Confusing, Hard Decisions (Estranged Siblings)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I had a brother and two sisters once, when my Mom was married to her fourth husband, who was also my adopted father. They married when I was 10 and stayed married for 12 years. I was the oldest, and shared a bunkbed with my two sisters in our tiny 9’x9’ bedroom. They were over all the time during the summer and on weekends and breaks during the school year. As an only child who had never had siblings I took my responsibility to them pretty seriously. I tried to be a good role model, to spend time with them and help them make sense of boys and other things that girls go through. They really did look up to me.

Their father - my adopted father - sexually abused me for most of that time. I didn’t tell anyone about it until I left home at seventeen years old and legally emancipated. I told a therapist, and the therapist called social services, and they investigated my step-siblings for evidence of abuse. From what I heard at the time, it was pretty invasive and traumatizing for them. Naturally their mother thought I was just some rebellious brat trying to stir shit up, and I was forbidden to ever see my brother and sisters again.

That was eleven years ago. Since my parents’ divorce I have had nothing to do with the man who abused me. I don’t hate him, I just want nothing to do with him. His actions left me with severe PTSD for a long time before I treated it properly, but I still bear some scars from that experience. I have long accepted that my siblings are out of my life forever, and I let go.

Yesterday morning my youngest sister asked to befriend me on Facebook. She is 19 years old now and has at least one child. She must have searched for my name to find me. I added her without hesitating. Even after all these years it was like, ‘‘Oh, that’s my little sister.’’ I happen to know she has been going through some terrible things herself lately, and that her relationship with her father is very strained.

I’m not even sure how I feel or what this means. I don’t know what she wants out of the relationship - whether she wants to address what happened in the past, since there was zero closure for either of us - or whether she just wants to be casual acquaintances on Facebook. We haven’t interacted much yet other than to like one another’s posts. Because I’m older, a part of me feels the responsibility to reach out to her, but there is no way for me to explain my side of things without opening a huge can of worms regarding her father. It’s one thing to think your Dad is an asshole and another thing to think he’s a child molester. I feel like it would almost be selfish of me to put her in the position of having to hear that.

But I love her. I love all of them. I don’t even know them anymore but I love them. And I’m really just not sure where to go from here.

I don’t think I’m asking advice, though I won’t be horribly offended if someone wants to take a stab at it. I’m not devastated about this, but I am kind of thrown. And I recognize that all of this may bring back a lot of bad experiences that I have worked hard to overcome. I’m just trying to work through my feelings right now.

Thanks for listening,

Christy

2

I would definitely be prepared for some stirring up of the old PTSD symptoms and other related feelings. You also posted in the minirants thread that you have to leave your place because of bedbug treatment? So, you’ve got new emotional connections from an ugly part of your history, and your current physical space is unstable for the moment. I’d be extra-careful with yourself at this time, and for a while.

Is there a reason why you can’t just ask her the same questions that you asked in your post? Ask her how she’s been, tell her you’ve missed her, and ask her what she wants to do with this new connection? Or are you afraid she’ll take offense?

3

I’m not afraid she’ll take offense, I just don’t know if I want to go there or not. I don’t see any way to avoid pain in this situation no matter what I decide to do. That’s life I guess.

4

Why don’t you let her dictate the flow of any communication between the two of you? At least until your relationship with her is better understood? She was the one who reached out to you, so she must at least intuitively, on some basic level, know why she is doing so.

I completely understand the precarious position you feel yourself in, with the man who abused you for all those years being her father; discussing it with her could be a very fine line between commiseration and offense.

5

It’s tough Olives, It’s exciting to have a reunion with your little sis … and yet. People you have a strong loving connection with, but old wounds open up when you think of your times with them. I struggle with my relationships with my brother and sister and I think I grudge my father the most for that.

6

I’m glad for you that someone you love is back in your life (at least online). I don’t want to post any more emotional advice as there isn’t enough information to even guess at your sister’s feelings and motivations. I do however have some practical advice: Do take a look at her friends list, particularly with a view to whether her mother and father are on there. Adjust your privacy settings accordingly.

