my sister called to tell me a story from our childhood
 

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I am sorry that you had a bad time last night....
stories from the past aren't always good ones....:(
((((HUGS))))
bizi

My sister blames me
 

Bizi,
My sister blames me for all the bad of her childhood and much of her adult life too. I told her I was a child too and it wasn't my fault that our parents put so much responsibility on me to raise her and the brothers. (I was only 2.5 years older than her.) And in fact, I know that I mitigated some of the craziness of my mother.

Sister insists that is was my fault. She has a long list of grievances related to my being put in charge of her and our brothers.

I cried for a few hours last night and don't know how I am going to get through the day at work today.

My siblings have distanced themselves from me.
I miss them terribly-- in part because I did raise them and care for them.
My parents don't like me either -- but then they don't like people except each other.


I feel alone and damaged.
I'm also surprised. I thought I had dealt with this in my 8 years with my old tdoc.
Mari


I am going in to teach today with red eyes and a puffy face.

Bizi has such a gift of saying things so gently...while I tend to use a sledge hammer. I will try to figure out what to say later..usually I write just spontaneously but this one is too too painful. Right now my heart is so going out to you...You have been scapegoated all your life....there must be so much buried guilt among your parents and siblings...Thank God you are you.
Many hugs
Bobby

Dear Mari,
it breaks my heart to hear you so sad.
I can't believe they have abandoned you like this.
Of course it hurts you....
just reading about this hurts...

Thank you.
Today was a very difficult day.
I spent years getting over the crazziness of my mother and the anger of my father. I have let them go. I expect nothing from them now.

Now I see I will have to let go of my sister too.


That's the only way I will be able to live.

M.

:hug: Mari, :hug:

I know the pain of siblings not being in my life but yet I know I am better off. If mine were willing to do family counseling I would suggest it. One of my brother lives about 600 miles away and they one in town just don't give a hoot. I feel for you.

befuddled2

I think you are right about letting your sister go until she comes to terms on how much anger she feels towards your parents...it sounds as if it far less threatening for her to use you as a target rather than your parents. In the past my sister has said some pretty creepy things that made me realize how deep her pathologically was...I don't even think a therapist could get at it since it is so embedded.
I think you will find it easier to let go than you imagine...
Bobby

Yes, Bobby,
Sister has joked about the crappy job our parents did and told me to "get over it."

Well, I'm so over them that I am done with them. She's next but it will take me a little time -- almost like a mourning phase.

The part I bolded in your post is what my tdoc said a while a go.

I like my tdoc because she thinks my parents were exceptionally incompetent.
I asked her why mine would be any worse than those of her other patients.
She said that usually ONE parent is semi-competent and can make up for the failings of the other -- not the case here. : (
So, when she said that I felt validated -- whether it was true or not.


I'm sorry that your sister is hostile to you.
M.

Befudded,

Thanks. I hear you.
HA! I'm trying to imagine any of my group in counseling.

Families members could be a wonderful source of connection for each other. And it is sad when that can't happen.

Mari

Hi Mari,
We can choose our friends but not our family as they say. I have had everything from cat fights with sisters to brothers that looked up nighties and slugging....even into adult hood. I was a primary care give.
After the last episode with my brothes fraud on Dad's estate and the other 5 siblings covering for him, I have not spoken to them. It hurt the first year to think how they betray Dad, the greed and the blame the made on me for not allowing to let fraud go through.

Now, I am actually released. I no longer have their dumping and using me, blaming me, whining to me having me fix the damage. Not ever where they there for ME,. I am in a better place, and never thought I would say that. With others I always felt and this too shall pass.

In a way with my parents gone, Dads estate gone, and them out of my life, my heart is lighter from their dramatic lives of drugs, booze, men and money.

I have here in part the forum gained a real feeling of familyu. family I never met but give unconditional support, nothing in return, just love and a willingness to share.

My sister called my son and said she use to have me to talk to, then she had my DeAnne, now she has no one. She was trying to get my son to be her whinning post and he told her upfront he had enough drama and medical problems, that she should call her siblings!

Mari, you have come to be a kindred cyber soul to me, even if I am not posting I have to read that every one is OK, or if not keep them in my prayers.
You are a person as the others on here, I feel good to just see a post.
I have a love and concern for you, and you are in my thoughts.
Don;t cry, at least know we really love you.
di :hug:

Dear DiMarie,

Thank you for telling me that it gets better and thanks for telling me that you care.



I am surprised by what happened. Last night my sister was doing her usual stuff on the phone. For some reason I reacted differently than I usually do.
I called her back, sobbing, and yelled at her. Then she tried to calm me down by saying it wasn't that bad and changing the subject. Then we quietly got off the phone.

I am surprised that I feel so heartbroken and depressed about this. I'm crying over something -- not even sure what it is exactly.

