Review "In her harrowing memoir, Kilgore recounts the story of abuse at her older sister's hands. Tortured physically and mentally for years, Kilgore was forced to verbally degrade herself before entering her own bedroom and threatened with death if she told. This book deals with the mostly unknown phenomenon of sibling abuse. Kilgore not only shares her own tale, she also tells the stories of others like herself who have lived in fear and shame for years."―Rosemary Smith, NetGalley"This book breaks new ground in exposing the author's terrible experiences, how her home was turned into a prison, and the lasting effects of bullying and sibling abuse. The result is a powerful testimonial highly recommended for any health collection strong in family interactions."―California Book Watch Read more About the Author Nancy Fox-Kilgore, MS, received her Master's Degree from the University of Oregon and B.A. and Teaching Credentials from the University of California/Sacramento. A frequent speaker and a university continuing education teacher, she specializes in PTSD and various forms of family abuse. She wrote Every Eighteen Seconds and The Source Book for Working with Battered Women, both of which serve as national models for battered women's shelters, agencies, and university studies, and for continuing education certification for police officers, psychologists, and social workers. Visit her web site at: hope4siblings.com Read more Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 Story Time I am a survivor. My true story is about what it is like to have been almost murdered and have a second chance at life. If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone. Throughout time, it has been taboo to share a story like mine. I have grappled with a secret that America has kept buried for a very long time. I know about a hidden crime committed against me by the person whom I loved most dearly in the world: my sister. She nearly killed me in my own home. I want to share what haunts my every footstep, what follows me across the journey of my life. Many adult survivors of sibling abuse are in various stages of recovery. I am one of them. Recovery from my childhood has not been easy. I often struggled to construct new perspectives upon a beginning foundation of horror. Our government, police, and legal system never intervened on my behalf. The offenses done to me were never considered criminal. While our country is focusing on the vast increase in bullying, it fails to understand that bullying often begins in the American home. Abuse sustained by a sibling is often acted out through bullying. Children who are abused by a sibling will often send out victim signals to bullies, who will, in turn, abuse them. I share my story to validate the lives of millions of adults who have been affected by sibling abuse. Exploring our childhoods and the loss caused by sibling abuse will be a paradigm shift. Inside all of us is a deep understanding of the way our childhoods should have been. The ability to convince our siblings to apologize, to love us, and to make right what they did to us may never happen in our lifetimes. This is our time to be heard. I want to be the voice for those who cannot speak and for those who never had the courage to speak. My greatest hope is that other adults come out from wherever they are and tell their stories of sibling abuse. I also desire to spare many children in the present generation the agony I and countless others endured. Sometimes at night, when I am gently lifted from sleep, I hear the screams and anguish of child victims of sibling abuse. When the lights of their bedrooms are turned off, a thousand lightbulbs break in my mind. They were once little dreamers who lived in the land of play and fantasy. These innocent children became the prey of an abusive sibling. Science tells us we're all part of one vast family. It is time for us to create a new standard for sibling relationships. If we can make an empowering attack on sibling abuse, we will create a stunning new group portrait of the ultimate family gathering. It is time for intervention and prevention strategies for those who need and deserve our concern: our children. My personal story starts on the innocent plane of my childhood and merges into the heightened complexity of my teenage years. Writing the book made me go back through the door of my childhood. Yet this time I had more perspective and the safe armor of adulthood. Even so, sharing the experiences of my life and the family members who inhabited it feels terrifying. My siblings and my family do not want me to divulge what happened. However, if I give in to their requests, I will have killed my narrative before I have started. I must tell this story; I want to tell the truth. For too long, out of fear and self-protection, I too was a part of the sibling abuse cover-up. My silence must stop. Standing before the world, naked and revealing all of my tattoos of dysfunction, is my only option. Honor is very important to me, and I will not feel honorable if I do not come forward. The overlearned lesson of my childhood was to not speak. Upholding human rights for adults who have survived and children who are presently subjected to sibling abuse is worth speaking out and fighting for. As a result of sibling abuse, part of me has never grown up, making the adult perspective of seeing the world foreign to me. I have never