Oscen's Journal - trigger warnings (self harm & suicidal thoughts)

[Oscen]

I've decided to really commit to this journey to healing and beyond, and writing a journal that is visible is one step. I won't necessarily post daily, but this is here for my ramblings and things I want to share but are perhaps a bit self-indulgent.

First up, I'll say a bit about myself and my personal history; specifically, why I have concluded I have complex trauma. It's a big self-indulgent wish-mash, so reader, beware!

I am a thirty-three year old woman, living in a country very far from where I grew up, where all my FOO still live. I'm the third of four daughters, and my parents are both immigrants (from two different countries, though all English speaking countries), so it was just our little nuclear family growing up, really. My grandma came to live near us just before I was born and she remarried, so we did have wonderful grandparents.

My perspective:
I've almost always felt not good enough inside, like something was wrong with me. I'd say I was ok up to around age 8 or 9, but I know by the time I'd hit 11, the rot had well and truly set in and just got worse throughout my teens and well into my twenties. I struggled to fit in with other kids and didn't really learn to play nice, to get along, to deal with teasing or the little power struggles you get in groups of girls. I just pulled back from it all. I never shared my feelings or learned how to talk about what I was feeling. I also didn't discuss what was going on in my life at all, or share my assessments of situations (like if you see an awkward moment between two friends) with my girlfriends. I just hung back and desperately tried to fit in and be liked, but struggled, partly my tastes were so different to everyone else's, and my family prevented me from doing things like watching the TV shows everyone else watched.

Instead, I read a lot of books, watched the TV shows I could, and escaped into my fantasy world. I used to play games, daydreams really, where I imagined I was the characters I loved - Zelda or Link from the video games, Sailor Moon from TV, various princesses, sorceresses, fairies, ancient greek heroes, animals... anything that had special powers and adventures. And imagined I was very beautiful, too. Didn't really imagine friends though - they seemed a bit pointless to me.

I felt I was on the outside looking in at school and I was incredibly shy. I didn't really have friendships; just found people who tolerated me. I was very bright at schoolwork and did well in tests, but struggled to do any work outside of school, in the form of homework and assignments. I didn't know it, but I'd picked up subtle messages that I didn't matter, and my achievements weren't praiseworthy. My parents would actually put me down occasionally if I brought home a good test result or report card seeking praise; my older sisters would also join in or pick holes. I suppose they felt threatened. The inconsistency made it not worth trying to be noticed or praised. I wasn't encouraged or even welcome to bring my schoolwork home, to try to better myself, though my mother would berate me and I would cry when I was late with something. Home was my mother's space so I just didn't feel I could do anything differently.

My two older sisters were similar to me in many ways - bright, but not hardworking, and my whole family but especially my mother referred to us all as if we were the same. As if being a girl in this family meant we all acted the same, looked the same, had the same body type, the same social skills... I really struggled with this as it prevented me from forming my own identity. My older sisters bought into it wholesale and reinforced it too, making it seem quite competitive at times. They clashed with one another and often labelled me as being one way or another, which I didn't like. It cause them terrible problems, too, and they didn't know any better, of course. None of us discussed feelings, hopes, and dreams at all. It was like it was verboten. I occasionally had my flaws pointed out to me, but mostly, criticism was triangulated - I'd hear my mother or my older sister criticising a third party, pretty mercilessly, and because I never got much feedback, good or bad myself, I'd look at it and think "ok... I can't be like that, then. Otherwise, I know everyone will talk about me like this". So I tried to be perfect, but it was the restrictive, don't-do-anything-so-you-don't-make-any-mistakes kind of perfectionism, not even the hardworking, high achieving kind of perfectionism that, whilst terribly toxic, at least teaches you some life skills.

