My memories from age 0-10 have been wiped pretty much completely. But I recently had a few flashbacks/ intrusive memories come back to me and am really struggling to piece them together.

What counts as physical abuse? Do you need to have broken bones, or a black eye? Do you need to have visible bruises?

None of that ever happened to me. I wasn’t “beaten”. I never sustained any severe, visible, or lasting physical injuries. I never went to the hospital or anything.

My primary abuser was my narcissistic, sociopathic/ psychopathic older brother.

I think he’d shove me, hit me, or kick me pretty often when we were kids. It’s hard to remember. I would usually attempt to fight back, to some extent. I kept my nails really long. I think when he hit me or kicked me, I would dig my nails into several layers of his skin. My mom yelled at me for doing that to him and called me an animal.

I remember that my brother would always be the one to provoke the fight. I’d be sitting on the couch or reading a book and minding my own business and he would always start the fight.

My parents told me it was sibling rivalry. But it happened so often. None of the other siblings I knew interacted this way.

I had a flashback today. Of me as a child, running up the stairs in my house, sprinting into my room, slamming the door shut, fumbling to lock the door with my shaking hands. And then someone- my brother? Would bang their fists on my door, again and again, yelling at me to open it. This happened more than once. I think it happened many times. My brother and my mother would both do this I think. I don’t remember what happened to prompt this.

There was one time when my brother threw a really thick book- 700 pages, I think- at me. It hit my eye. I don’t think it affected my vision or anything though, hopefully. My parents downplayed it to a point where I thought it was nothing.

My mother told me that when I was a toddler, my brother tried to push me down the stairs and kill me. “It’s fine because I was there and caught you!” What if you didn’t?

I don’t know if any of this counts as physical abuse. Is punching and kicking your siblings normal?

One day we were going on a trip to the zoo. My brother kept kicking my seat in the car until I screamed and cried and demanded we turn the car around and go home. My dad blamed me for making trouble and ruining the trip.

I think my mom would try to discipline my brother- send him to his room for timeouts, yell at him, or something. But it never seemed to work. He’d keep provoking fights again, and again, and again. I wanted nothing to do with it but I’d keep getting dragged into a fight again and again and again.

I felt like my parents couldn’t protect me. My dad didn’t do shit, and my mom tried but nothing she did was effective. No one could protect me from him.

As we got older, my brother didn’t really physically attack me anymore. But he would threaten to kill me very often, or threaten to hurt me, or throw things. I think one day he punched a hole in the wall. I figured threats of violence would just count as emotional abuse, as long as there was no actual following through on the threat- right?

I don’t know. I’m so lost.

I think my instinctive, biggest fear is that someone will beat me, or physically hurt me. I’m afraid to be alone with cis men because I expect them to physically assault me. I always thought that was strange of me because I never thought the abuse was physical. I am very touch averse nowadays as well. I remember this one time I went to office hours with my (completely safe) male professor. I remember shivering the entire time because I felt like he was going to physically attack me. I can’t be alone with cis men and tend to avoid them as much as I can.

I’m so lost. I don’t know what to do. I can’t believe I completely forgot about all of this until now. I still don’t believe it’s physical abuse. I wasn’t injured badly. Nothing was permanent. “It’s just sibling rivalry.” My family told me that so many times. Why is my unconscious telling me something else?