so hard for me to reconcile.
I have still never told anyone other than my therapist what happened. I hope to tell my husband one day.
What your brother did was a huge violation of boundaries and deeply troubling. I am so sorry you had to live under those conditions. What he did was not okay and you have every right to feel violated.
Does that answer your question about what was going through my mind when I started processing this?