I Feel Real Guilty: A Memoir of Sibling Sexual Abuse

5 Star Review

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Editorial Book Review:

By Stephanie Terr

Four words start this book, and they change everything that follows. Jane Epstein's brother makes a confession: I'm sorry for what I did to you when you were younger. What floods back when those words land is not just memory but a whole buried life, the pain, the shame, the years of not knowing what to do with something that had no name in any of the places she looked for one.

Sibling sexual abuse is one of the most prevalent and least discussed forms of childhood trauma. The silence around it is not accidental. It is maintained by the same forces that make family secrets so durable: love, loyalty, the fear of destroying something larger than the harm, and the particular cruelty of being told, implicitly or explicitly, that what happened was not quite real enough to grieve. Jane Epstein is Co-Founder of IncestAWRE.org and 5WAVES.org, an international advocacy organization for survivors of sibling sexual abuse, a moderator of a survivor Facebook group with 8,000 members, and her TED talk has reached over 600,000 people. She did not arrive at that platform easily. She arrived there through the long, difficult, honest work of confronting exactly what this book describes.

What makes this memoir so genuinely important is the combination of personal courage and practical impact it carries. Epstein's story shines a spotlight on the secrets of sibling sexual abuse, providing a ray of hope and strength for those still trapped in their own private darkness. The book does not soften the material or hurry toward resolution. It stays with the experience long enough to make you understand it, and then it makes the case, through the simple fact of its own existence, that speaking is possible and that speaking matters.

Kirkus Reviews called it an empowering memoir that offers hope for healing. For survivors, for families navigating this in silence, and for anyone who wants to understand what the aftermath of this particular trauma actually looks like, this is the most honest and necessary account currently available.

If you or someone you know is struggling with the effects of sexual abuse, RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline is available at 1-800-656-4673, and online chat support is available at rainn.org.

About the Author

Jane Epstein

Jane Epstein is a survivor of and advocate for survivors of sibling sexual abuse and trauma. Today, Jane is Co-Founder of both IncestAWRE. org and 5WAVES. org, an international 501(c)3 advocacy group that offers information, support, and guidance about sibling sexual abuse and trauma. She is a moderator of a survivor Facebook group with 8,000 members, and her TED talk entitled "Giving Voice To Sibling Sexual Abuse" has already reached over 600k people, her story was recently featured in People Magazine, and she contributed to a cover story in The Sunday Times, "Revealed: The Hidden Crime of Sibling Sexual Abuse."