My mother fed subtle messages that we, as a family, were better than other families and that was why we had restrictions placed on us. But she also had a victim complex which I picked up on too. I felt simultaneously less than other children, but also better than them, too. As a very young girl, before the rot had set it, I had felt like there was something wrong with my family; that being a "Smith" girl (that's not our name) made me a lesser person; that we did things that were weird and wrong. Partly, I think that was a child's natural desire to fit in, reacting to some conservative but sound parenting, like restricting TV viewing. Partly though, it was a recognition there was something actually wrong with my parents' engagement, like not encouraging us to work on homework, or to share our feelings, or to recognise and enjoy our personalities. Throughout my tweens & teens, I internalised this message to feel that I was wrong, instead. I forgot that I had noticed a problem with my family and felt like it was me. My personal skills were so bad - struggled to make myself do any housework or homework, so shy I could barely speak at times, was often confrontational when I did speak, was late for everything - that it seemed pretty natural to conclude that there was something wrong with me anyway.

Around my teens, I was regularly having suicidal thoughts. It just seemed like the only future I could visualise for myself. It was the logical result of retreating into myself - I could finally remove myself from the world that didn't seem to want me, and I could keep myself pure and removed from the world and the people that didn't seem to recognise who I really felt I was inside. My (paternal) grandmother, mother, and oldest sister were all on antidepressants and I'd sort of figured that I must be depressed too, but I thought my mother would ridicule me if I said so.

Nuclear family explosion
When I was 14, my second older sister attempted suicide the day after Christmas. We never talked about it, other than my parents telling me that she was in hospital. We didn't really discuss what was going on with her, we talked minimally of her treatment, just where she was, etc, and didn't talk about how she felt or about how we felt. I already knew that feelings were not worth speaking about. I didn't want to open up to my parents for various reasons - I didn't trust them to be kind, I didn't trust them to respect my privacy, I didn't feel any sort of emotional bond with them anyway. My sister sort of disappeared for a while after that. Up until I finished high school, my parents seemed to be parenting me the way they wished they had parented her. She had attempted suicide after receiving her finals results and realising that she couldn't followed her planned course. My parents tired to make me quit school altogether. I fought them on that one and managed to stay, but it really reinforced that I was not good enough, they didn't see me for who I was, that I didn't have the right to plan a future, etc. I feel tense in my chest thinking of it.

My younger sister started self harming, I think it was shortly after the suicide attempt. My younger sister was really in a bad place, but it wasn't taken very seriously by my parents. They didn't seem to have the energy to give her the attention she needed, so looking back, her feelings and behaviours were treated more like an annoyance. I remember when she was still very young, about 10 or 12, she drank a few mouthfuls of turpentine and told mum she wanted to die. Mum made her vomit, but didn't really do anything about it. It had always been hard for my younger sister; not only was it tough to be the youngest of four daughters and people always just expected her to behave a certain way, but she also didn't really fit the pattern, as she had struggled with schoolwork and needed special motor therapy to learn to read and write. She is very smart, but not being good at school, especially when teachers told her they expected her to be, as a "Smith" girl, must have made her feel bad, and feel that she was not smart.

So anyway, we had a background of depression and emotional invalidation. I finished school and got ok test results, nothing special, but I hadn't planned to do anything like uni. I just worked at the local supermarket, did quite a lot of gaming, and played in a small band. I eventually found a full-time job as a receptionist and moved in with my boyfriend. I was trying to pursue music but wasn't particularly good - I struggled to practice, and had little to no confidence. Every time I auditioned for a band or a show and I was knocked back, I took it really hard. One time I cut myself because I didn't get into the band my boyfriend was in. I just had no support network of people I could really talk to, and no internal framework for holding an image of myself as a good enough person, despite rejection. So no resilience, I guess, although I resent that description of myself at times. I think I people with trauma like myself are remarkably resilient for staying alive after a childhood without love and warmth. But I digress.
I was just managing to get by but decided to break up with my boyfriend. I knew that we weren't right together and although he wasn't abusive, he hand't been particularly caring when I'd broken a bone a few months earlier. I broke up with him but then was rejected for the university course I'd applied for. I was blindsided and felt that I had no future. I attempted suicide. Did I live or did I die? Find out when you tune in next time, folks.

