Steve M...Here We Go

[SteveM]

I've been busy the last few weeks since the visit to my early childhood home, it's been a good busy . Did lots of projects at camp and I love doing them. However, I feel the end of Summer approaching and the diminishing daylight, I just don't want summer to go!

I also feel myself slipping into ungroundedness, if that's a word. In my head Im having some some negative self talk which usually ends up in the place of " what happened to me wasn't that bad stop wining. Which leads to, "maybe nothing really happened, you are making this up".

I have to state to people that understand severe childhood trauma: horrible things did happen to me  for many years, it was real, I survived, I'm safe, people love me, and I have the capacity and ability to love others well".

That is my truth today.

[Armee]

Yup. It did happen. It's normal that your brain does this loop. You know that. Doesn't make it easier.  I know that.

[SteveM]

It's been a long time since I posted and it's great to see a lot of familiar names are still here and active on the forum!

A bit of what's happened since I posted last: we sold the house we had built in 1991 in the fall of 2024 and went into homeless mode for 9 months while our new house was being built, we stayed in 4 different places during that time, did not enjoy that time. We moved into our new house last May and we  absolutely love it! 2 more grandchildren are with us now , one last year and one the year before, such joy to watch these little ones come alive and grow up in healthy households.

My sister passed on in March of last year and I just read what I had written a few years back here on the forum about my struggles with our relationship.

A very few weeks after she passed on one day out of the blue I had this sickening feeling combined with a weight off my shoulders that my sister was , what you folks call, a covert narcissist?!

She was my big sister and when we were young she was a shield for me between me and my parents and there is a whole bunch of other back story that caused me to think she was always right and I was always wrong and that I never did things quite right!

The last 20 years or so of her life, and our relationship, she was incessant about me and my family developing a relationship with Jesus so we could all be saved as she had been. I always respected her relationship with her religion and also kept my self respect around the fact that I am trying to be a spiritual being and I am following a different path than she was.

The gulf between us grew around this Jesus obsession and I didn't realize until she was gone that it had been the main reason why I was staying wary and away from her. Never once in the last 20  years when I went to see her did she not shame me about not finding Jesus, but the innuendo and shame were oh so subtle many times. She had a rare blood cancer for 11 years and went through * and was always telling me how she might die too soon, it really trying and tiring to visit her.

I've been at many bedsides just as people were about to pass on and had many very frank discussions about our time together. In my sisters last couple days I kept lying to her as she asked me if there was anything left unsaid between us and I said that we were good. A few days before she passed My wife and I and our 2 adult children went down to say goodbye, I warned them all that there was a high probability that they would be asked about their relationship with Jesus and right on cue after 20 mins of chit chat she asked each of us individually if we had a relationship and if not she pleaded that we start one. Everyone was polite and said that would ponder it. After a couple hours we said our final goodbyes and left. We stopped for dinner on the way home and had a great time together.

As I was driving home I knew I had to go back the next day and clear the air between us, it's about 5 hours total round trip so not like popping over to the next town.

I went the next day and there were a few folks coming and going and it got to a point where it was time to say goodbye for the last time. We got right to the things left unspoken and she told me she was a bit resentful that I hadn't visited more , because of  "that damn house" I was building and a few other issues. Then came the Jesus pitch, I listened quietly and then I got up and went over to her and told that I was not in any danger and was not in any need of being saved by Jesus and that I had strong spiritual community around me plus AA and I was fine and that we were just on different paths and that our paths were right for each of us. I kissed her on the forehead and said goodbye.

I know this is a long post and thanks for your patience. I just needed to once again write down the the truth to see how all consuming her need to be the one to bring me along her path to salvation and that what I thought and believed did not even register on her radar. As I look back over our lives it was always that way but she was so subtle in how she always had to be right and I had to be wrong , well f that, I am not wrong!

[NarcKiddo]

Steve! I am SO happy to see you. Do you plan to stick around? Thanks for the update, and I'm glad you're happily settled in your new house. Congratulations on the 2 new grandchildren (Christmases must be getting costly!  ).

I'm sorry for your loss, but glad you took your final opportunity to say what you needed to say to your sister. It's always hard to deal with a realisation that someone is not as we had thought, and having had a lifelong relationship makes it even harder. I've had to come to terms over the last few years with the realisation my F is a brand of narcissist. I had previously only thought it was my M. So I am aware of that feeling when the ground kind of shifts beneath your feet. It is easy to include some self-blame in the mix, along the lines of "how could I not have seen THAT?" but I hope you manage to avoid it.

[Chart]

Hello SteveM, nice to meet you! Your recent post has helped me realize the value of my own relationship with my sister. I've kinda always taken my sister for granted. We were terribly close when children, then grew apart over the decades as each of us went our separate ways (and dealing with our trauma in whatever manner we were able). But in the past two years I've come to more deeply appreciate the common experience shared with my sister regarding our trauma. And I'm happy to say that my sister came through our family trauma without turning her pain outward as so many narcissists do. I'm very glad you kept your balance with your sister but in the final moments affirmed your independence and autonomy. You kept a healthy relationship with your sister no matter what she tried to do to that relationship. Bravo! And your story has helped me appreciate my own sister even more. We have in the past few years grown closer, communicating more often. I am happy for that and hope for it to continue.

Thanks for sharing your story!
Chart