#siblingabuse

I was seven years old. Just a kid. Still figuring out how to tie my shoes properly, still afraid of the dark, still hoping that the world was a kind place. But my world had a crack in it. And that crack had a name: my older sister.

She was twenty. An adult. A woman, by all definitions. And yet, she found something in me—this little, soft, open-hearted child—that made her eyes harden. That made her hands rise. That made her anger pour out onto my skin.

The slaps weren’t just physical. They were loaded. Sharp, fast, merciless. One after the other. I never saw them coming. They would erupt out of nothing. No warning, no fight, no broken rule. Just silence, and then impact. A face burning. Eyes stinging. Ears ringing. Confused. Motionless.

The pain was real, of course. But the pain wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was the confusion.

I couldn’t make sense of it. How could someone who shared the same blood, the same roof, the same childhood home look at me with that kind of contempt? How could her hands, meant to care, to protect, turn into weapons? I wasn’t a threat. I wasn’t loud. I wasn’t mean. I was a child. I just wanted to be loved. I wanted her to smile at me. I wanted to be seen—not as a punching bag, but as a sister.

But in that house, when the door closed and no one else was around, she saw something else in me. And she made sure I felt it.

It was our secret. That’s how abuse works sometimes. It doesn’t always scream; sometimes, it whispers in dark corners. Sometimes, it hides behind closed doors and closed mouths. It becomes something sacred, in a twisted way—a ritual that only the two of you know. She hit, I froze. She glared, I shrank. I learned the dance. I memorized the silence.

It only ended—publicly—once. She left her handprint on my face. That time, it didn’t fade quickly. That time, my father saw. That time, someone finally asked what happened.

But even then, no one really dove into the truth. No one sat her down and demanded answers. No one pulled me aside and asked how long this had been going on. It was easier to see it as a moment than as a pattern. Easier to call it an accident than an echo of something deeper.

And so I was left alone. With my thoughts. With this gnawing, haunting question: why?

Why did she hate me?

What was it about me that triggered so much fury?

Was I broken? Did I have some kind of invisible defect stamped on my skin that said “hit me”?

That’s the thing about being hurt by someone who’s supposed to love you. It messes with your sense of self. It plants a seed, deep in the soil of your spirit, that says: Maybe I’m unlovable. Maybe I deserved it. Maybe if I had just been quieter, or smaller, or more invisible, she would’ve smiled instead of slapped.

Those thoughts don’t leave easily. They grow with you. They tangle into your self-worth, your relationships, your fears. Even now, as an adult, I sometimes find myself asking: am I worthy of love? If my own sister couldn’t love me, who will?

The past doesn’t always stay in the past. It lingers. It clings. It breathes beneath the surface of who we are. And the truth is, I still carry those slaps with me. Not on my face—but in my chest, in the part of me that still flinches when someone raises their voice. In the part of me that still wonders, after all this time, what I did wrong.

I know now that the rage wasn't mine to carry. That her cruelty came from her own chaos, not my worth. But knowing doesn’t erase the mark. It just gives it context.

I write this now not for revenge. Not for pity. But because some truths only lose power when they’re spoken out loud. Abuse feeds on silence. On shame. On secrets. And I’m done carrying this one alone.

If you’ve been there—if you’ve been hurt by someone who should’ve loved you—this is for you too. You are not broken. You are not the reason it happened. You are not the mirror of their fury.

You’re the one who survived it.

The Black Box holds many stories. This was mine. One of many. And I’m learning, slowly, to tell them. To take the weight off. To look at that little 7-year-old version of me and say, You were always worthy. You always deserved love. It was never your fault.

A verdade te liberta acesse >>> The Black Box

Unfortunately, my late father, whom I adored more than anybody else in the whole world, was sexist towards women. That’s hard for me to confront and admit, but I’m glad I can acknowledge shortcomings in the people I love, including myself.

Both my younger brother and my half brother have screamed the F word in my face and actually physically intimidated me, which is the definition of assault. No physical contact has to occur for this behavior to be considered an assault in the eyes of the law. Battery comes when contact is made. Younger brother actually crossed the line and shoulder checked me once when he was angry at me. My father was present for all of these occasions when these men, who were bigger and stronger than I, screamed curse words in my face, berating me for existing in their space until it actually became physical. My father stayed silent and never once stepped in to defend me or tell his sons that their behavior was unacceptable.

When it came to my father, though, he would not tolerate any mean word thrown his way, especially by a woman. We got into an argument the last time I saw him, and he wanted to destroy the entire planet because I had hurt his feelings. His own son and adopted child screaming and threatening his daughter is tolerated but not something said in anger to him by the same daughter. See the disconnect? Women aren’t allowed to get angry, but men sure are. Do better teaching your sons to respect women.

My cousin also lived in the same house with my older brothers and I. We were all hanging out in my aunt’s room one day and my second oldest brother told me to go under the sheets to stick something in my mouth. Clearly confused, I went with it. He proceeded to shove his penis in my mouth again and again. He insisted I stay under the sheets to continue. It wasn’t long before my mother came into the room and found out what my brother was making me do. She took out a dust broom and immediately started to hit us. She hit us again and again telling us what we were doing was wrong and continued to yell. Angry at how it wasn’t my fault, I glared at my brother in anger at what he made me do. 

I remember I was 5 years old or so and I woke up to my oldest brother rubbing his body against me. My two older brothers and I all had one big room to share as children. There were three beds total all set side by side and my parents room were across the hall. I remember laying there completely confused as to what was going on. I sat there awake as my brother continued to press himself against me. My other brother laid across the bed from me, staring at me, confused just as I was. Although I didn’t know what was going on, I knew something was wrong. I spoke to my mother about it, explaining what my older brother had done. She might have been confused about what I was trying to say, but I kept on insisting that it was weird, I was confused and worried. She pushed the topic away as if it wasn’t a big deal and I gave up.