That was at the beginning of my twenties. Throughout my twenties and even up until recently, I keep being retraumatised by simple life events because I do not have the life skills to cope with what is going on around me. I still struggle to work hard, to apply myself to anything. I really feel despair at myself sometimes. I have "woken" from the fog at various points over the years, usually because the situation is so bad and I'm so depressed, I recognise that I must do something. However, I rarely manage to stick to consistent actions and so often sink back beneath the fog. It is only within the last six months that I've found the term "complex trauma", or C-PTSD, and allowed myself to apply this label to my symptoms. It's much more hopeful than the previous explanation, given to me by my mother, that it's all just depression. I've been told that depression runs in the family and there's nothing I can do about it, other than swallow pills and shut up and get on with it.

I am drawing a line in the sand. I've said it before, but now I'm saying it here. I believe I can improve my situation. I believe there are things I can do that will better my condition. I believe I'm good enough to deserve it. I believe I'm good enough to do it. I believe I'm a normal human being with positive and negative qualities, and simply by being human, I deserve, love, respect, and to hold hope. I am not defined by my mistakes, no matter what I've been told. In fact, I deserve to be able to make mistakes. I deserve to trust myself. I deserve to grow. I deserve to be able to shut out people who do not want the best for me. I deserve to trust my judgement in important life matters. I deserve to forgive myself when I get things wrong. I deserve to form my own opinion of myself and life, and not be reliant on others to think and judge for me. I deserve to define and refine my own life values and live by them. I deserve to discard the terrible, terrible life values that were instilled in me as a child and have done nothing for anyone who has subscribed to them. I deserve to condemn my parents, at least internally, for the harm they have caused, to me and my sisters. And even themselves. And I deserve to express myself, to tell my story. This is not edited for anyone else (clearly). This is my life, my story, and I refuse to allow the "narrative abuse" inflicted upon me by my disordered family to continue.

I really, really hope that I don't go under again. I'm afraid.

[Not Alone]

Oscen,
I'm not sure if you wanted comments on your journal, so I apologize if I am intruding. Sending you  for your second-to-last paragraph "I deserve. . . "

[Oscen]

Hi Notalone, comments are welcome, and thank you for the support. :-)

[Oscen]

I haven't posted in about a week because the site seemed to be down, but I'm back at it. I want to talk about my mindfulness development today; specifically, my improved metacognition. I have been becoming more aware of my thoughts recently, and it's very exciting. I feel like I've crossed a small threshold, where things have just been feeling remarkably better.

I had been noticing more and more over the last few years just how "negatively" I perceive and respond to things. The reason I had been noticing this was because of all the work I had done previously - I had become more aware of monitoring my own thoughts through mindfulness and through support groups; I had been sharing more of my own thoughts, using my voice more, which made me notice what I was actually saying (so I'd be speaking to my friend, saying quite pessimistic things, and realising... I'm being a real downer here!), and my building up my self-acceptance and self-compassion had allowed me to see it more clearly without having to suppress that realisation.

So, it was tough, having a minor awakening about 5 years ago, where my shadow said to me that although I was blaming other people for how they reacted to me, I was responsible for my part in creating these situations. And the more I looked at myself honestly, the more I saw things about me that I just hadn't seen before, that I was not at all proud of. I felt like I didn't know myself. I had thought I was a good person, according to my definition of a good person, but I saw that according to my own definition, I was not. The more I practiced self-compassion, the more I could handle it, but then it would open me up to another realisation, another insight. Fortunately, that first awakening, that first burst of truth had felt so good, so empowering, so refreshing, so cleansing, that I embraced the idea that the truth was more important than comfort. And I could see that the problem was my idea of what a good person was - a definition that I had invented to make myself feel better about myself by allowing me to think I was better than others. So it was an illusion, a castle in the air, that was always doomed to come crashing down.

