TW: seeking advice - witnessing present child abuse

[samantha19]

Trigger Warning!!

- current and past abuse in different forms, gaslighting, control, family issues, emotional abuse, resulting CPTSD



I'm in a bit of a pickle where I have witnessed verbal and emotional abuse of my young sibling. He is a constant scapegoat of both parents, treated like he is just bad, rather than his behaviour. I believe my father is narcissistic, completely lacks empathy or the ability to be wrong about anything (constant, angry deflection and defence), among other traits like being a bully, fits of rage, severe ego issues, etc.

My mother is an enabler, just as she was with me, employing gaslighting and shaming to silence, as well as the implication that the child is bad or just as bad for reacting to or "provoking" abuse.

My sibling has also said he is scared of being hit and has been hit before, something I know to be true. However, it is likely this is being hit without a lasting mark being left, which is not yet illegal here.

He also apologises frequently and says it's because he is given into trouble for basically everything.

I recognise gaslighting being attempted in my direction, suggesting my little brother is lying - but it's terribly inefficient because I know that he was hit in the past and I was too, so it's ridiculous if they expect me to believe he's lying or being dramatic.

I was severely psychologically damaged by my child abuse to the point of severe depression, social anxiety and suicidal feelings for at least 5 years.
Understandably, I am very worried and concerned about my brother. But I feel lost at how to navigate trying to fix this or help as much as possible, because of the complex web surrounding child abuse, e.g. I was treated as crazy or irrational and my brother is treated as too sensitive or bad, and this view is promoted outside of the family too (at least it was for me, increasing the amount of enablers and gaslighters). I am also still very much terrified and my father triggers my PTSD if he shows even a hint of how he would get when he was abusive to me when I was trapped. So there's a physical terror of standing up to him or criticising. I'm not sure how far he would go either, I've saw him attack another woman via Facebook, sending long messages full of hate, so when he feels crossed he does not let it go and obsesses over it tbh, expressing his hatred of the other person often and overstepping lines in a major way.

Ideally, I would like professional advise on my options, but I know that many in the field are inexperienced and don't properly understand narcissistic abuse. It would be good to find someone truly educated and understanding on this kind of thing, as the ignorance around this type of abuse is so prominent and damaging, in my experience. I've dealt with professionals who viewed my father as someone "normal" who was just under stress / making mistakes / unaware of the hurt he caused so I need to just tell the truth / confront (dangerous / damaging idea).

I guess I'm looking for advise and would appreciate hearing from anyone who has dealt with similar.

It's a sensitive situation, if I speak up / out it would crumble certain pretences and it would likely mean severe emotional damage for me (as they would attack / shame / upset me). It could also mean causing lifelong difficulty or abuse around trying to maintain contact with my dependent siblings (one is disabled so will likely always be dependent). I feel like me visiting them frequently or being in their life allows me to be a non abusive adult in their life and provide some happiness / care / love. I'm afraid to damage that opportunity.

I'm also aware that abuse / control could worsen in this situation, due to deflection / rage / insecurity leading to more severe attempts to silence and control.

There's also the issue that my brother is quite young so easily influenced and very dependent on my parents and attached to M, so not sure if risking breaking him away from the family would be a great option. I highly doubt M would leave F, so it'd be both or none I believe.

Idk. Idk how this works.

I'm just unsure my best option here. I want to protect my brother as much as I can, from severe emotional damage. Not sure if my best bet is to allow him to come stay every week or two for a break / normalcy, be supportive and believing of him, etc, then when he's an adult help him easily move out and maybe recover a bit, etc. I should be financially able to provide support in this manner, if it came to it so he's not trapped there or homeless from leaving.

But I do obviously wonder if that will ever be enough or if there is a better option.

All of this is very heavy on my conscience, even if I'm not the abuser myself. I am heavy with the idea that I could be enabling or ignoring this just like many done when it was me. And I am terrified incase he becomes severely depressed / self harming / suicidal like I did from it. I already feel he is experiencing emotional damage and abuse.

I know this is really long but it's important to me. Grateful for any input, thanks.

[Three Roses]

Samantha, I'm so sorry to hear what a difficult situation you find yourself in! I'm not sure anyone here is qualified to give you advice, we try to limit advice-giving for a number of reasons. 