-->>My sister plays a game wherein she sets me up to give her advice and then gets mad because I "told her what to do." I've long stopped falling for it, but she still plays.

-->>A few months ago, I told her that hubby and I would pay the plane tickets for her and her husband to come visit for a few days sometime this year since we won't be going to Texas anymore (can't deal with parents anymore in their place). She refused the offer by mumbling something about her husband possibly having a chance at over time (from now until unspecified forever) and his not wanting to miss out.

She and her husband like to travel every summer and have made several trips to my brothers.
But he will have overtime from now until infinity.

This made me realize that she really does hate me.
So maybe I was already feeling this before the phone call last night.


I used to think that she was unconfortable around me.
I also used to think that when she sees me she sort of reverts to her annoying little sister role.
Around me, she goes back to the misery of our childhood.
Without me around, she can pretend that she is doing great.




Anyway, my hubby has an expression that I can interpret here roughly as "let them stew in their own mess."

He is helping me.
I feel like I got the wind knocked out of me.


When we were growing up Mom prevented us from having friends.
We were friends with each other. We were extremely close -- did everything together until I got the heck out of there at 17 to go to college across the country.

Mari



Of course, now I feel like a moron for putting up with abuse.
__________________

I am so glad you got out of there when you were seventeen even with all the scaring. My doctor said I could be doing so much better if it hadn't been for my parents. My sister has successfully obliterated me. I don't think I get depressed over it now. I ask myself if I would want her as a friend and the answer is so obviously no. We don' share the same values. I don't share the shame values of my nephews either. Just maybe you are better off and you should focus on that rather than on loss of the ideal family. Maybe you shouldn't reach out anymore. Maybe you were adopted lol. I am so glad you have your husband. I wonder if you will reach the stage where you can become more trusting and branch out and become friends with people who truly appreciate you. You have certainly done it on this forum and it is not because you are bipolar. You are one wonderful woman.
Bobby

Dear Bobby,
You are sweet and helpful.

Any bad day I had after 17 (including being forcefully drugged in the mental hospital) was better than any day before 17.

The best day of my life I was alone in a hotel room across the street from campus the night before the dorms opened. I remember singing and dancing around the room because I was free and had my own future ahead of me.

Oh god. I am remembering that my parents sent my sister to school in Europe for a year when she was 17 (so that she would not turn out "wild" like I did) and kind of dumped her there without phone calls or much money.

I told her that I would send her a letter or post card every Friday so that she could expect a regular note from someone who cared about her. I did that every week for 11+ months and she appreciated it. She told me that she knew what days to expect my note and would ask for it from the people taking care of her mail.

In my 20s I started reading books about how to re-parent myself, how to nurture myself. I've been trying to nurture myself for two decades now. I want to get better at it!!! :)

My current tdoc is working on this with me. She is even helping me see that somewhere deep inside my parents are loving people who for some reason were "blocked" from providing love. . . . . that's sort of how she explains it anyway. And I can except that. They are not necessarily bad people although they did contribute to my bad times. And I don't have to be near them now that I am grown.

I'm not sure if my sister and I would end up friends if we were not related . . . I used to think that our shared history was a good thing because we can relate and understand each other. The truth is that I felt that no one understood me or ever would understand me as much as my sister does.
Now I realize that thinking like this is part of the disfunction.

lol
When I was around 5 or 6 I was sure that I was adopted. I looked around at my family and was sure that a big mistake had happened. But I think that that might be common and a good reason that the Harry Potter books were so successful.

As I write this, I realize that I might be better off if I didn't have a good memory for when I was a child.

My sister's memory is better than mine though, so she should know better. :confused:

You touch on the scary part for the moment -- that I might never reach the stage where I can make friends with people. That is hard. . . . especially now that I feel crummy all the time and don't have the energy or inclination to nurture a friendship.

On the other hand, freeing myself from my sister will give me lots of energy . . . I can hope.

I know that I am rambling and jumping all over the place and talking like I am complaining.

But I am finding this helpful and you all are empowering me.
Thank you so much.

Mari

I am glad you are feeling empowered. They say it is harder to make friends when you are older but I don't know if that is really true. I think it is harder to make acquaintances because you usually don't find yourself in new circumstances but I think we have stronger inklings of what people are healthier for us and when we spot them, we open up a lot faster and it is usually mutual. Then we can start laughing...(comedy is closer to tragedy than is tragedy)
It really sounds as if your sister needs help in a big way but you can't provide it. MAYBE YOU HAVE TO DISTANCE YOURSELF FROM HER and save your energy for something else. I don't think I agree with your therapist about your parents. I guess I believe to become healthy you have to find it in your heart to love and forgive them but you don't have to find excuses for their infantile ways. They were what they were and are what they are. I lucked out with my father after he had his stroke...HE CHANGED AND BECAME THE MAN I THINK HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE. HE BECAME THOUGHTFUL AND CONSIDERATE OF THE OTHER PATIENTS IN THE NURSING HOME AND TRIED TO MAKE THEM FEEL BETTER. TWO NURSES TOLD ME THAT. That was four months after his castrophic stroke and two months before he died. He became a hero to me and it eradicated all his prior infantile behavior. Even later when I realized he was probably bipolar II, that also helped soften the past...didn't mean to digress. I have told people who are suffering from guilt over their parent's death or severe illness to think that we are all children of God and it might be easier not to think of them as parents but think of them in the larger scheme of things...and that we are first supposed to take care of ourselves and not think of ourselves as being selfish but honoring God.
I don't think I explained it right. Let God take care of the "parents" who are children.
Bobby