And lately, I've been kinder to myself, but hadn't really remedied my reflexive pessimistic reactions to things. It was conditioned in me pretty strongly - saying anything definite, or anything positive about myself was met with either subtle undermining or outright dismissal in my FOO. I guess my mother was conditioned the same way as me by her mother, so I can be understanding. And I learnt my mother tricks, of undermining or dismissal what I felt uncomfortable because someone I perceived as unworthy was being confident. Not a good place to be, but that's where I've been.

So, lately I've been realising that in order to feel confident, I just have to give myself permission to be confident. To think the best without actual evidence. To decide who I want to be, and then be that person, without waiting for permission. I went to a narcissistic abuse support group just over a week ago which was absolutely fantastic; so validating. Something inside me took a breath of relief, and I felt a turnaround. It was so amazing to be able to say: "My FOO was dysfunctional, and it's caused pain and confusion over the years, and I'm still fixing the damage because I haven't developed normally", and the response was, "yes, sounds tough, we get it". It was so amazing. I've never had my experiences of my family validated before, so I just disappeared into confusion and felt weird and different for so many years. I knew it wasn't worth talking about my family to "normal" people, because they just don't get it. But not talking about family made me seem abnormal. I couldn't process what had happened to me without normal social support and validation, because my psyche was still half-baked.

And last week, I also started reading "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself", by Joe Dispenza. It's really helpful. I should add the proviso - if I hadn't read all the books that I have on PTSD and cPTSD, this book would be useless. I needed to understand trauma very well, so that self-help books written for "normal" people - people without severe developmental trauma - make sense to me. As it is, with my knowledge, I can "translate" what I need to for my own situation. But I realise that what I think about affects me so profoundly, and I need to take responsibility for that. It's not my fault that I've got to where I am, that I've learnt bad habits, but I have been given the tools and the insight to improve my situation and that's what I'm doing.

I noticed that I had been doing so well, because yesterday I received an email from my mother and I lapsed back into old habits. However, I've been catching myself in the middle of it and calmly redirecting my thoughts, trying new responses, new paths of thinking, and distracting myself if it all gets too much. Taking responsibility. My mother (probably) won't change, so I am changing my reactions to her. It's not perfect, but I can feel I'm well on the way to mastering a new skill and it feels so good. I'm proud of myself for being humble enough to admit my own faults.

Today, I'm not quite back to the great feeling I was having last week, of being uninhibited and able to do anything, but it's pretty close. For example, last night I needed to do my invoicing and instead of procrastinating and then leaving it to a last-minute panic, I just broke it down, did a chunk of it, then did something else first I really needed to do knowing I'd come back to the invoicing in time to finish it, and then I did. It felt good, a big improvement on how I usually go about doing my work.

This is a very rambly entry, but overall I'm trying to say that I feel I'm making progress. It's two steps forward, one step back, of course, but I've been at it long enough to be able to see that I'm definitely much further forward than when I started, and that's a huge relief. I will attend more of the support group meetings to reinforce this sense of validation it's giving me, until I feel strong enough to give it to myself from within. I will keep reading everything I can, on understanding trauma and on creating positive change.

[Oscen]

My dysfunctional FOO dynamics - covert narcissistic borderline queen mother; SG; GC; and lost child.

I've been trying to figure out the dynamics in my FOO.

I am sure my M has a PD - NPD, BPD, or most likely, a mix of the two - a bit of a queen. But she is also mostly covert, so she is not super grandiose, more a pillar of the community; she was always heavily involved in school activities, in church and ran a Sunday school class, takes on "projects", like having one of my sisters friends who is having family problems around at our house all the time, or taking care of a family of refugees by giving them clothes and spending lots of time with them etc. It all looks wonderful on the surface, but it caused real abandonment/betrayal issues for me. And the community and the people she was helping never had to see her rage away when she was angry about something. They also didn't see the drinking - not loads, but most nights all through my teens and enough that she just wasn't entirely "there" emotionally, or mentally. M was diagnosed with depression about 20 years ago and has dutifully taken antidepressants since, but hasn't done much else, condemning therapy as ineffective.

