There are several ways to encourage a healthy relationship with your brothers and/or sisters. One step would be not to compare yourselves to your siblings. This can be easier said than done in some families. However, each person is different - you have different goals, talents, and personalities. Be yourself and appreciate what your sibling is striving for (Goldfarb, 2018). Also, work on your communication skills. If you’re disagreeing on something, how can you work towards a compromise or a win-win solution? Disagreements don’t always have to end terribly. For example, if my brother and I are arguing about who gets the car that evening - could one of us drop the other off where they’re trying to go? Are my plans flexible and I could go another night? These arguments seem small, but if you’re fighting all the time about “silly” stuff, it will eventually cause a strained relationship (Lohmann, 2014). Also with communicating, tell your sibling that you appreciate them! Speak lovingly. We tend to think that our family knows we love them and think highly of them; however, everyone needs to hear they are cared for and someone is rooting for them. Verbalize that appreciation you have for them (Goldfarb, 2018). Finally, as you get older, try to find ways to spend time with your siblings. It can seem hard in those teen years and beyond, but if you can work on intentionally hanging out with each other, it will strengthen the relationship (Lohmann, 2014).

One difficult to identify form of verbal abuse is when someone makes public jokes about you at your expense. The feelings you could experience as a result of this are shame, humiliation, anger, and confusion. Humor is an effective mask should anyone choose to confront the inconsiderate behavior. They can always respond with, “I’m just kidding. Don’t take it so seriously.” Don’t let such a response fool you. Anyone who responds like this simply doesn’t want to be held accountable for the hurt that their words caused. A person who truly cares about you and knows how to love in a healthy way will always listen when you need to talk about something they said or did that hurt you. They’ll believe you. They don’t want to hurt you. A person engaged in verbal abuse on the other hand will often attempt to convince you that you’re wrong and that what they said wasn’t actually that bad (Gordon, 2022).

Because verbal abuse doesn’t leave any visible wounds or bruises, it can be easy to overlook or convince ourselves that it isn’t so bad. But it is. Some of the long term effects of verbal abuse include chronic stress, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, PTSD, social isolation, and substance use (Gordon, 2022). If you think you might be experiencing verbal abuse from someone in your life, please reach out and talk about it. No one deserves to be verbally abused. Ever.