And No One Stopped Them | Part 4

Growing Up With a Violent Sociopath Scarred Me for Life

One of the main reasons I live with Complex PTSD

Liberty Forrest
6 min readOct 7, 2021

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scared child covering her face
Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

And then there was Paul.

I ached to have my brother like me. I tried so hard to be the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, to no avail. I was different. I wasn’t sure how, but I just was. There were Mummy, Daddy and Paul over there. And me, way over here. The black sheep. The interloper. I had no business being in that family but I hadn’t asked to join it. I was a hostage, trapped with no means of escape.

At every opportunity, Paul teased and tormented me, mercilessly inflicting pain on my little body in any way he could. It was bad enough that he saw fit to do this sometimes several times a day but worse that he delighted in it. His eyes would twinkle and dance and he had the most evil laugh.

There was no denying the sadistic pleasure he took in causing me to suffer. And in knowing he might just as well have had my parents’ blessing to do it.

I was on the way to my room. Paul, three years older, was coming toward me from the other end of the hall, squinting and scowling at me. I knew what that meant but I set my jaw, squinted right back and did my best to ignore the fear that was rising…

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Liberty Forrest

Creator of “Witchy” cartoon. Award-Winning Author. My PUBS: 1) The Afterlife; 2) First Line Fiction; 3) Hope Healing and Humour; 4) TheWitchyOne (for Witchy!)