My F joined in with the drinking and was so emotionally absent as to be completely non-existent in terms of supporting me learn and grow. He occasionally put down my achievements, when he bothered noticing, by complaining about attending my dance or music concerts. And when I showed him my good grades, hoping for praise, he told me that I should just be getting my grades for me. It sounds like the right thing on the surface, but the real message was, "don't expect praise or positive attention from me; I don't believe I owe you that and resent your emotional demands on me and will shame you if you continue". I wonder if he, too, is a covert narcissist, or possibly on the Asperger's/Autism spectrum, but I am less clear because his distance has given me less interactions to consider.

As for my siblings, I have three sisters; the third of four daughters. We have all been terribly affected by our upbringing; have all been diagnosed with depression and prescribed antidepressants at some point; three of us (me included) have self-harmed and attempted suicide; two have food addictions; one, intravenous drug use for many years.

After finding the covert narcissist description my mother's behaviour started to make sense, but I still couldn't quite figure out the dynamics with my sisters. My parents have shifted around the roles of scapegoat and golden child at various times. No-one is the GC for long periods of time, and certainly doesn't feel like it, because M never treats us like a GC to our face. It is only behind our backs, to triangulate against the other sisters, or to make M look good in the community. My M wouldn't be able to have a consistent GC, because that would mean giving too much positive attention to someone besides herself. And my parents have tried to be ok parents, so they haven't allowed themselves to consistently scapegoat one of us, either. However, they're very good at triangulation, so they'll shift around scapegoating to whomever is not there at the time. However, there are some general roles that have been assigned at various times.

My eldest sister seems to be scapegoated and made fun of quite a bit, mostly I think because she's a bit unaware of it all and possibly has Asperger's. M gets really furious about little things she does, like wearing knee-high tights that can be seen under her skirt, and raging about it to me. Before she got married, M said she hoped that my eldest sister would  married her gay best friend, because she said that with her weight problem, it was the best shot she had of being happy. I told M I was horrified she could say that about her daughter, so M made me move out. My eldest sister is quite oblivious, but very reliant on my M for praise and validation, and her whole morality and worldview is tightly modelled on what M thinks, despite the harm it does to her. M is enmeshed with her, and tries to take the credit for anything good she does, but condemns her for anything bad.

My second sister's role has shifted drastically, but mostly seems to be the GC. She is the most similar to my M, is very opinionated, did well at school and though she wasn't "popular" as my M would have liked, she got involved in lots of school activities. However, M would also condemn her emotional behaviour; she would often get teary, angry, and overwrought. She was pressured to do well but not supported to do so, and in her final exams she fell short of her desired grades and had a breakdown. Following this, she left the family home, was very briefly hospitalised, and then fell into a relationship for over 10 years with a guy who was probably a CN and introduced her to heavy drugs. M held back criticising this for a long time, but by the end, especially when we all became aware of the drug use, I think my sister had become more of a scapegoat. Of all my sisters, she was the first one to be aware that there is something wrong with M, making me understand that some of the things M said were abnormal. However, she hasn't really done anything with that awareness and is trying to reforge her bond with M, presumably because it is too addictive to be the GC and she doesn't want to walk away from that. It is also typical of her to criticise others, even rage about them to me, but not do anything or act on that information.  She has strong fleas and bullied me as a kid, using me as an emotional punching bag, policing my thoughts, and preventing me from developing my identity. I think we were often put in competition with one another, as we are good at similar things and M didn't let me do anything my second sister hadn't already done before me.

