So, let me just say that my Sister and I have never gotten along. Our personalities are COMPLETELY different. That much is totally normal. She is about four years older than I am, but still of a much smaller stature. She is 23 now, and I am almost 19.
That aside, I'll try to make this history as brief as possible.

When my sister was around 8 or 9, and I was around 4 or 5, I remember very clearly that I could NEVER have anything of my own. If we got toys , toiletries, or even blankets and towels, my mother actually had to label them with our initials, or she would take them from me the minute she got a chance. This didn't change over time; everything I got, she would take it from me. And then, even if I KNEW that a toy was mine, and she very clearly hadn't even received a similar toy, she would get mad at me and be really mean to me if I tried to get it back.

As we grew up, things pretty mush stayed the same; her taking my stuff and keeping it. The only difference lay in the way she acted towards me as time went on. Instead of just calling me names like "butt-head" and "stupid", as she got into her teenage years, she discovered the wonderful art of using cuss words (I'm rolling my eyes right now). It went from "stupid" to "dumbass"; from "ugly" to "fat-*** horse". Of course, she only whipped out these names when our mom wasn't around; and she started to become physically violent as well.

By the time I was 10, and she was 14, she started to show signs of mental illness. She was eventually diagnosed as having Bipolar Disorder, Bulimia, and alcohol/drug abuse problems. But over the next four years or so, she started to get really nasty towards me. She would tell me things like "My life would be better if you were never born! You are so spoiled and everyone ignores me because you're around!!!". She loved to manipulate situations, too; if she started to beat the S**T outta me because I said something like "Oh my GOD, just relax and leave me alone! You're acting crazing!" (or sometimes for no apparent reason at all), I got really scared. She is a very scary person, even to this day. When she got angry with me or something I did (i.e.- she always bribed me to do her chores with stuff like crappy makeup that she didn't want anymore- which, of course, was still cool to a little teeny bopper like me, who didn't have any of my own makeup. Then, when she brought the massive stack of dirty dishes out of her bedroom and they were all caked with week old food, I just couldn't scrub them clean; and she would flip out at me for not doing the dishes well enough), she just got this warped, twisted look on her face, and I knew that it was time to run like hell. If I couldn't get away fast enough, I was in for a good fight- unless I could manage to push her away. Then, I would run into a room and lock the door. If I could get away safely, I always tried; I didn't try to fight back unless there was no choice. Either way, when I left the room to hide somewhere she was always- ALWAYS- standing up when I left. But then after a half hour or so, I would check to see where she was. If we were home alone together, she was waiting on the other side of the door; just like Tom waiting for Jerry by the mouse hole in the wall. If someone else was home, by this time she would have lied on the floor, and start with the over-dramatic fake crying and whining. She would claim that I was the one who attacked her. And she had support from my mother for a little while. The other things that my Sister would do, would be to go on masses binges; and then, when my mom saw that a weeks worth of food went missing in a day, my sister said that it was me. In both instances, she used my weight as an advantage; who would you believe- a fat girl who said than a scrawny, thin girl hurt her; or a thin girl who said that a big lummox knocked her over? A fat girl who claimed that she wasn't the one eating everything in sight; or a thin girl who said that the fat girl did it? This kind of manipulation went on for a few months, and only stopped when my sister was finally hospitalized for her behaviors, and they caught her in the act, per say, of a binge and purge cycle, and brought it to my mom's attention. And even after that, the violence didn't stop. She became really good at only attacking me when no one else was looking, and then feigning injury and running "to be saved", even though I had obviously been locking myself in a room for quite a while.
I got lucky, in a sense, when my mom declared bankruptcy and we moved into my grandmas basement. My grandma was a LOT sharper when it came to my sisters lies and manipulation (as is expected of a mother of seven children). At one point in time, my sister had caught me "yelling at her" on tape (which was actually because she didn't meet me in our usual spot to go home from school, and I thought that something happened to her and got scared- as she was hanging out with some REALLY unsavory characters, like drug dealers and crap); but when she tried to incriminate me and play the recording for my grandma, my grandma just glared at her and basically told her to knock the crap off and leave me alone It made me so happy to have someone finally believe me.

So, in the end, the violence continued up until she moved away from me. Some of the most memorable instances involve her throwing a glass of chocolate milk in my face because I told her to shut up when she was in the middle of insulting me. That was when she basically told me that I was to listen to her insult me and call me terrible things, and sit there and take it without defending myself. Then there was some big fight over a magazine (we both subscribed to Seventeen magazine at the time), and how I just thought that the magazine that was in the mail that day was mine, because mine usually showed up before hers did. But when she found out that I had started reading the magazine without looking at the name on the back cover, she ripped it outta my hands and started hitting me with it. I was sitting down at the time, and ended up sliding onto the floor; and before I knew it, she was choking me. So I managed to push her away, and pin her to the floor using my foot, so that I could run and lock myself in the other room. I know that I was having some kinda panic attack; and that a few minutes later, my grandpa called me upstairs and started to lecture me about how I had no reason to attack her.
There were several others; randomly breaking my stuff, throwing s**t at me, and then turn around and command me to do her chores (which always came at a price if I didn't), and of course everything had to be exactly her way. If I was watching a show, and she wanted to watch something else, she had no qualms about pushing me down and ripping the remote out of my hands (even if I would have offered up the remote had she asked).
Even more recently, there is still some times where she makes me fear for my life. Like a few summers ago, when I got very, very sick (almost deathly ill, actually; I got hospitalized for a week on two separate occasions. I wasn't able to walk at all because I was in so much pain, not even to get up and use the bathroom or shower. I was almost completely bedridden for three months over my summer vacation ) but my mother still encouraged me to come out and play a game of cards for a while because I was getting depressed being cooped up in my room all day. In one instance, I settled down on the couch and started to play a game of cards, when my sister dropped by. My mom kept asking if I was okay because I was crying. I yelped out once while my sister was chatting with my mom, and so I asked for help back to my room. I will never forget the words that flew out of her mouth:
"Shut up and do it yourself, PRINCESS!"

But through all of this, my mom never acknowledged that my sister was treating me like s**t. She would say that my sister was going through a hard time, and that she was like that to everyone; or that it was just my sister's personality to be mean; or even that she didn't see a need to intervene because it was just sibling rivalry. Was she right??? Was this really just us engaging in sibling rivalry???

I know I question the boundaries of our relationship; I still tell myself sometimes that it was my fault, and I deserved to get hit and/or yelled at because I said something insensitive, or I didn't do something right. I still feel this way, and I just want some advice or support or something. I just want to know if I am being whiny or holding a petty grudge because I am afraid of/don't like my sister anymore. Am I being dramatic like my mother says, because the whole situation still bothers/scares/upsets me, and I still have nightmares about her from time to time. I have to see her on a regular basis, and now she acts like nothing ever happened- unless, of course, it paints me to be a monster or something. She is married with a son, and I don't know whether I should be scared for him or not.

Any advice or help would be appreciated. I don't know if there is some kind of abuse here, or if it was just average fighting. I really am trying to work on myself and face my demons, so I just want an honest opinion:
Was my sister abusive? Or did I deserve the treatment I got?