I was talking to someone last week when the topic of sibling violence came up. It got me thinking about people whose parents gave their older siblings the power to discipline them— and how that played out. In this story, Tomiwa*(33) opens up about how her sisters’ bullying and abuse of authority have strained their relationship beyond repair.
As Told To Betty:
I have two older sisters.
They’re 14 and 11 years older than me, and so my parents gave them full permission to discipline or punish me when they weren’t around because they were older and “knew better”. From as early as four years old, I hated being left alone with them because it always ended in beatings for the littlest thing. If they weren’t hitting me, they’d be verbally abusive, saying the worst things about my body and how I look.
Though childhood memories are a bit foggy, I clearly remember them making fun of the shape of my nose and how dark my skin was. I became hyper-aware of my features from a young age because of them.
Fast forward to 2011 when I was 19, the pattern still hadn’t changed. That year, I visited my eldest sister for Christmas — the first time I’d ever spent the holidays in her home. Not long after I arrived, she asked me to switch on the water pump. She described it as a grey box with a black lever, but all the flats in her apartment building had identical pumps, so I was confused. When I tried to explain my confusion and ask for help, she slapped me instead.
By 2012, she had settled down and had a baby boy. So, I paid her another visit. One day, while babysitting him, I looked away for a minute, and before I knew it, he had gotten into his wipes and pulled them out of the container. I arranged them back neatly, but I couldn’t find the lid. When she found out, she insulted me viciously, calling me fat and lazy. I still don’t understand what my weight had to do with a missing wipe cover, but this was how she was. She body-shamed me so often that I started wearing a waist trainer at 20. I became desperate for her approval. Whenever I lost even a little weight, I’d run to tell my sister, hoping for some sort of validation, but I never got it. This went on for years.
My other sister wasn’t any different. She was equally as troublesome. I remember a time when she went through my phone without permission. The minute she found out that I was sexually active, she went straight to my mother to report me. , I was livid. I knew she only wanted to get me in trouble, and she succeeded.
When it was time to apply for my master’s, I deliberately chose Europe instead of Canada because I didn’t want my parents convincing me to live with either one of them. I needed distance, and it was only after I moved that I knew peace and finally felt free of their constant judgement and criticisms.
I haven’t spoken to my eldest sister in almost three years and I don’t really have a relationship with the other one either. I just couldn’t keep up with the verbal abuse and their belief that they had the right to hit me anytime they felt I had done something wrong.
My parents have tried to get us to reconcile, but I don’t feel like I have space for them in my life anymore. Over the years, I’ve replaced them with friends who actually make me feel safe. At some point, my dad would call and badger me about reaching out to them, but I started avoiding his calls, too. Now, my parents know that if they want to keep me in their lives, they can’t bring up my sisters.
I didn’t come out of that experience unscathed. I realised early on that I don’t rely on my family for emotional support. Whenever my sisters beat me as a child, nobody ever asked, “What happened?” it was always, “What did you do?” That kind of upbringing conditions you to bottle everything inside. I’ve had to unlearn that with my friends, but when it comes to my sisters, I don’t see us ever having that kind of closeness. That ship has sailed.
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