My younger sister is more of a caretaker, enmeshed role; though a scapegoat whenever M is feeling moody and wants to lash out. She has had her emotional growth and confidence stunted to the point that she has never been independent of M & F and still lives with them, being a caretaker for them as M has been ill with alcohol related illnesses, and F has been diagnosed with a serious illness. She has also really taken on M's worldview, and is becoming a real flying monkey, supporting my M when she is having issues with her own sister, our aunt.

As for me, I am the lost child; being not just the middle child but "a" middle child. I realised from a very young age that I needed to detach emotionally form M, but went too far and detached from everything and everyone. I used to play by myself for hours, daydreaming. I was torn down for achieving, so I learned not to put much time or effort into myself and my schoolwork, though I was intelligent and did well in class, just not on projects/assignments. I have developed social anxiety, but am working on it. However, when sister 2 went off the rails, I was propped into the role of GC, particularly because at that time, I was looking thin and beautiful, had a boyfriend and a full-time office job, and was singing in bands and so on. My parents put up photos of me round the house and must have triangulated this to my sisters to make them feel bad; I think there are still jealousy issues between me and my younger sister to this day, and I think the unconscious GC rivalry between me and my second sister contributed to our falling out. However, none of this positivity was shown towards me. They never asked how I was or supported me and we barely communicated when I left home. My father complained terribly when I asked him to help me move house, saying it was nothing to do with him. I hated it when my parents built me up by putting my sisters down; I'd feel so bad inside and a little guilty. Being the lost child has meant that I inadvertently went "grey rock" from a very young age, and have continued to do so until this day. I barely communicate with my family at all, and since moving to another country 10 years ago, have only come back to visit twice, with the occasional email and Skype calls up to 3 times per year and no more. Although there is a strong trauma bond inside my mind that still hurts me, externally, there is little to no communication or connection. I have never been hoovered and can't really understand the concept; certainly, M wouldn't do it to me. I feel I have been discarded. I think I am probably shifting to the SG in my family's discussions, from my previous experience of their triangulation, because I have more or less broken free from them and so must be discredited.

I have recently had some difficult encounters with my second sister when she came to stay with me. I didn't behave well and basically tried to treat her the way she used to treat me, to achieve top-dog status myself. I'm not proud and have done a lot of work to try to make sense of it, as I didn't feel like myself at that time. Examining my reactions helped me understand her and the greater family dynamic much better. My two older sisters do not get along with one another; they are only two years apart, both talented in their own way at different things, both opinionated, and both fighting for M's approval. I used to get stressed even seeing them in the same room together. However, their relationship has improved since second sister has made an effort in recent years. As I was a bit of a doormat, I used to be the one who got along with everyone - with sister one and sister two, anyway; everyone gets along with the youngest. Now I think I'm very much on the outer, with my eldest and my youngest sisters taking snipes at me like my M does, presumably because my increased confidence annoys them. With my second sister it's more complicated; I don't know but I sense that she is subtly triangulating against me to get back on the inner with M, and to be more at the centre of the family. Perhaps unfair, but it fits our family's and her patterns of behaviour.

The hardest thing is coming to terms with the fact that grey rock, which I unconsciously chose, has saved me form the extremes of my family's madness, but because I've been spared the drama, it's hard to recognise and name it for what it is and walk away once and for all. I keep wondering what I'm missing out on, even though all my alarm bells are saying that I can't win, the game is played with a loaded die and a stacked deck by experienced tricksters. I have already lost so much of my energy to this dynamic, why can't I give myself permission to cut my losses?

[Three Roses]

Wow, Oscen - these last two entries of yours are exceptional imo - I found myself nodding vigorously here:

So, it was tough, having a minor awakening about 5 years ago, where my shadow said to me that although I was blaming other people for how they reacted to me, I was responsible for my part in creating these situations. And the more I looked at myself honestly, the more I saw things about me that I just hadn't seen before, that I was not at all proud of. I felt like I didn't know myself. I had thought I was a good person, according to my definition of a good person, but I saw that according to my own definition, I was not. The more I practiced self-compassion, the more I could handle it, but then it would open me up to another realisation, another insight. Fortunately, that first awakening, that first burst of truth had felt so good, so empowering, so refreshing, so cleansing, that I embraced the idea that the truth was more important than comfort. And I could see that the problem was my idea of what a good person was - a definition that I had invented to make myself feel better about myself by allowing me to think I was better than others. So it was an illusion, a castle in the air, that was always doomed to come crashing down.

