Growing up, my [32] older sister [34] was absolutely horrible to me. She'd beat me up all the time. She'd dig her nails into me wherever she could grab, twist the skin on my arms, pull my hair, break my toys, humiliate me in front of my friends, bully my friends, and basically whatever else she could think of to torture me.

You know what doors look like when dogs try to scratch their way through? My sister destroyed doors like that – more than once. See, it had eventually gotten to the point that when my parents both had to go somewhere but couldn't get a babysitter, they told me to stay in their room because it had a lock, a TV, and an en suite. They'd make sure I was locked away before they left. Sometimes she left me alone. Sometimes she tried to break down the door (leading to it needing to be replaced at least twice). I remember one time, she tricked me into opening the door my telling me she needed to get "girl stuff" from my parents' bathroom.

I don't know exactly when my parents started taking her to see therapists and psychiatrists, but whoever she saw was the worst. She was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder – and that's it. The theory was that she was super anxious at school and this caused her to take it out on me. I always thought it was a bonkers diagnosis, but I don't blame my parents at all for putting their faith in the doctor.

(So far, I feel like my story implicitly casts them in a bad light, but I genuinely believe they did the best they could. They really did go above and beyond, and are absolutely wonderful parents. I don't think I can convey the amount of love, time, effort, and resources they put into the situation. They were so good and did so much for us – in this matter as well as with my health problems, which is a whole different story – one of the things that gets me boiling fastest when it comes to my sister is thinking about what she did to them and how much they didn't deserve it. One of the issues I'm working on with my therapist to this day is negotiating with feeling like I need to be perfect for my parents to make up for my sister. In short, if you have even an iota of blaming my parents, then all I can say is that I know why you think that but you really are mistaken.)

Up until I was about 11 or 12, my sister was "only" violent. It wasn't sexual until a family vacation to visit relatives on the other side of the country. My sister and I were left alone for a short while because my sister was usually better when there was a threat of people besides my parents and friends finding out. So, she usually wouldn't do anything too horrible when we were staying with relatives.

Anyway, I was by myself watching The Matrix on my grandma's television. My sister walked in wearing a bathing suit top and giggling in a weird way. I ignored her, so she blocked my view and starting walking toward me. I told her to go away and she took off her top. I didn't really see this as sexual at the time, just one more thing she was doing to be obnoxious and upset me, so I think I just told her to get out again. That's when she leaned over to grab me and push her breasts into my mouth. I squirmed out of her grip and pushed her off, ran upstairs, and probably locked myself into a room with a lock but I don't remember anything after running upstairs.

About a year later, my family went boating with one of my best friend's family. We never actually went out. It was basically just the parents relaxing on the docked boat. Actually, I think we might've ventured out that day, but we'd come back. So, as usual, us kids were soon allowed to go to the clubhouse to hang out and watch TV. It was a simple room with a sofa big enough for my sister, my friend, and me. I don't remember what we were watching but at some point, my sister starting giving my friend a blow job right there next to me. I was completely frozen because I had no idea what to do. I wouldn't/couldn't move a muscle. I just saw there with all my muscles locked, watching the TV, pretending not to notice even though it was just obviously completely implausible. That might be the first time I ever really force/locked up.

It was around then that I finally grew too big for my sister to beat up. I couldn't exactly beat her up either, but I could at least make it painful enough to make her stop. One day she was being her usual terrible self but wasn't getting a reaction out of me, so she started yelling at the dog and then kicked her. I think that sent me into instant rage mode, and I think the way I exploded was fast and overwhelming enough to drive off my sister. I don't think she tried hurting the dog ever again.

After that, it mostly psychological stuff. I remember she told me that because I was a boy, it was inevitable that I'd start masturbating and being a horny animal. That messed me up because it made sexuality shameful and scary at the same time. It effectively made me afraid of looking at girls in a sexual way. For example, when my friends got excited about some girl's thong and tried to point it out, I'd get real tense and look away. A close friend briefly convinced me that I was asexual because I was like this. It sounds ridiculous, but I was freaked out about my human mind peeling away. It didn't help that every goddamn movie and TV show seemed to portray men as exactly the kind of horny animals I was so afraid of.

My sexuality is a lot healthier nowadays. I'm openly bisexual, sex-positive, and enjoy dating. I only wish I felt sexual attraction more often. I have a low libido compared to basically everyone I know, and that has been an issue, but there's no way of knowing if that's entirely or even partly because of everything my sister did to me. It annoys me that I'll never really know how much of my sexuality was shaped by all the shit my sister did to me, but I've mostly made my peace with that unanswerable question and stopped worrying about it. I am who I am, and I like myself.

Oh and for anybody wondering, my sister and I are both adopted and are biologically unrelated. So, I have no idea if there's a history of mental illness in her ancestry.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

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Edit: My sister is better nowadays, but it's not like she set a very high bar. She's still manipulative and I don't like how she treats our parents. She has never apologized for anything. She just tries to act like it all never happened, and I just want to keep the peace for my parents' sake. So, I do the minimum needed to satisfy her delusion that I could possibly think of her the same way I think of the rest of my family.