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“A “missing stair” is a person or a problem within a community, family or organization that everyone avoids and refuses to address, so it inevitably keeps hurting people.” –Silo Sisters

“The missing stair is a metaphor for a person within a social group who many people know is untrustworthy or otherwise has to be “managed”, but around whom the group chooses to work by discreetly warning newcomers of their behavior, rather than address them and their behavior openly.”-Charles Pigott ACME People

“Missing Stair” is a term coined by blogger Cliff Pervocracy in 2012 to describe an abuser or harasser who is tolerated in community, even though their misdeeds are well known.” – Geek Feminism Wiki Fandom

Have you ever walked down a broken staircase, careful of that faulty step, knowing exactly which one would cause you to stumble and perhaps come stuck? Growing up did you know where the floor creaked where you stepped? Did you avoid these spots? Do you navigate your home careful to avoid the broken stairs, the loud spots in the floor, the dripping sink, and the spot in the bathroom floor that is rotting through? Can you see yourself now creeping down the hall stepping left, then right to avoid the noise your body would make, by just taking up space?  Perhaps you still have a broken stair? Maybe there are people like these broken spots in your life too? The ones that have to be avoided, stepped around, quietly and gently walked around? The ones we don’t talk about, and if we do, it is in a whisper and without feeling.  Stating facts, warnings, trying to not let our voices crack with our fear, anger and sadness.  Saying as calm as possible “Oh, that is so and so… he is who he is, and always has been, avoid him”, but internally screaming “he has dictated my entire life, please do not see how I hurt, how I beg to be seen in spite of him”.  This is my story of one of my family’s missing stair.

My youngest brother has controlled our family since I can remember.  The wild and angry child, the mean and loose cannon. The funny and loveable charmer that had the heart and guidance my other brother and I did not and still somehow fumbled it.  I believe my family was trying to assure he didn’t turn out like my dad by giving him everything he wanted.  Maybe they were trying to get him passionate about something, a reason to live? A reason to live at ten. Yes, even at that age he was a mess, earlier if you paid attention, always violent, always hating himself and always lashing out in brutal ways.  The missing stair, even as a young child, we had to coddle him, talk around him, and give in to him as a way to not disrupt our whole evening or day.  No filter on that one, and no remorse, he could physically assault you and tell you why you were in the wrong for bleeding on mom’s kitchen floor. Something often validated later by her reaction. That has never changed, it has only gotten scarier.

I have always felt a sense of responsibility for him, perhaps placed on me by being the oldest, or maybe I took it on myself… regardless I felt obligated so many times to help him and to show him boundaries, respect and a solid foundation.  I tell myself now that I too was a child, and that my brain was also forming, and that I was also navigating life, deaths, and all the trauma that came with it.  Still, if I could ever genuinely help someone overcome their demons and see how beautiful, loved and amazing they are and could be without all the anger he would be the one I would save.  My baby brother, the one that has more similarities to me than anyone knows.

The kid I fought numerous demons for.  Once kicking a drug dealer out of my mother’s house, a thirty year old man hanging out with a 16 year old, later to be told I had to leave because I made it too hard on everyone with me living there.  The kid that blames everyone and everything for his brain being broken instead of just getting help and therapy.  The kid that stole my father’s truck the night my dad died and sold it, or traded it, whichever, for a drug debt.  My baby brother.  The brother that has physically fought me in front of his daughter (a toddler at the time).  A brother that has lived in my mother’s basement tormenting her for years with his verbal, physical and drug abuse.  The missing stair that we cannot talk about, not fully, and not in a healthy way.  The missing stair we walk around, talk around, and watch as the years add up to more of the same.

 Somehow he is the golden boy and the scapegoat.  My other brother misses him.  Freely talks about how he loves him, and wants him in his life (while his sister, me, who has always been here begs for respect and acknowledgment of the person I am).  My mother bails him out of jail, moves him in, and quits her chemotherapy because “it’s all too much”.    It is hard to not be jealous that someone so broken has such a grip on the family I love when all I have ever wanted was to be seen by them.  I am the first person they call when all hell breaks loose, when their hearts are broken and they need my strength, but no one can bother to see me as the woman I am, separate and complete as a I am.  Catering our family’s entire existence to a single person while the rest of us stay silent, and compliant, and when we don’t we are difficult, “too much” or “too sensitive”; always “too” something.  How dare you ask for more?

Healing work is not easy, in fact, true healing work and breaking chains of trauma and seeing things as they are and not as you want hell, but we keep walking. We keep going.  You do not need the validation of people that refuse to see the hurt and pain they cause or have within themselves.  You do not need to be held captive in silence for years for fear of retaliation, because that is coming regardless of what you say or do.  You do not have to keep missing steps.  You can fix your broken staircase.  You can rip the old broken one down and rebuild your own.  You do not have to be the missing stair. You can repair yourself. You can repair your faulty wiring, your dripping sink and your heart.  You owe it to yourself. You owe it to yourSELF to do the hard, gut-wrenching work that is necessary to break whatever cycle you are in, have seen, and want out of.  You can do it alone, if necessary.  You can find supportive groups online, build community with friends, and rebuild a healthier and more loving life for yourself. 

And you can talk about the missing stair.