I will say that if it were me, I would find it extremely difficult to report this, because I know that it's likely to really stir things up. But I think that it's necessary for the safety of your brother.

https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/responding/reporting/how/

I know you're really scared and concerned about doing the right thing. Whatever you decide to do, we're here for you. 

[samantha19]

Thank you for replying.

Yeah, that's fair. I'm going to arrange professional counselling around this I think. Too out of my depth here and need proper help.

If reporting it still seems to be the safest option for him, after advise / counselling, I am going to work on building up my courage to do it. It's really difficult and I feel scared for my life to do so but I can't allow this to happen to somebody else.

Thank you. I really do appreciate it <3

[ah]

Hi Samantha,

This sounds awful, witnessing it happening again, knowing what it must be like for your brother. I want you to know how moved I am by the fact that you won't look away and pretend it isn't happening. You're not ignoring, not enabling... sounds to me you're doing the exact opposite of all those things. Sounds like your heart is exactly in the right place. I'm so sorry this is happening.

Just my two cents, a little pessimistic maybe, based on personal experience:

When I was a kid / teenager, a friend called social services, trying to help me. It was very bad, ended up doing more harm than good. My parents were very respectable and no one took it seriously. There isn't enough awareness of narcissistic abuse to put it mildly, more like 0%... so unless you have visible bruises chances are social services won't do much.
Besides, they don't know what they're dealing with, we both know it. They'll be faced with gaslighting and smear campaigns and it can get very ugly very quickly. Just like you say, it can backfire.

In my case, social services basically called me a liar and closed the case. My parents ... that's another story. I was never interviewed apart from them so I kept my mouth shut. Still, they took what happened as a direct threat issued by me (my poor friend thought she was helping) and things escalated badly at home as a direct result.

It's such an ugly, flawed world. Such a broken system. If I could I'd get information about emotional abuse out there so social workers, therapists, lawyers, doctors, teachers 'etc. knew how to recognize it. Ah well... dreams.

In my experience, the biggest, most meaningful thing I wish I had when I was back there was someone older who'd be on my side. Everything I've read about c-ptsd, too, says over and over again that the one thing that can stop c-ptsd from forming or getting worse and worse is having one person by your side that you can turn to.

So I hope you can be that person for your brother, no matter what. No matter what happens. Be that stable, constant person he can turn to. It doesn't have to be done in a was that raises suspicion that you're rocking the boat. But spend time with him, be open to share personal things with him if that's something he's open to. Yes, invite him over as much as possible.

Encourage him in things he's interested in (strengthening his sense of self), show interest in them. Tell him what you see him him, little things that remind him he's seen and cared about. Laugh with him, so he doesn't forget how to do it. Give him silly little presents he can take home and keep to remind him of his time with you. Don't underestimate the power of one kind word at the right moment.

If I had someone like you when I was growing up, it would change so much for me. If I had just one person who cared, it would color others in a different light. Don't underestimate how much power and self-compassion you can help your brother learn just by being there for him, even if you can't control your parents' behavior.

[Blueberry]

This sounds awful, witnessing it happening again, knowing what it must be like for your brother. I want you to know how moved I am by the fact that you won't look away and pretend it isn't happening. You're not ignoring, not enabling... sounds to me you're doing the exact opposite of all those things. Sounds like your heart is exactly in the right place.

My personal experience: 2 relatives spoke to my parents separately about their allowing my elder brother to treat me how he treated me. This was turned against me. M, who has multiple problems, probably BPD witch variety, blamed me for years that these relatives had spoken up. If anything, things got worse. enF basically did nothing, being an enabler, except when things got really bad, at which point he joined in with M and B1 against me.

In later years as an adult, once I was outside FOO, it felt good that someone had noticed and spoken up for me.

Unlike you, I think, my relatives possibly thought there was an easy solution and they didn't take into account that their blood relative, enF, was as much at fault as M and more so than B1, who was a child too.

When she realised she couldn't help directly, one of these relatives did her best to bolster my confidence whenever she could, so I agree with ah that it would do a lot of good if you can support your B in the sort of ways she suggests. That can certainly limit the damage and help form resilience.

However you decide, we're here for you! Keep posting when it helps you and let us know how it's going. 