Trust me for I am a Facebook stalker :wink:

7

Just be there for her. You’ll figure out the rest. That’s the only thing you can ever promise anyone. Hugs to you.

8

I would not recommend taking any action until you talk to a therapist about this. You are well within your rights to do what you want/need to do for yourself–whether it’s inviting her/them back into your life, or pretending like they don’t exist. But, if you don’t even know what you want or need, a therapist can hopefully help you figure that out.

If this all happened 11 years ago, then she was 8 at the time, right? There’s a small chance (depending on the family grapevine and her own memories) that she already knows what happened. And I’m not your doctor, I’m not a doctor at all… but from my own experience as a victim of childhood sexual abuse, I don’t know if you will be able to build a healthy adult relationship with your sibling(s) unless they know the truth. It will always be a wedge of unknowledge between you, and the longer you are in touch with them, the bigger the wedge will become. At least, I can tell you that I was not able to relate properly to the rest of my immediate family until they knew what my dad did to me. My mom just thought I was a colossal stuck-up teenage bitch with a chronic authority problem for over a decade, and my sister thought I was a scholastic self-absorbed airhead. heh… home rebellion while maintaining a public illusion of happiness and aloof super-intelligence was all that kept me going back then. It wasn’t until after I spilled the beans that my behavior as a teen made any sense to them. And you might have to do something similar before you can establish an adult relationship with your sibs. Or hell, maybe she was abused by him, too, when she reached the age you were at the time it started. Maybe she would be a good ally to have if you want to make contact with the rest of your siblings.

It’s all very complicated, and definitely fodder for a therapy session.

  • Most importantly, *don’t let anybody here shame you into thinking you “have to tell” anybody anything. Your mental health is more important than preventing future abuse, and fuck ANYBODY who disagrees. Nobody who’s actually been sexually abused would ever even think to advocate this, because we know what it’s like. “They” don’t. (I don’t even know if your stepdad is still alive, which has a bearing on that situation, of course) Now, if you WANT to warn her to keep her kids away from their grandpa unsupervised, that would be a noble and admirable action. But you should not feel COMPELLED to do that if you aren’t mentally prepared now (or ever). Your needs are paramount here, nobody else’s. Sorry to sound all defensive about it, but I’ve been attacked by a couple posters on this board for not reporting what happened to me, and I’d like to head that off in case that sentiment should wander through this thread.

Also, hugs and I’m sorry :frowning:

9

Ehm… “OMG!!!11!!! how ARE you!” is a perfectly acceptable way to start a “catch-up conversation”, isn’t it? The amount of exclamation marks varies depending on the people involved.
(No siblings, but getting a facebook account brought a lot of OMGs from friends with whom I’d lost contact yoinks ago, including The Bestest Ex)
ETA: also, I don’t think you’ve ever been “estranged” in the “I can’t stand her guts” kind of way. Separated, yes, estranged, no. Big difference.

10

Can I be the cynical one and wonder who the father of her child(ren) is? If he abused you, I suspect it’s very likely that’s why her relationship with him might be strained also :frowning:

I agree with Ambivalid’s advice FWIW.

And it sounds like it’s a good thing that she’s back in your life, so congrats :slight_smile:

11

Yeah, that is pretty much what I’m planning to do right now. Just sort of see where it goes. I don’t feel any need to resolve this immediately or anything. Which is good… that’s personal growth.

Pretty sure it’s her fiance.

I did look and her Dad is not on Facebook. She had a picture of my brother all grown up. He’s so handsome. I always knew he would be.

Hear, hear! I get tired of hearing it too. It’s also so naive to think that a victim’s accusations are going to be taken seriously. Mine were not, not for a long, long time.

Yes, he’s still alive. From what I understand, after the divorce he alienated pretty much everyone in his family due to his sociopathic behavior.

12

Missed the edit window.