Dear Mari,
Thank you for sharing some of your stories here with us....
I know that this is painful for you.
As hard as this may sound know that: we get to decide whom to love and care about. You can choose to not love your parents...they have been cruel to you....abusive....
They are toxic.
and again we get to decide.
You don't have to do anything with any of your family members...have caller ID and not accept their calls...you get to set up limits and boundaries for yourself....
I too am so glad that you have your husbands support.
You deserve to have nice and loving people who care about you.
Know that we care...
WE have know each other now for many years...and I consider you one of my friends....
It is so unsettling to have confrontation....could you increase your therapy visits for a short time to work on this until you are feeling better?
Don't know if that would help or not.
I hope that you are ok today....
you will get thru to the other side of this...I have faith that you will.
Be patient with yourself.
((((HUGS)))):hug:
bizi

Hi Mari.

I really respect you for sharing your story here. I haven't been able to read the whole thing because I understand the pain of working through childhood issues and the alienation that it can cause. I agree with what the others have already said, that you don't have to love your family members and you have the right to think of your yourself first. You can't control what your sister thinks of you. The only thing you have control of is your self and you are the one doing the work of moving out and through past issues of your life. Frequently in dysfunctional codependant families, when one person starts to get well or dig up old stuff, the other members get angry and often alienate the one that is getting well or healthy. So, I hope you can take this as a sign of growth for yourself and let your sister deal with her own stuff. You have to take care of you first.

~Hope

Mari - I hope you are doing better today. I am an only child so I really cannot relate to relationships that brother's and sister's have.:(

I did lose my Dad when he was only 48 and that was traumatic for me.:(
Now I am a caregiver for my mom who is 75, not easy.

I wish I could help you.:confused:

Hang in there, things will work out in time and you will come to terms with all of this.

Nikko:hug:

Mari

I am hurting for you. And I wish I could be there to give you a great big
hug.

I wanted you to know you have a bunch of sister's and brothers right
here in this room. We all think of you as our sister. And I know that
I for one saw all three of my sister's this last few days. But what
I wouldn't have given to have been able to have given you one of
the hugs instead.

I really appreciate all you do and say.

Donna

Thank you for your posts.
I am so sad.

M.

it is so natural for you to be so sad over this. i hope it doesn't turn into depression. I want to say don't give up on your sister but her pain might be just as great as yours and you might just be her sitting duck. What I would do though is write her a little and remind her in print the load of responsibility heaped on you when you were just a little child and how you might have had more contact with your parents than she because instead of the child you were they treated you like an adult and your nature assumed the responsibility thrown at you. I would tell her she was old enough to recognize how you went beyond the call of duty to write to her weekly when you thought she needed family.
It might accomplish nothing...About six years ago my sister expressed jealousy that I was the chosen one to go with my mother to pick up my drunken father who would sometimes drive the car when I, the younger sister was little. All she could think of and this is when Myra was in her later fifties with three grandchildren, three sons, two very high achieving and two homes that she was left home. When I told her my mother was risking my life, THAT MADE NO IMPRESSION ON HER. SHE JUST FOCUSSED ON BEING LEFT OUT.
Intuitively i feel it would be very cleansing for you to type up a letter to her reminding her how barren your lack of childhood was and how you went the extra mile with your siblings even though basically you didn't have the resources and was further robbing yourself.
Fondly
Bobby

My parents seem to have kept the role with their own siblings for their whole lives. (My parents are in their late 60s.) It seems hard to break out of whatever role the siblings assign to each other when they are children.


My father feels comfortable talking to one brother about certain subjects but not the other. With one brother he is still highly competitive and even uses fighting words occasionally. The brothers take turns being protective of the sister. . . then the baby of the family is always the baby and they treat him like he really doesn't understand, they're more impatient with him, they talk about him differently . . . And they carry slights from their teenage years. . .

My mother's family is similar only much much much more dysfunctional and I can't speak of it.

I think that it takes work to change these patterns. And of course it is impossible to do it as a group if the others are not participating in the work.

My little brother's son set me an email yesterday after he joined a myspace-type place. I answered him.

M.

(((((HUGS)))))
bizi:hug: