Another thing – calling the police will only make things worse, unless it’s pikuach nefesh, because she will pay dearly when she’s alone with her mother again. We went to therapy as a family a few times, but I knew I was being set up, even if the therapist thought they were helping. I knew I would suffer for anything I said, so I said nothing. I got yelled at for not being cooperative and wasting their money, but it was better than suffering later for telling the therapist the truth, being called a stupid liar and worse and having to be alone at home with her after.
Each of my siblings have coped differently with the abuse. I chose to maintain contact after high school to support my younger siblings. I knew what they were going through and wanted to be there for them as much as I could. When my younger sister was 11, I was visiting and she crawled onto my lap on a lawn chair in the yard and sobbed, “I just don’t know what to do! I want to make her happy and I try to stay out of her way but it doesn’t help!” I went home to my husband and sobbed for hours because I couldn’t protect them. I remember saying that I had the money I would have gone to court for custody of them.
Sibling #1 is now married with kids, moved hundreds of miles away and cut off all contact with all family. Sibling #2 is married with kids, has a simliar personality to our abuser (glad I wasn’t home to see THOSE fights) but somehow was able to form better parenting skills that what we grew up with.
Sibling #3 is even more sentitive than I am, can’t hold a job, abuses alcohol, engages in other self-destructive behaviors, and has lo aleinu attempted suicide.
This is why APBYG needs to get out.