"I embraced the idea that the truth was more important than comfort."

Really powerful, very helpful and validating to me personally for where I am in my own journey. Thank you for posting!

[Oscen]

Thanks, Three Roses. The may truth hurt, but not as much as lies in the long run.

[Oscen]

I've probably posted about this difficult relationship with my sister elsewhere, but it's a pretty big deal for me and I was thinking about it this morning!

One of my older sisters came to stay with me a few years ago (I'll call her "S2"). At that time, I'd been having therapy, but was only just entertaining the idea that our M might have a PD. I had always thought that S2 and I had a good relationship, so I couldn't understand why I started feeling terrible having her there. For the first few days, we got along, we discussed everything -  our difficulties in childhood and young adulthood, our other sisters, and I even revealed that I suspected M was BPD or NPD. After a few days, I started to feel crowded in our small flat, and I started to feel... paranoid. Like I had revealed way too much and I suddenly realised, there's no reason to trust her. She had been talking very analytically and critically of everyone she knew, so why would it be any different for me? I realised, she is going to tell M everything. She's going to criticise my housekeeping, how I spend my time, the way I talk and think an act, everything. She's doing it about our M, our sisters, her friends; why not me? I felt panicked that my carefully constructed grey rock facade that I maintained between me and M was going to collapse.

However, a lot of this was unconscious, and instead of facing it head-on, I started to act out. I was nasty and critical of her. I invalidated her comments, I made fun of her hobbies, I passive-aggressively criticised others in thinly veiled digs at her. I felt like I didn't know myself anymore. These behaviours were very similar to how S2 had treated me when we were tweens, although I do appreciate she has worked hard to improve herself. We had barely spoken since she had had a breakdown in her late teens (I was 14) and she had moved out. Before she'd moved out, I think I'd become her emotional punching bag for at least a few years, although I didn't recognise it at the time; I just tried to anticipate what she did and didn't like, so I could say the "right thing" and avoid her opprobrium.

I think I was unconsciously trying to be "top dog". Instead of being the bigger person and stepping away from this horrible pattern of relating to each other, I did not have enough insight or self-esteem at that time to recognise what was going on, inside myself and between the two of us, and in the past and in the present. I acted very unconsciously. It was tough, because I was doing therapy, working hard to finish my degree, and I felt like I'd come such a long way, but around her it felt like it came to nought. I felt like I was a supporting character in a drama starring S2 and not the lead in my own story.

On our last day together, she tackled me about our relationship at literally the last moment possible - we spent about 5 hours together sightseeing, but she spoke to me about it standing on the pavement next to the metro entrance as we were saying goodbye. I'd been on my best behaviour all day. At that moment, I let her have it. I told her... I can't even remember all that I told her. I let off a tirade. I said that she was nasty and judgmental. I said that she didn't like the fact that I have my own opinions. I said that I thought M had a personality disorder. She said I had it all wrong. Then she left to get her tube. Neither of us contacted one another after that for probably well over a year. I saw her again when I went for our other sister's wedding. She had barely contacted me for years before coming to stay with me, so it was not exactly that unusual. I felt used and discarded by her.

