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At SiblingAbuse.ca, we will start with information, links to resources, a blog and a message board. As we gain interest, we will also gather and share personal stories and experiences on our Stories page which will, in turn, further provide material for the blog and upcoming projects.
Just naming Sibling Abuse is a vital starting point. Silence is what makes it dangerous. Talk about it. Send people to this website. Check out the Resources page. Let’s make sure that everyone knows the term “Sibling Abuse”. Let’s encourage the development of programs that create awareness and make change. By ignoring this form of abuse, children continue to harm and be harmed; we are effectively condoning it and upholding the cyclical nature of violence and abuse. Let’s work together to change that.
To eradicate violence and abuse between siblings, and raise awareness about sibling abuse.
• Truth: Speaking truth; speaking truthfully; honouring the truth of our own experiences and those of others
• Respect: Speaking and listening with respect for ourselves and each other; respecting this shared space, with the goal of creating connection
• Healing: Acknowledging and honouring the past as part of who we are, and having compassion for ourselves as we move through the past and walk the path towards healing
My name is Lorene Stanwick. I’m a playwright, actor, counsellor and teacher – and a survivor of sibling abuse.
The call to do this work was sparked many years ago when a therapist, perhaps my 11th or 12th, named my childhood experience for what it was: abuse. The other therapists had heard my story, but they did not use the word ‘abuse’. That changed everything.
I thought being taunted, controlled, threatened and strangled by a sibling was normal. I thought that my anxiety, depression, fear, low self-worth, substance abuse and thoughts of suicide were because I was deeply flawed. I thought there was something inherently wrong with me.
But there was nothing wrong with me. I had been abused. Of course I understood the word abuse, but the absence of the term “sibling abuse” in our collective vocabulary, and with all sibling conflict reduced to “sibling rivalry”, I had no idea that what I’d lived was abuse.
There is power in a name.
The scattered pieces of who I was began to fall into place, and finding very few resources at the time, I knew I had to be a part of raising awareness. So I began researching trauma and sibling abuse, and, many years and much healing later, wrote and produced a play, Broken Branches, my “theatrical springboard”.
I now believe – no, I now know – that we all come into the world with nothing ‘wrong’ with us; we are all bright lights, shining. What happens to us, our environment, can nurture and expand that light or contract and dim it, until it seems completely dark. But it never goes out.
I hope that through raising awareness, by learning and having conversations about sibling abuse, by sharing our stories, that we can collectively shine a light into the dark corner of this least discussed and least researched, but most prevalent form of domestic abuse. And that the lights of those impacted by sibling abuse can shine bright.
Told with honesty – and humour – Broken Branches reveals secrets, lies, family dynamics … and the resilience to survive. Produced by CreateTruth Productions in Association with Workman Arts, the award-winning multi-disciplinary arts and mental health organization, Broken Branches starts a long-overdue conversation, shedding light on an important yet silent issue: sibling abuse.