- Hey everybody. Happy Thursday.
Are you having a good week?
I hope you're having a good week.
My week has been pretty good.
Pretty busy, but, also super, super fun.
And if you don't notice, I'm in my pajamas.
Shh. Don't tell anybody.
But, I'm wearing my Playlist Live t-shirt
'cause I will be there in Orlando May 5th, 6th, and 7th,
come hang out, get your tickets, come meet me.
I'd love to see your beautiful faces,
take pictures, all that stuff.
But let's jump into today's question
because it's actually a really, really good one.
It's something we haven't talked about before.
And this was a question that actually came
up on my Patreon page.
I do extra videos.
If you don't know what Patreon is,
it's a way for you to support creators that you like,
to help support their channels, so we can keep doing
what we love and keep bringing these wonderful
videos and hopefully, educational content, to you.
And this came up on my Patreon account for one
of the extra videos that I do each month for them.
And I just really thought it was important
that we talk about it more here, as well.
So let's get into it. It says, "Hey Katie.
I have a question for you but first I need
to give you a little brief explanation.
I was molested by my step father
when I was 14 to 15 years old.
At that same time, I was hurting my younger sister
in a somewhat similar way.
I've only recently started talking about it, as I've been
too guilty and ashamed to ever talk about it before now.
There isn't much out there regarding sibling abuse.
Period.
I was curious to know your thoughts on it
from both perspectives.
For example, from the perspective of a kid hurting
her little sister, while I, myself, would be hurt as well.
I've been having a really hard time coping
with talking and thinking about it
and the guilt and shame that I feel.
It's expedientially greater than before,
when I avoided it.
How can I heal from this?
I don't believe I meant to hurt her,
but I feel so responsible, and sometimes compare
myself to my step dad who hurt me.
It's so confusing and hard.
Also, I'm curious to know how to address the issue
with that sibling, or if it's best not to.
My sister and I have a pretty good relationship still,
and I don't know if I should ever bring it up or not.
I mean, I know she remembers, because my mother
constantly brought it up over the years,
because she believed my sister when I told,
when she told our mom what I did.
But she didn't believe me, when I told her
I was molested by my step dad."
(heavy sigh)
Frustration, right?
But I think there's a lot of things that
we can talk about with this.
And I want to break it into different chunks,
because, the truth about this, is we're going
to have to work on it in separate sections.
And so the first section of this,
is healing from your own abuse.
And I know this particular person is in therapy
and working on it, but if you're out there,
and you have been sexually abused or molested
at any point in your life, any time, please see someone,
pleae reach out, please talk.
I promise it can get better.
And there's an amazing book that I talk about all the time,
The Courage to Heal Workbook, it's a yellow workbook,
I'll put a link in the description so you can go grab one.
I really love that book because it not only changed the way
that we talk about surviving abuse, but it also
does it in kind of a timeline fashion
where you start off by recognizing that it happens,
and you end with having a healthy sex life yourself,
and what that can really look like.
And so I think those are all wonderful components,
and there's everything in between.
It's a great book.
Can't recommend it enough.
Okay, but, back to the question.
We need to heal ourself first.
And I know that this is gonna come up
with regard to your healing, and that's okay.
I would encourage you not to shy away from it,
because it's really part of your story.
There's also another important factor
that I want to mention, and that is,
that we learn a lot of behaviors,
and tools and techniques, or lack thereof,
from our family and from people that we're around.
And often I find, when I've worked with clients
who've been sexually abused, that they were told
this was how love was expressed.
Or they were told this was normal, or this is the way
that people do it, or this is what you're
supposed to do with your family.
And they're told all sorts of lies
and fed a lot of false information in order
to go along with the abuse or molestation.
Therefore, we do find a lot of siblings
abuse other siblings, other friends, other family
members in general, because they're told that it's normal,
healthy, it's something that we do, it's a way
to show love, or whatever they're told.
Also, because as children, when we are abused,
we often feel like we can't say anything,
or we might be threatened and told not to say anything
or something bad will happen, someone we love could be hurt,
or harmed, or we'll be hurt or harmed in some way.
