Should I Tell My Sister What Our Brother Did to Me?

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I long to share my story with someone I love who might understand.

By Kwame Anthony Appiah

My brother and sister, both more than nine years older than me, were sexually abused by our father before his death. That haunting fact destroyed almost all the light from my childhood. It destroyed my mother. I was spared our father’s abuse, but some of my earliest memories are of being sexually abused by my brother, for about two years, until he ran away from home. I rarely saw him again; he died a few years ago.

When our mother died, my sister took me in. I was still a teenager. I felt indebted to her, but she made it clear that she thought I “got off easy” and resented me for it. Our relationship has left little room for my own pain — I’ve never felt permitted to discuss our mother’s death, let alone my own trauma. I know her attitude toward me is the result of an unhealed wound, so I’ve tried not to take it personally.