You come from a good family, Alice
‘You come from a good family Alice’, my 90-year-old neighbour from our childhood street said in 2019. I looked at her blankly and thought: A good family. What does that even mean?
I was eight when my big brother began sexually abusing me. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn’t the only sibling he was abusing in one way or another. None of us knew that. We didn’t disclose it to each other until we were in our 20s and 40s. How could that have been? How did my mum, dad, grandparents or neighbours not see that?
From the outside, we looked like a good family, a happy Catholic family, living in a regular suburban town.
My eldest brother was seen to be the responsible older brother. We were left in his charge often with an admonishing parental finger wagged in our faces. Mum would look all of us in the eyes warning that ‘Darryl’s in charge. You do whatever Darryl tells you, or there will be trouble!’. He had groomed my mum, not just threatened us into silence. That was something I’ve now come to see as an adult.
At age ten, I gathered the courage and resolve to ask our priest to stop him. I was told that’s bad, you stop it.
The priest did nothing. I looked at him and thought for a long while afterward ‘how could that be’.
The abuse continued for two more years.
Then, another two years on, I walked in the front door after school one day, now 14, and my brother cornered me. He asked eagerly do you want to start playing those games we used to. I turned and ran.
He persevered every day with the same approach, yet didn’t get to touch me that time around. I kept alert, silent and ashamed that I was once again his victim. How come he was doing it to me, why me? I must be bad, I’m going to hell, ran through my head constantly.
At 25, I was a young mum, and it was time to disclose.
I told my husband, with a loving response, and then, with growing confidence, I disclosed to my mum. Her response shocked me: you’re lying, how could he have done that, what are you trying to do? On hearing that was mum’s response, one sibling was also fearful of our abuser’s potential violence, and asked that nothing more be said. So we all fell silent and slipped into the façade of a happy family. We didn’t seek professional support that could have helped us move through it together.
My abuser brother was part of that happy family for another four years until I broke free of the pretence when my own daughter was put at risk.
So, no I cannot see in anyway how we could have been described as a good, nor happy, family. That comment by my 90-something year old neighbour, led to a few more words shared. I asked how was it in the street between women in the 60s-70s? Did you all support each other? Did you share what was happening in your homes? She said, ‘we weren’t busy bodies. We all had our own families. You didn’t get involved with other’s business. Each of us did what we could to help out if we were called upon. Like when we couldn’t get out to shop, someone would drop by some mince, so meals could be served… that kind of thing.’
It took that near-miss event, involving my four-year old daughter, which I talk about in Resolve, for me to have the greatest sense of clarity and resolve that I would never have my brother in my life. He would never get to be near me, nor my daughters, ever again.
That event triggered flashbacks, and as an adult and parent of infant daughters, I just pushed it all down. I needed help, but pushing it down felt safer, less risky, less time-consuming. I was also scared about what therapy would bring up for me.
As a busy mum, I didn’t have time to crack open at the seams.
Over the decades since, I tried alternative therapies. I tested out forgiveness. Mostly I got busy being busy. I became successful and avoided looking too deeply into my past. I didn’t see that my day-to-day way of being had an undercurrent of PTSD and other coping mechanisms I’d adopted.
In 2011 I wrote a mission onto paper that I would free the world’s daughters from the shackles of guilt. I would be a voice in the silent landscape of sibling sexual abuse.
It was a big mission, and I didn’t know how to do that. It was me avoiding looking after myself first. The longer I put off that big mission the longer I didn’t do anything more about my own healing.
Nine years later, I pulled that mission statement out again. It was at that time I had the epiphany that I had a choice. I could go big or focus on myself first. I didn’t go for therapy, though! What was with that… My way of thinking was I could start by writing a memoir.
So, at 54, I began drafting my memoir to shed light on this hidden taboo.
I retraced my steps, to pin down moments in my life map. I began to see the order of things, sit and feel what was real. Also, realised things that were out of kilter, and being honest that the abuse did happen. To be even more honest, it happened often, over an extended time. That was hard.
The research for that writing showed me the connection between sibling sexual abuse, and its repercussions on my teen and adult life. That made the tears begin to overflow, at the reality there was no safe haven for me as a child, no good, nor happy family about it, for any of us.
That finally rattled me so much that I needed to take getting help seriously. I finally walked into the door of my GP, asked for a referral. I have had the support and guidance of a psychologist ever since, when needed.
Sibling sexual abuse is a family and societal shame, shrouded in silence. The victim is most often left to bear the misplaced shame, self-blame and guilt alone.
It takes outside support to help us move forward, together as a family, or individually.
I also saw and felt how important survivor, abuser and parent stories and case studies are, and more should be shared. It’s that sharing of lived experience that will help inform prevention and intervention measures and lend hope to other survivors that they are not alone and recovery is possible.
Writing, research, therapy and healing have been my way of living these past four years. In July 2023, I self-published my story.
Resolve: A Story of Courage, Healthy Inquiry and Recovery from Sibling Sexual Abuse is now available globally on Amazon, and all online bookstores. Libraries and bookstores can order copies. Please follow me on Instagram and Facebook. The audiobook is now also available via over 50 audiobook sites.
