sibling relationships in organized abuse *TW*

I got the news that I am now the aunt of 5 kids (from 3 siblings) and that and some system relationships bring up memories about the FOO and I am wondering if anyone here had a similar experience and how they manage their adult relationship to their siblings today.

a general trigger warning for all of this because it is about abusive structures and if you know any of this it probably is triggering. this is especially true for people with a background of cult abuse or otherwise organized abuse.

We were raised in a family that has been cult-like for several generations. with a sadistic matriarch to run the family and involvement with organized crime. it feels weird to say that because there were always parts who knew nothing of all that and just were dissociative and went to school and other parts who know crazy things.
we were 4 kids from our mother&father.
and we were taught to make sure that the younger ones won't break any family rules.
I remember our older sister telling adults when we said something we were not supposed to say. I also remember how our older sister was trained to punish us. there are parts in our system who remember punishing younger siblings, I don't even know why.
but it meant that we could trust nobody at home. if we said something out of place to a sibling they would tell and get ordered to punish us as a reward and I remember the glee in my sisters face when she did. Some of it created fear of death and worse. like real torture and they trained us at about age 8 how to do that to the younger siblings. I remember times when 3 of us punished the youngest together.

the abusers also made sure to create introjects not just of themselves but of siblings to serve as inner representation of the outside situation. all parts needed to obey perfectly, otherwise someone inside would know and tell the abusers and punish them. to do that they tortured parts while telling them that they really were the older sibling, who had the role of a guard and had to 'take care' of the others.

today the head of the family clan is old and will die soon. we don't know how the whole thing continues, just that the mother is probably DID as well and not properly trained to take the place in the family line but our oldest sister is and her husband seemed involved.
we cut contact with siblings because we kept feeling the pressure from the family through them.
we would meet in a nice way but then suddenly they would tell us that we have to contact family now and return to them. at times siblings tried to manipulate us based on the conditioning we went through as children. messages have a double meaning, like in my language telling me that they will always stand behind me. I hear a threat that creates bone-deep fear but if I tell anyone they must read it as support.
I cannot trust them.
I don't know if it was coincidence or not. I didn't feel strong enough to confront anything. I am not sure how involved they are. and I am not sure if the 5 babies in the family are safe now.

I keep having dreams about my siblings. we are back at the mothers house and things are as they have always been. abusive but in a hidden way. We are working hard with a former sibling-introject but it is difficult for our Littles to learn that she is not the sister, that inside and outside are different. in the past, even if we thought the sister wasn't there outside, someone inside would betray us to family. how could they ever feel safe?

it feels so incredibly unfair, to divide siblings like that and use them as weapons against each other.
how should we ever trust them?
the T pointed out that they must have gone through their share of trauma because no normal 8 year-old would come up with the idea to torture siblings like that. but somehow I am not sure. we saw the pleasure in her face. she was enjoying this. she is still scaring us when we remember the expression on her face.

has anyone else here had something like a hierarchy of control and punishment between siblings that was specifically created by abusers to keep everyone isolated, scared and silent?

Hi birdsong,

Don't know how to help on this one. Just thinking about you.

Good luck,

Iain

I'm not sure if this will be in any way useful to hear, but I wanted to share in case of the small chance that it is in any way helpful.

What you describe is what I saw in my cousins.
There is a lot I still don't know about my FOO.

What I know is that in my family, the oldest sister is the one who is 100% loyal to my dad. She sees it as her duty to "keep the family together", and when I defied that image of "a perfect family" by cutting contact - it was war. She made it clear to me that she is loyal to him and it doesn't matter what my wishes are. She is what they call a "monkey" in narcissism-terms. I was very sad to find out that I couldn't see my siblings without there being a hidden agenda, like that they would secretely take pictures of me to show my dad. And yes, meetings would turn into trying to convince me that he is really an amazing father.

In the younger three siblings (including me), we didn't have a culture of punishment but certainly a culture of not speaking. We never argued, not even once. We were always silent and passive. Trying not to move. We were way too scared to talk to each other about what happened. I was very scared of expressing/sharing my feelings/thoughts, because I didn't want to be outed as a worse person/traitor than I already believed I was (and yes, I was very afraid they would tell the parents). I felt like a complete alien. One time this was broken was when I found my brother crying in a closet and comforted him. My sister found us and took over the comforting and said that my dad was just weird sometimes. That was the first time I realized that they may not 100% agree.

The contact to the younger siblings: occasional small-talk.
The contact to the older siblings: minimalistic small-talk.
Moments of contact: one birthday and one day with Christmas.

Oldest sister has a child.
I always bring a gift for the child and try to focus on them rather than the sibling, or we talk about the child.

My family still manages to be hurtful, even with the minimal contact. However, it seems to be the best balance for now.

Your family sounds scary. I recognize that things are hidden for outsiders, but not for you. It's that sticky language.

Pleasure could be aggression. Children don't have a great capacity for empathy yet. She may have enjoyed having power, in a life in which she was mainly powerless.

I'm sorry you're dealing with all of this.

so this is a hard as ###$ conversation.

my FOO had multiple siblings. (all brothers). my mother, DID and exposed to some programming. I do not think we were programmed.

but the sibling relationship was ###$ the way you described. in some families torture is normalized. in ours it was. very, very, very much so. it was sometimes premeditated, more often spontaneous, and frequently a group activity. everyone participated in giving and receiving. my middle brother bore the brunt of family sport. writing this makes it easier to understand why he often beat me. 4 of us survive. we lost the eldest to suicide.

sadism is a personality trait I've seen in varying degrees among people and among my own siblings. I think it's possible that innate sadism and programming can co-occur.

for my family of origin - I only talk to my younger brother. none of us are ostracized or cut off or anything. we just dont really talk. like I told the rest of them when I got skin cancer so they would know for medical history, or I tell them when someone dies-- kind of dont talk. i think we all mutually just dont go there because of the past. but i am bonded to my little brother, who I raised and shielded. and who is now my guardian angel ♡♡ if we ever talk about anything family related we just laugh with dark humor at how incredibly ###$ up it was and no one else on the face of the earth will ever understand how deeply and truly ###$ up we were and are.

for your FOO I strongly concur with no contact. it's just not safe.