lost my sense of being a child. As an adult, I have a parallel mental existence with the young child I once was. She was born on the same day of the same year that I was born. She always arrives from a place beyond time and the boundaries of this world. We meet and leave each other, time after time, year after year. A specific moment of her arrival never happened. One moment she was not there, and then she was. She is my dearest, most treasured friend, and she has never reached adulthood. Through many of the moon's phases, she has accompanied me. She has a child's soul and never ages. I am the one who ages and lives on Earth. She lives in my imagination and is a coping mechanism that helps me assemble the sprawling pieces of my life's puzzle. She has kept me sane. The English language has no word to describe her. In African and Caribbean cultures, she inhabits my juju, the mystical interior of my soul. We live in separate worlds but share a strong bond of psychic duality. At times she is a ghost. Her outline can appear against a riverbank, a snow mound, a sharp rock, or thin linen sheets on a clothesline. I see her tiny body in windows, peering out at me. She is a true activist and can put posters on telephone poles and bulletin boards so fast the posters blossom. In her tiny hands she carries leaflets and desperately wants to disseminate information. Her core is that of a crusader. For many years I wasn't aware that the little girl followed me. I was deaf to the way the wind collected her voice and scattered it across time. She has always been at the waterline of my thoughts. Her voice haunts me. At times, it can rise and fall inside me like the strong beat of water against the hull of a ship. My inner excitement at any moment with her is palpable. I am grateful to have been led at the right instant to the spot where she appears. The frame she is on is perfect. I quickly set up a tripod and click the camera shutter. I will have no second chance, no second exposure. At any moment I can lose the vision of her. I am in rapt attention of her precious image. Cropping or adjusting tone and color isn't required. Each moment with her is seized for what should never be erased. Each picture of her is a step she took in innocence and that I experience as insight. A riot of intense emotions beats in her breast, and she is fluent in poetry. A lyrical voice comes from her, with numerous metaphors. Her poems are integral for me to share this story. Overintellectualization obscures her instinctual nature. She possesses a powerful, enduring energy. This little girl is my muse. Many times I have attempted to write my story. One day I swept all the handwritten pages into a sink of water. They floated upon the water's twitching surface. I didn't think anyone would care about sibling abuse. Hours later, when I tried to retrieve the pages, they had bloated and every word had blurred. Writing is very difficult for me. It is like looking into an inky bottle with a narrow top. I don't want to be pulled back into the past with no escape for my psyche. The memories I have housed have not washed away from my heart and soul. I fear that these memories will trap me in the sands of the hourglass of my life. Parts of me are broken and afraid. But when the little girl is with me, the boulders of life appear like pearls and roll away. I am empowered and guided to write. Her tiny hands steady the rotted rungs of the shaky ladder as I descend to a long-ago childhood. I think of her as a daughter, and each time I write, I labor and push out more of her. In spite of the pain that reliving my past causes me, I am both willing and committed. I must step out into the open riverbank and become vulnerable. I stand exposed to strangers. Sibling abuse created such devastation in the flow of my life, like Satan's own nostril rose from hell, blowing out a poisonous, killing joke and coating miles along the shores of my life with rubble and broken dreams.   ©2013. Nancy Fox-Kilgore, MS. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Girl in the Water. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442. Read more
A**R
A good conversation-starter, but little else.
Sibling abuse is a serious source of suffering that receives far too little attention, and there is a tremendous need for high-level discourse on the subject. Unfortunately, this book offers little in the way of genuine insights. Indeed, the book is so poorly written that it is difficult to determine what point, if any, the author is trying to make. It is extraordinarily difficult to slog through the first few chapters before giving up. It's a mishmash of chaotic syntax and structure, imprecise language, confusing imagery, sloppy editing, and a good deal of self-absorption. One senses that the author still has considerable work to do, both in a therapist's office and in a few good writing workshops, before attempting a subject of this magnitude and complexity.If you are just beginning to explore your own childhood experience of sibling abuse, you may find this book helpful in offering you a sense of connection, a sense that you are not alone. That is always important. But this book has little value as a serious work of either scholarly or literary merit, and one can only hope that it will open the door for other, more skilled authors and researchers to contribute more substantial insights to this too-long-ignored subject.
