Rick Littler Survivor Sister Story

I wanted to share my story because I think it still affects me and I don’t really know if I’m “out of the woods” yet.

My experience is intergenerational.  I experienced sexual abuse by my stepfather and also bore witness to domestic violence when my mother left my stepfather for a relationship with a family friend.  What distresses me is how my family seemed to be aware how this “friend” abused my mother.

My mother came home one day covered in bruises from her chin to her pelvis.  She said her boyfriend beat her over a one night stand.

My family was fully aware of this behavior and seemed to blame my mom and downplay his aggression, stalking and possessive behavior.

No one particularly noticed when their manipulating of each other played out onto me and I was forced into being homeless.   When I tried to go home they would force me back out.  When I begged to come home after a bad sexual experience with a classmate,  I was threatened with foster care.  When I came home the next day after that experience, and after a high school guidance explained I was in distress and needed help, I was physically attacked.

My mom encouraged my brother to assault me violently.

Their behavior continued like that for over a year, and despite my best efforts to talk to someone  I was completely ignored.  I tried reporting it to police and they told me to just stop running away.  My extended family blamed me for the running away, and overlooked every cry for help I gave.

Children’s services also brushed off and minimized my experience suggesting I just sleep at a friend’s and let my family blow off steam.  They blamed me when I couldn’t come up with somewhere to stay.

Two police deposited me back at home the next day.  My family laughed at me for trying to report it.

Over the next few months I watched my family lash out at a neighbour who seemed to try to intervene, until she quickly up and moved out of the area.

My mental health was suffering noticeably by this point.  Help was sort of lined up and I found a form in my mother’s purse that looked to be for sending me to a youth centre.  That help never came to fruition.

There was a cooling off period but things rapidly escalated with physical violence from my brother.  My mother dismissed everything by blaming my mental health.  My brother began threatening to kill me so often that I began wondering if it would happen.

He had a stockpile of knives he casually left laying around the floor.  This included a couple of hunting knives, and a butterfly knife (double ended knife).  He brought home a gun one day,  and announced the ownership of this new weapon by firing it off outside our front door and pointing it at me as he walked into the house.

Thankfully he calmed down enough to show me how the safety worked and he oddly put the gun under my mattress.

My mother found the gun and discarded it by tossing it in a bush in some neighborhood (or so she says).  I then found myself under extreme control (not allowed to go anywhere or talk to anyone), and then I was inexplicably thrown out of the house  for an issue that was literally made up. This behavior went on for almost another year.  Then she calmed down and acted like nothing ever happened.  

Things were wonderful for a period and then like a switch, when I got home from university, things suddenly escalated.  I wasn’t physically abused this time but I was threatened and then found myself forced into homelessness and my character smeared to extended family.  It was over not finding a place to live immediately in a high rent, low vacancy city.

I had found a place but wouldn’t be able to move for another few weeks.

I was staying at my brother’s girlfriend’s place who was moving in 45 days.  It would have bothered no one if I just stayed until my apartment was available at the end of the month.

In the meantime, even though I was working 2 part-time jobs my brother tried to force me onto welfare and tried to sabotage whatever I tried to do.  After being at his girlfriend’s only two weeks he took all my belongings and forced me off to a homeless shelter.

I was vilified to extended family who simply just bought everything they said and I ended up going no contact with them for a few years.

In the meantime, my brother, had begun unleashing his behavior on his partners.  He would be ok and then would threaten to kill them when the relationship was ending.

Eventually he served jailtime for domestic violence on two occasions.  He also developed severe alcoholism and other mental health issues, and extremely manipulative behavior.   

My current concern is my brother has children now and a pregnant wife who asks a lot of questions about our estranged mother who has now disowned our entire family.  I’ve described situations without naming my brother and just said my mother was manipulative at getting people to act out her aggression for her.

I don’t want to trigger another episode out of him.  He still drinks heavily and seems to gaslight his wife a bit.

There is no physical abuse that I can tell but I get a sense he twists the truth a lot around her.

I’ve gotten out of two prior abusive relationships and am just taking time with myself and staying around people who aren’t abusive.  I’ve stopped having relationships because I feel I need to sort myself out better before I consider it again.

But I feel like I’m aware of a lot things and behaviors and can tell where things can go wrong.

Mostly I just wanted to reach out to someone, and I am looking into local groups as well. 

 
Notice: The names in this story are fictitious to protect the request for anonymity.