I do not think you can save the little ones. I do not know how.

My family had a sadistic matriarch too. It's definitely ran down the female line of my family. She was my greatgrandmother, she's dead now. When I saw how she treated my grandmother when my great aunt was there I had to leave.

My mother is sadistic and brainwashing too and my father and her together were a frightening combination. I nearly carried it on. It only changed because at age 19 they put me in a psychiatric hospital. This lead to talking to psychologists etc. So by the time I had my son I easily had access to educated outside people. I didn't speak about most of the abuse I suffered. But when my eldest son was 4 I was asking a psychologist about managing behaviour. I told her usually I take my son to my father's and he locks him in the garage. Something that happened to me often. I didn't realize that was terrible until she told me. I stopped taking him there when she told me that and went to several parenting classes to find out how you're supposed to be a parent. Positive Parenting was the best one for me because it's ignoring bad behaviour and focusing on good behaviour. It's simple and it works.

I cut all contact with my extended family, because of remembering past abuse of an uncle, when I was about 24. I only kept contact with my mother, my father and my grandmother. All of my extended family knew about allegations so how I saw it was I can't help them. Either they don't remember like me or they're abusers - that's how I looked at it. I also looked at it that I had to work at protecting my own children and I can't save everyone else. They knew about the allegations and they made their choices. Occasionally I wonder about their poor children but mostly I don't think about it because I can't do anything about it.

I kept distances from my parents and limited contact between them and my children. I created this illusion that they had "ok" grandparents in doing this. I didn't remember other abuses until recently and thought it was all psychological abuse so I thought as long as the contact was limited they'd be ok. That was a mistake and now I have a battle on my hands. This is the biggest problem with DID, I feel, because the abuse memories are trapped we risk inadvertently allowing it to continue because we are in a delusion for so long that everything is ok. I was so messed up that I didn't realize locking a child in a dark garage is wrong. To me, because I had such horrific experiences, being in a dark garage was nothing but to my son it was horrific. I spoke to him about it. He's 19 now and if my youngest who is 9 is asked to be around either of my parents at all, which is probably about twice a year, then he insists on going with him.

Since I've had horrible flashbacks which have only happened in the last few weeks I will be breaking all ties with my parents. My middle two children are not going to like it. The eldest and the youngest won't care or notice. My biggest fear now is that my parents have abused my children and my children won't remember until they're adults. I'm not going to allow that fear to put me back into denial because that would be risking them more.

I've only been able to remember severe abuses because my bf listens and believes me when I say things. I had a flashback when I was with my ex and our daughter was with my father. I got into a state and said I was terrified about my daughters safety. My ex told me to calm down and stop being stupid, my daughter was safe and that I was making things up in my brain. So I slipped back into denial again and allowed some contact to continue.

When you have DID it's difficult enough to protect yourself and any children you have yourself. Even if you don't have your own children it's very hard. There's the self doubt, the denial, you doubt your own mind. So I think it's ok to let go of worrying about everybody else which I think is probably heightened in abuse victims because of being made to feel responsible for abusers which is a very confusing message to adults let alone children.

A lady said to me, when I was distressed over a boy in my son's class because I could see he was being abused by his mother and father, "you can't save everyone" Those simple words really hit home to me and I realised I had to focus on myself and my children and let go of worrying about other people.

It is awful a very distressing though. My sister lives in complete denial about our mother, we don't speak to eachother, and her children are around her alot. I've even had to let that go because I had to accept there was nothing I could do.

I keep cycling back to this topic because it is just too big to figure out all at once. I am sorry I didn't respond to anyone, I got a bit overwhelmed.

we spoke about family dynamics within the abuser clan with the T.
she tries to teach us about the patterns in dysfunctional systems.
kind of trying to help us to get a more flexible view of what happened.
right now that is mainly because I somewhat hate and envy the oldest for getting all kinds of things. getting her needs met, as far as I could see.
she got clothes, she got her teeth taken care of, she got extra food, she got financial support, she got all kinds of things I never dared to dream of. like, she didn't have to go to the doctor alone, taking public transport to get there when having a fever.
the way we were not treated equally is just making me cry with helpless rage.

The T tries to teach us that this must not have been a good position either, cause she must have always feared that her privileges will be taken away any moment, if she doesn't obey.
I find it hard to find compassion for her. I find it hard to see the downsides of getting your needs met.
I find it hard to believe that she didn't enjoy her position. And I find it extra hard to believe that she didn't enjoy hurting me.

I know that when my sister once looked for help her therapist pointed out her PTSD.
I know that we had to create a new part who was able to hurt our brother when the abusers demanded it. because it was him or us. we had to split to find something inside of us who could do it.

the T mentioned stuff about choices that are not really choices. and about things people in concentration camps did to each other, for mere survival, and having to live with the knowledge that they have done this to another person.
how bad is it, when you T compares your childhood to a concentration camp?

it feels like I am trying to put a knot in my brain, trying to change perspective and not be so set in the view I got in TraumaTime.
with abusive systems it seems like the basic rules is to question everything.
but first I want to be angry with her. I want to be so terribly angry

You have a right to every emotion you feel towards your siblings and family. There is no wrong in feelings.