[samantha19]

Thank you ah, I really do appreciate the insight. I am sorry you went through that though. That's terrible that the social workers never even interviewed you, but somehow not surprising!
Thanks for all those ideas as well. I will definately make an effort to do those things. They are good ideas and it sounds like they will help. Thank you.
I also read that about CPTSD and I really hope that it is enough. It should help though, I'm guessing. It's something I definately lacked during my younger years too and I imagine it would help. I do help try and give him a different narrative like saying big people should never hit smaller people, tell him he's a good kid and things like that. I guess these things really do matter and can help a lot. I also try to do activities with him like take him swimming to build his confidence in a way and have fun. Going to keep doing those things, probably more frequently and make sure to take his interests and preferences into account.
It must help just to validate a child in this circumstance by them being safe to vent / talk to you and being validated, instead of scorned, threatened or gaslighted for talking about it. Cause that kind of emotional abuse and struggling to believe your own perspective really screws you up and makes it so hard to move on and let go.
I know it's still very, very crap but I do feel now that I have a lot more power to help here and make this less terrible.

I spoke about all this with someone in my life and they figured the same sort of thing, social services likely won't intervene because there's no physcial marks / it's not what is deemed "severe." They said the best thing to do probably is to frequently be there for him and continue taking him out to improve his life how I can, then when he's 16 I can provide somewhere for him to live if this is preferred.

Anyway, my plan is to arrange a schedule around my brother staying over maybe once a fortnight (I live a little far away) to spend a day or two here, and seeing my other brother about as frequently too. I will also be seeking proper emotional support on all of this I think, as it feels a bit like navigating an emotional minefield being so in contact with my family again, especially with this whole situation, and I need to be strong to maintain it I think. I also need to be smart in my descisions and how I manage this so could use the support in that too. Also gonna be educating myself further on dealing with abusive people.

Thank you Blueberry as well. :-) I really appreciate the kindness and the insight into your experience. That's good you had some support and I'm glad to know that it helped a bit. Sorry that it was turned against you at first however though, that sucks of course.

I appreciate this community so much. You guys here have helped me so much over the past 2 years. Dread to think where I'd be without it. Means a lot and I'm feeling very grateful 

[Blueberry]

It must help just to validate a child in this circumstance by them being safe to vent / talk to you and being validated, instead of scorned, threatened or gaslighted for talking about it. Cause that kind of emotional abuse and struggling to believe your own perspective really screws you up and makes it so hard to move on and let go.
I know it's still very, very crap but I do feel now that I have a lot more power to help here and make this less terrible.

Yes, exactly. You sound strong in the final line!

Anyway, my plan is to arrange a schedule around my brother staying over maybe once a fortnight (I live a little far away) to spend a day or two here, and seeing my other brother about as frequently too. I will also be seeking proper emotional support on all of this I think, as it feels a bit like navigating an emotional minefield being so in contact with my family again, especially with this whole situation, and I need to be strong to maintain it I think. I also need to be smart in my descisions and how I manage this so could use the support in that too. Also gonna be educating myself further on dealing with abusive people.

Good plan! Good self-care will be very important I'm sure, so it's good that you're getting support in place for yourself.

All the best!

[ah]

I think it's very kind and very brave of you. And mostly, it's the right thing to do. It's the human thing to do, and if I were you I'd get all the support I could so I'd be able to be in that much contact with my parents without being sucked back into their whirlpool of madness.
When you're there for others it can change the picture in my experience. Gives you strength you never knew you had before.

I want to add, I have a severe physical disability as a result of physical abuse in FOO so I really feel for your disabled brother. Not because of the disability, disability is a very tough thing to bear, but in my experience it's really nothing in comparison to narcissistic abuse in childhood. Especially if you're disabled, I bet. Being disabled + dependent on your abusers... it's no easy life. I hope you can be there for him without putting yourself at risk. All three of you are hurting, I bet, you included.

Yes, it's still awful, I couldn't agree more. If I could I'd personally save your brothers from the environment they're in. But given the bad circumstances (which you absolutely can't control) you're willing to do your (sane! as opposed to narcissistic) part and to do it so lovingly.
My older siblings ran away the moment they could and never thought of me for a second, so I don't take your good heart for granted. I think your plan is amazing and inspiring.
Someone else might say "hey, I suffered enough, it's time for me to take care of myself now". Being willing to be there for others in a tough situation is no small thing. I think it's the antithesis of narcissistic abuse.