Therefore, it's sometimes our way of screaming
to be heard, and told that something's wrong.
Children will play inappropriately with other children.
That's something as therapists we're trained to notice,
the way that they interact, even playing with dolls,
but mostly interacting with others.
And siblings, it's very common that we will act out
on them what's being acted out on us.
I know that doesn't make it feel any better,
but I just want you to know that it is very common.
Almost like we're mimicking behavior
from someone we look up to.
A parent, right?
We're mimicking that behavior in relationship
with our sibling.
And so going back to like the stages
that I think this needs to run, is,
first, we need to work on healing from our own abuse.
Secondary, I want you to talk about the guilt
and shame associated with hurting your little sister.
Because I don't believe that you
intentionally did it either.
And, no, that doesn't make it okay, I'm not condoning
the behavior, but I'm also not going to berate you
and tell you how terrible you are, because it wasn't
your idea, it wasn't something that you went
and sought out and tried to do.
It's something that was happening to you, therefore,
you were mimicking that behavior with your sister.
So I'd like you to talk about that guilt and shame
with your therapist, because guilt and shame
are extremely powerful, powerful emotions.
And it's something that I'm actually doing
a little bit of research on.
I would love to do a video purely about shame
and guilt, and the power it has over us.
But that's why I think that's the next stage,
is working directly on that experience
and all the things you told yourself about it,
processing through it, and then, thirdly,
working through what happened with your sister,
and, giving her the option to talk to you about it.
The word option, I'm saying that slowly and clearly,
so you really hear it.
We can give her the option.
She has every right to tell us to go pound salt,
she doesn't wanna see us, whatever.
But it sounds like you have a pretty good relationship
with her, which is great, and I'm hopeful, that by utilizing
that relationship, we're able to talk about the hard things.
But I want you to do it from the place of,
you hope it's helpful for her and in turn helpful for you.
If we go into situations like this wanting to talk
with them about it because it'll make us feel better,
it can be more traumatizing, or retraumatizing,
for the person that we're bringing into it.
So the way that I would go about it is to softly ask her.
And the way that I would say that would be something
to the effect, let's say your little sister's name
is Susie, so we'll say, Hey Susie, I'm working
on a lot of the abuse stuff from when I was younger
in therapy and I would love if you would be a part of that,
if you feel comfortable, because I do think there's
a lot we could talk about.
And you can just say, I'm gonna leave it at that,
take time to think about it, but just let me know.
And you can even reiterate.
No pressure, I just want you to know
that that's what I'm working on,
and I would love to be able to talk that out with you.
That's it.
They have to come around to it and decide that
it's something they want as well, because like I said,
otherwise we can retraumatize them.
I think this is a great topic and there truly wasn't
that much information out there about healing
as an abuser yourself, other than from the perspective
of being like a physically abusive wife or husband
or mother, brother, sister, and trying to reintegrate
back into your family because you've been in therapy
and you're working on yourself.
And a couple of the components they talk about are,
and I'm just going to read from this little list,
is like admitting fully to what you have done.
And that's why I'm saying if your sister's open to it,
if she's open to it and she wants to come,
admit fully what you've done.
Stop excuses and blaming. Make amends.
But these are all, like I said, they're more
towards someone who was abusive to someone else,
and wasn't abused themself at the same time.
But I do think that some of those statements
still ring true, that we do need to admit everything
that happened, and own up to the behavior that we did,
and apologize for what happened, because the truth
is I don't think you meant to hurt her.
I don't think you had any intention of doing that.
It was just the only way that you could shout about
what was happening, express what it was you were going
through, because you were telling your mom
and she didn't believe that that was happening.
But I wanna hear from you.
It's not just about me talking about it,
but I wanted to hear from all of you and that's really
the reason I wanted to bring this question up.
I want to know what your thoughts are.
Have you been in situations like this?
What helped you?
Are there things that I missed and didn't mention
that you think are really pivotal to overcoming
this and healing from it?
Let us know.
Are there other books and workbooks that we should pick up?
Tell us in the comments.
And if you like this kind of video give it a thumbs up.
And I will see you next time.
(blowing kisses) Bye!