Post by ochmi on Aug 5, 2018 20:37:24 GMT -8
Hello,
I've only just today learned the term "covert incest" or "covert sexual abuse." I've buried what happened to me for years; I only just told my wife 3 weeks ago, but I've been struggling with this for over 20 years.
Most of what I have seen out there is that this is usually a parent/child thing, I'm wondering, has anyone else experienced this from a sibling?
I'm 33 now, and I've been with my wife for 7 years, and raising our 16 year old son (from her first marriage, but I've adopted him and love him as my own). My wife is the first person I was able to form a real relationship with, and any kind of physical relationship. When we were first together, she saw how I'd recoil at her touch, even just her hand on my back and I would uncontrollably pull away. She asked if I had been sexually abused and I said "no," as I didn't understand it myself. All she ever knew was that I have a mentally unstable sister, and a father who, while not physically abusive, was a terrible person who left made me feel worthless and stupid. My mother is a deeply depressed woman.
This is also maybe more overt? I don't know, and if I am wrong to call this covert, I am sorry.
My sister is five years older than me. From childhood, she was always unstable (bipolar and borderline personality disorder), prone to massive tantrums, screaming, and even violence. She was in and out of the mental hospital through most of her teens.
When I entered puberty, things started to happen.
This is hard to write, and I'm sorry if this is graphic. Talking about this at all is, new to me.
The earliest I remember was her interest, I guess, in my development. I remember when I was about 11 her asking me about the shape of my penis when erect, and when I described it, she told me that it was a shape women didn't like. I couldn't ask my father about anything related to sexuality, so I just believed her, and thought there was something wrong with me. This type of thing went on throughout my teens. If I rubbed my thighs after running around the block a few times, she'd say that was masturbating, and ask me if I'd orgasmed in front of her. She'd want to talk about if I did masturbate, and what to. If I didn't want to talk about it, I was just "being a prude." She offered to "measure" me, though I declined. When she had her first (and basically only) boyfriend, who was my age instead of her age, I had to drive them around, because neither of them had licenses. They'd "make out" loudly in the backseat. She had her boyfriend give me a porn DVD he'd bought somewhere. She'd claim to read in tarot cards who I was "supposed" to be with, then be pointed about telling me who they were if she saw my classmates (usually picking someone I liked but was unable to ask out due my own feelings of inadequacy, or were bad ideas for other, more normal teenage reasons).
After she moved out of the house, it didn't stop. She moved to an "apartment" in a group home for mentally ill, and when I visited her there, she'd continue all the same behaviors. At a family gathering, while I was still underage, she had me supply her with mixed drink after mixed drink, eventually putting herself in the hospital with alcohol poisoning.
When I was 25, the money to support her in the group home ran out. At the time, I was trying to rebuild my life, going back to community college (after my father had emotionally abused me for years and telling me I was stupid), and I was desperate to get away from living with him. I agreed to rent an apartment with my sister. She controlled everything. I wasn't allowed to cook my own food unless it was strictly vegetarian. I couldn't even heat a can of chicken soup my future wife (at the time we were still just friends) brought me when I was sick. The room that was supposed to be my bedroom was filled with so many boxes of her stuff that I couldn't have my own bed, instead I slept in the corner on a pile of sleeping bags and egg crate. Then she started telling me about what television programs she masturbated to. She asked me for batteries once, and used them for that purposes, making sure to be loud enough that I could hear her from the hallway by her room.
Through all this, I denied to myself that this was abuse. I'd tell myself my sister just didn't know boundaries, that she was mentally ill, and I told anyone else as little as possible. My future wife (still just friends then) didn't like my general living situation there and encouraged me to get out, even if it meant back with my parents. I'd deny if asked if I'd been abused, after all, my sister had never touched me. had never looked at me naked or shown me herself naked.
I've lived with damage from this without even knowing this was the cause. I felt physically inadequate, had no sense of sexual identity or self-worth or ability to form relationships. I self-harmed as a teenager. I had an absolute fear of intimacy. I put up so many emotional barriers that I acted literally robotically, people even described me as being "Sheldon" from Big Bang Theory (especially once I also showed I wasn't stupid, and succeeded at community college, bachelors, and now a PhD program). When my wife first met me, her first impression of me was confusion and guessing from physical mannerisms (with literally nothing else to go on, since I projected nothing) that I was gay. I was a virgin at 26. Even trying to start a relationship with my wife was incredibly difficult, just getting to the point of being able to go on a date. I wasn't able to kiss her for over a month after we were dating, and as I said before, I'd recoil if she touched me in any way. That had been true before, too, when in physical therapy when I was 18 for an injury, I'd recoil if the PT practitioner touched my back or leg. My wife asked if I'd been abused, but I denied it. It was a long time into the relationship before I could be physically intimate.
