Hello granite-

I don't know if this will be of any help but I was hurt in many ways throughout my childhood and one of the persons that inflicted much pain was my older brother. I have spent a great deal of time attempting to understand what happened to me and the various ways I have responded to all of it (not just what happened with my brother) such as struggling with PTSD. One of the main things I have come to know is that I do not blame my brother for all the things he did to me during my childhood. How he has responded to me in our adult years is another story but I know that he was not able to truly understand, back then, what he was doing and the ramifications of it all. I have come to realize that it is the adults, our parents, who were the ones who should have stopped things and should have tried to protect me and believe me when I tried to seek their help. They should have helped my brother as well. He clearly had something going on that caused him to do the things he did to me. He was struggling with something as well and did not know how to articulate that. Instead he took out his pain and anger on me because he didn't know how to do better or to make other choices or how to deal with whatever he had going on.

My brother and I do not have a relationship now-one of the most heartbreaking things I deal with now as I loved him so much no matter what happened. But the fractured relationship is not because I am holding a grudge over what he did to me as a child-it's how he has interacted with me as an adult. I guess I am reiterating what other people have posted on this thread-the children are not responsible in these situations, the adults who are supposed to be the caregivers for the children-are.