R**S
A must-read!
A compelling story of what terrorism in the home looks like, when parents turn a blind eye, and domestic violence against siblings run rampant.For those brutally abused by siblings and had it minimized by family and those who were supposed to help you, I recommend this book, to validate your life story and that you are not alone.No one should endure this, much less alone. Awareness neeeds are high. We must do better protecting our children.
T**E
Sibling Abuse Is Real And Needs To Be Addressed
Girl In The Water: A True Story of Sibling Abuse is a book that will touch you to the very core of your heart and soul. This is a true story of Nancy's childhood. There were many times within my read of this book where I wanted to scream. Nancy Kilgore takes you on a journey of her childhood and details her struggle with her older sister (as she literally tortured Nancy).What made this story so sad is that the mother had no sympathy as to what Nancy was going through. I had to stop myself and think about it: this was back in the 1950s (I wasn't born until the 70s), and abuse/neglect was prevalent then.Nancy Kilgore addresses two classes of readers in this memoir:1. If you have suffered abuse - you have a voice, and please make it known (even if it falls on deaf ears)2. If you are a parent and are neglecting your child's hurts/feelings - it's your duty to allow your child to speak and to not throw a blanket over your child if he or she is saying she's abused.This was not an easy read because it hit too close to home for me (as a survivor of child sexual abuse/sibling abuse and was neglected by those who knew about my abuse). Nancy's story will resonate with many victims of abuse and I applaud Nancy for writing such a powerful book. This book serves as a wake up call to the nation and to hold parents and caregivers accountable.Tremayne Moore, author of Deaf, Dumb, Blind & Stupid
A**R
Eye opening and helpful
Girl In The Water by Nancy Kilgore, MS is a true story about sibling abuse. In her story, Nancy talks about the abuse she had suffered from the hands of her own sister. I found Nancy's story of healing and survival to be eye opening. The style of imagery and the openness that Nancy writes with makes really wrapped me into her world. I was able to see and feel her throughout the whole read. I haven't found many stories told quite like Nancy's on the subject of sibling abuse. Her prose was riveting. At times, I found myself scared for her, happy for her, and even wanting to hug her. Nancy is a true survivor who is still healing and using her experience to help others.Her story can be used to raise awareness on sibling abuse because it can help other adult survivors to open up and share their stories of abuse from their siblings. This story really speaks out to so many. Nancy says that it is never too late to talk about it. Nancy, great job for your wonderful work with Girl In The Water. This is a story that needs to be read by others and can help educate and raise awareness about sibling abuse. No one should have to suffer.
J**0
I CAN IDENTIFY
Nancy Kilgore and I were born in the same year. Our older abusive siblings were also born in the same year. The only reason I had trouble getting through this book was because I could identify with so much of what had happened to Nancy that it not only brought back painful memories; but, reminded me that this abuse is still occurring. It is no longer physical but has taken the form of shunning, isolation from family through constant rewriting of history, slander, liable and demonizing in an effort to maintain my tormentor's lengthy hate campaign against me. She is forever bringing others into her contrived conflicts demanding they take sides or they too will be punished and excluded from her many family;albeit, social parties. We as humans have four basic needs:Belonging, Accomplishments,Freedom and Fun When any one need, which often dovetails with the other needs is not met, we have a conflict. The verbal sniping and alienation of family and friends is psychological warfare resulting in a feeling that is worse than a kick in the stomach. I applaud Nancy for having the courage to share her story with so many who can relate to this emotionally debilitating family abuse that if not stopped, can sadly, span a lifetime.
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