I’m sure my sister knows what happened, in the sense that she knows I made an accusation and she knows he was investigated for it. But it’s anybody’s guess how she rationalized that moment in her mind. Maybe she decided I was crazy, just seeking revenge against my Mom or Dad, or whatever. If we did have anything like a real relationship again, it would challenge whatever she’s been telling herself all this time about what really happened. But then maybe she wouldn’t have sought me out unless she was mentally prepared to do that.

13

I have a similiar situation but with my aunt I lived with, and it involved her sending me,during my senior year, to live with my grandma in another state after she found out her son molested me and her boyfriend tried to also. We hadn’t talked for a long time , but now we are communicating online . My therapist said if I had questions to ask her about them, because I’m only going off of my assumptions, I assume this is what she knows and this is how she felt(my other cuz told her), but I don’t really know her side. We live 1000 miles from eachother and I just don’t feel comfortable sending an email talking about it because you can’t really interpret the message right sometimes. My therapist suggested I sent a letter to make it more personal, but I really think I’m just going to wait till we are face to face. I just know I need to get the q’s answers
I do hope things work out with whatever you decide to do, because I know it’s hard living with all of the questions about what this relationship will become.

14

Or not, from what you say about him managing to piss the whole family off. With those guys, if all you’ve seen is the sunrises and butterflies side it’s hard to believe there is a dark one - but once you get a good look at the dark side, things that didn’t use to make sense before don’t so much fall into place as take a valkyrie dive.

15

I wasn’t going to go where hermette went, but I was going to point out that you have no way of knowing if the abuse didn’t also happen to one or both the younger sisters. It’s possible that she’s aware of yours and wants to connect with someone who gets it. It’s also possible that she simply has no earthly idea why her beloved big sister dropped off the face of the earth all those years ago and now that she’s an adult, why shouldn’t she try to reconnect?

So I throw my lot in with:
•Bring this up with your therapist just to have help working through whatever issues bubble up to the surface, because they probably will.
• Let your sister take the lead in how much and what depth of interaction you have. Unless she hits a trigger point, in which case, just set boundaries. (“I’m not ready to discuss that with you right now.”)

I wouldn’t be in a hurry to blurt out tales of your abuse just yet, until you have a better idea of where she’s coming from and what kind of relationship she wants to have. If you’re going going to like each other’s FB posts, then I see no reason to discuss it at all. If she wants to meet up for lunch and be BFFs, then the story will probably have to come out. And it may anyway, but in due time. Definitely give yourself permission to keep it to yourself until you feel ready and comfortable telling it. You may not be able to share your story with her without saying ugly shit about her father, or you may be able to tell the story in a more clinical, just-the-straight-facts, no editorializing kind of way. It’s one thing to say “X happened and then Y happened and then Z happened” without making any comments about anyone else’s choices, behavior, character or lack thereof. It’s a whole other ball of wax to say “Do you know what your asshole abusive jerkface father did to me? What a useless waste of skin!” One story just presents the facts in a nonemotional way and the other story is really more about your feelings than the facts. Your approach may end up being a combination of the two.

Personally, I would maybe hint at “problems” in the home while you are still feeling each other out and I’d be inclined to wait until she asked “So. Why did you leave mom’s house?” She may tell you whatever lies were told to her “Oh, mom said after you went to live on that ashram in India…” that would give you the opportunity to say, “That’s not entirely accurate.” And then you get to choose the level of detail you include. “I was abused and it was a horrible situation between me & your mom, so I had to get outta there.” That doesn’t implicate her father at all.

Or she may come running to you, “OMG, you’ll never believe what happened to us after you left.” and you’ll be all “Oh, I bet I will believe it.”

You just don’t know enough yet to make a decision about how to approach this, so I recommend following her lead and divulge only what vague details you feel comfortable divulging. IF she asks. If you eventually find yourself at a level of intimacy that **rachelellogram **suggests where there’s a wedge between you until you tell her, then I’d start with the vaguest of statements and let her ask questions and give her only the little bits you feel okay talking about.