As I said, I'm raising a 16 year old son now. His biological father is completely out of the picture (homeless and across the country, with custody taken away). We've tried to raise him with a healthy sense and education when it comes to sexuality, and I've done none of the things that my sister did with me, ever. Over the last year, this has all come crashing back for me, as we've been helping him through being sexually assaulted by his first girlfriend after they broke up, as well as through building healthier relationships. That he was assaulted, and then helping him to build the real types of healthy relationships that I never experienced before his mother, it brought everything with my sister back. I constantly kept pushing to fight for my son, even making my wife think that I was saying she wasn't doing enough to defend him, when it was because I couldn't bear to have my son feel like he didn't have people there to support and protect him, the way I didn't have anyone to help me or protect me. My son has struggled with his own issues, PTSD from his assault, feeling abandoned by his biological father, and it has led to depression and two suicide attempts (we have been getting him help, in addition to our parenting, ranging from therapy to even a partial hospitalization program at his request when he was afraid of more suicidal urges).
Recently, my sister's financial situation also crashed along with a health situation (hospitalized for colitis brought on by the filthy way she keeps her apartment. Turns out my father, who is constantly over at her apartment, has done nothing to help her. I've been asked to take charge, to be her medical proxy, to take power of attorney (she hadn't done her taxes in at least 6 years), and possibly to take conservatorship of her. The fear of having her back in my life so much also brought this all crashing back.
In the middle of the night a few weeks ago, I told my wife what had happened for all of those years. She's been the same, 100% supportive person that I fell in love with, thanking me for being able to tell her now even though I couldn't before when she'd asked, and that very night got me to start thinking of what had happened to me as abuse. I'd started therapy for anxiety a few weeks before that, and told my therapist the next day. I haven't told my son yet.
The last thing I want to do is be more involved with my sister in my life. After opening up to my wife, I've felt like I was that 11-12 year old all over again. I've felt that same sense of worthlessness, powerlessness, and I'm experiencing sexual dysfunction. I feel like the entire image I've created on who I am is a lie, that I'm not the strong person, that I'm not the one who can take charge and fix things with my sister or help my depressed mother, somehow it even makes me doubt my academic ability.
The only part of my identity that feels intact is that with my wife and son. The one part of me that doesn't feel like I've been faking it, maybe because they've always just accepted me, is being a husband and father. Unfortunately, when they are not home, or when I am out without them, all I feel like is my younger, inadequate and afraid self.
I've been reading that my feelings and reactions are normal, even if I wasn't physically abused. Everything I read, though, still leaves me feeling somewhat alone, because this was my sister that did this to me, and not a parent.
I've only just today learned the term "covert incest" or "covert sexual abuse." I've buried what happened to me for years; I only just told my wife 3 weeks ago, but I've been struggling with this for over 20 years.
Most of what I have seen out there is that this is usually a parent/child thing, I'm wondering, has anyone else experienced this from a sibling?
I'm 33 now, and I've been with my wife for 7 years, and raising our 16 year old son (from her first marriage, but I've adopted him and love him as my own). My wife is the first person I was able to form a real relationship with, and any kind of physical relationship. When we were first together, she saw how I'd recoil at her touch, even just her hand on my back and I would uncontrollably pull away. She asked if I had been sexually abused and I said "no," as I didn't understand it myself. All she ever knew was that I have a mentally unstable sister, and a father who, while not physically abusive, was a terrible person who left made me feel worthless and stupid. My mother is a deeply depressed woman.
This is also maybe more overt? I don't know, and if I am wrong to call this covert, I am sorry.
My sister is five years older than me. From childhood, she was always unstable (bipolar and borderline personality disorder), prone to massive tantrums, screaming, and even violence. She was in and out of the mental hospital through most of her teens.
When I entered puberty, things started to happen.
This is hard to write, and I'm sorry if this is graphic. Talking about this at all is, new to me.
The earliest I remember was her interest, I guess, in my development. I remember when I was about 11 her asking me about the shape of my penis when erect, and when I described it, she told me that it was a shape women didn't like. I couldn't ask my father about anything related to sexuality, so I just believed her, and thought there was something wrong with me. This type of thing went on throughout my teens. If I rubbed my thighs after running around the block a few times, she'd say that was masturbating, and ask me if I'd orgasmed in front of her. She'd want to talk about if I did masturbate, and what to. If I didn't want to talk about it, I was just "being a prude." She offered to "measure" me, though I declined. When she had her first (and basically only) boyfriend, who was my age instead of her age, I had to drive them around, because neither of them had licenses. They'd "make out" loudly in the backseat. She had her boyfriend give me a porn DVD he'd bought somewhere. She'd claim to read in tarot cards who I was "supposed" to be with, then be pointed about telling me who they were if she saw my classmates (usually picking someone I liked but was unable to ask out due my own feelings of inadequacy, or were bad ideas for other, more normal teenage reasons).
After she moved out of the house, it didn't stop. She moved to an "apartment" in a group home for mentally ill, and when I visited her there, she'd continue all the same behaviors. At a family gathering, while I was still underage, she had me supply her with mixed drink after mixed drink, eventually putting herself in the hospital with alcohol poisoning.
When I was 25, the money to support her in the group home ran out. At the time, I was trying to rebuild my life, going back to community college (after my father had emotionally abused me for years and telling me I was stupid), and I was desperate to get away from living with him. I agreed to rent an apartment with my sister. She controlled everything. I wasn't allowed to cook my own food unless it was strictly vegetarian. I couldn't even heat a can of chicken soup my future wife (at the time we were still just friends) brought me when I was sick. The room that was supposed to be my bedroom was filled with so many boxes of her stuff that I couldn't have my own bed, instead I slept in the corner on a pile of sleeping bags and egg crate. Then she started telling me about what television programs she masturbated to. She asked me for batteries once, and used them for that purposes, making sure to be loud enough that I could hear her from the hallway by her room.
Through all this, I denied to myself that this was abuse. I'd tell myself my sister just didn't know boundaries, that she was mentally ill, and I told anyone else as little as possible. My future wife (still just friends then) didn't like my general living situation there and encouraged me to get out, even if it meant back with my parents. I'd deny if asked if I'd been abused, after all, my sister had never touched me. had never looked at me naked or shown me herself naked.
I've lived with damage from this without even knowing this was the cause. I felt physically inadequate, had no sense of sexual identity or self-worth or ability to form relationships. I self-harmed as a teenager. I had an absolute fear of intimacy. I put up so many emotional barriers that I acted literally robotically, people even described me as being "Sheldon" from Big Bang Theory (especially once I also showed I wasn't stupid, and succeeded at community college, bachelors, and now a PhD program). When my wife first met me, her first impression of me was confusion and guessing from physical mannerisms (with literally nothing else to go on, since I projected nothing) that I was gay. I was a virgin at 26. Even trying to start a relationship with my wife was incredibly difficult, just getting to the point of being able to go on a date. I wasn't able to kiss her for over a month after we were dating, and as I said before, I'd recoil if she touched me in any way. That had been true before, too, when in physical therapy when I was 18 for an injury, I'd recoil if the PT practitioner touched my back or leg. My wife asked if I'd been abused, but I denied it. It was a long time into the relationship before I could be physically intimate.
As I said, I'm raising a 16 year old son now. His biological father is completely out of the picture (homeless and across the country, with custody taken away). We've tried to raise him with a healthy sense and education when it comes to sexuality, and I've done none of the things that my sister did with me, ever. Over the last year, this has all come crashing back for me, as we've been helping him through being sexually assaulted by his first girlfriend after they broke up, as well as through building healthier relationships. That he was assaulted, and then helping him to build the real types of healthy relationships that I never experienced before his mother, it brought everything with my sister back. I constantly kept pushing to fight for my son, even making my wife think that I was saying she wasn't doing enough to defend him, when it was because I couldn't bear to have my son feel like he didn't have people there to support and protect him, the way I didn't have anyone to help me or protect me. My son has struggled with his own issues, PTSD from his assault, feeling abandoned by his biological father, and it has led to depression and two suicide attempts (we have been getting him help, in addition to our parenting, ranging from therapy to even a partial hospitalization program at his request when he was afraid of more suicidal urges).
Recently, my sister's financial situation also crashed along with a health situation (hospitalized for colitis brought on by the filthy way she keeps her apartment. Turns out my father, who is constantly over at her apartment, has done nothing to help her. I've been asked to take charge, to be her medical proxy, to take power of attorney (she hadn't done her taxes in at least 6 years), and possibly to take conservatorship of her. The fear of having her back in my life so much also brought this all crashing back.
In the middle of the night a few weeks ago, I told my wife what had happened for all of those years. She's been the same, 100% supportive person that I fell in love with, thanking me for being able to tell her now even though I couldn't before when she'd asked, and that very night got me to start thinking of what had happened to me as abuse. I'd started therapy for anxiety a few weeks before that, and told my therapist the next day. I haven't told my son yet.
The last thing I want to do is be more involved with my sister in my life. After opening up to my wife, I've felt like I was that 11-12 year old all over again. I've felt that same sense of worthlessness, powerlessness, and I'm experiencing sexual dysfunction. I feel like the entire image I've created on who I am is a lie, that I'm not the strong person, that I'm not the one who can take charge and fix things with my sister or help my depressed mother, somehow it even makes me doubt my academic ability.
The only part of my identity that feels intact is that with my wife and son. The one part of me that doesn't feel like I've been faking it, maybe because they've always just accepted me, is being a husband and father. Unfortunately, when they are not home, or when I am out without them, all I feel like is my younger, inadequate and afraid self.
I've been reading that my feelings and reactions are normal, even if I wasn't physically abused. Everything I read, though, still leaves me feeling somewhat alone, because this was my sister that did this to me, and not a parent.