I feel hurt because I feel like I allowed her to push me so that she could play the victim. I see now that she is very good at pushing my buttons - she uses dog-whistling and invalidation to keep in a one-man-up position in conversation. It's all unconscious, I think. She sees herself as an innocent victim and the smartest, sanest, and nicest person in the family. Of course, when I'm around my family I'm not much better and lapse into this relational style. I hope I've been getting better, although I am basically in permanent grey-rock with everyone in the fam so I don't have much chance to check my progress. It frustrates me that around her, I don't get the chance to feel good about myself. She takes that away with invalidation and subtle digs. It's intermittently reinforced though. I feel like she is a mini-mother; she's learned all her techniques from M. So of course, it's up to me not to hand over my power and care about how she defines me. I think I am progressing in this area - maintaining my own definition of self and behaving in accordance with my own values regardless of how the other person treats me - but speaking with her would be the ultimate test.

I think she and I have vied for the "golden child" position, and my discard from her triggered me to seek answers and start pushing and prodding at our M. So it's been positive over all, but I can't help but suspect that S2 and M have probably renewed their alliance and I've been scapegoated. For a few years, I felt like I'd failed in my life, because I only knew how to define myself by how I was seen (or how I think I'm seen) by members of my family; mostly by M, but also by my sisters. I can see how narcissism develops not as a way of being nasty, but by not being allowed to develop your own sense of self early on, so you feel like you must curate your identity in others' eyes, because that's the only thing that matters to you. I think I had pretty bad fleas. I'm being more forgiving of myself now, and accepting that I behaved how I did, not because I'm bad, but because I didn't know any better. When I can stop trying to twist the story in my head to put blame for my behaviour on S2, then I'll have processed this episode and be able to move on. This doesn't mean ignoring her role in it and letting her off the hook, but being able to discern exactly where my responsibilities start and finish, and the same with hers. I acted badly and I feel bad about it.

I'm not sure if I need to apologise; I know I'm not quite ready. But I also feel like she behaved badly, and owes me an apology. I'm holding off, because I don't want to give a crappy "I know I'm wrong, but so are you" kind of apology... but I also don't want to approach her and risk her putting all blame on me, even beyond what I'm responsible before. I need to improve my social and communication skills so I'm not going in defenceless, and figure out exactly what I want to say, and what I don't want to say. And ask myself the biggest question of all - do I want a relationship with her, or not? I don't know. It would depend in part on how she responds. If I'm right about her, that she is a covert narcissist in training - or at least, has pretty bad fleas, and will always try to score something off me and can't be trusted not to use sensitive information to triangulate - then I shouldn't even want a relationship. I should keep well away. But I doubt myself, and I feel like I won't trust myself until I've tried. But what if she pulls the wool over my eyes again? What if, what if, what if... Grey rock has helped me so much over the years, but it makes it difficult to find answers because there's so little data... even reaching out is a big deal, because I'm in another country with a completely different timezone and can't talk face-to-face. And I still feel resentful and uncertain. I want to figure out this situation. It means a lot to me.

[Oscen]

I've been thinking about my sister a lot today, and posted in another thread about apologising. NB: swearing below at the end; sorry.
I often confuse my feelings towards my NPD M with that of my sister. I wonder what that means - they are similar because of NPD? They are enmeshed? I have a problem because I can't distinguish individual people?

I'm struggling to make out just what my sister's character is really like, and exactly how much back-biting/triangulating she engages in. Although she seems to say the right things and looks good, even looks vulnerable and seems to have grown through counselling, she still seems to subtly criticise the people around her behind their backs, and undermines me when I'm there, and she doesn't take responsibility for certain things. I feel tense and invalidated around her, and really paranoid and on edge. It's weird.

The thought of sending her an email to apologise about my bad behaviour also makes me feel afraid, because then I'm afraid that she'll show it to someone else, so if it isn't perfect, it could be used against me.  Either I'll take responsibility for everything, s she can say "see, it's all her", or I'll take responsibility for myself but call her to account for her part in it, so she can say "see, she doesn't take responsibility for herself, her apology is passive-aggressive". I'm not quite sure where I get this feeling from, that an email to her is not just to her alone - I don't know if it's crazy paranoia, maybe even narcissism within me trying to control her, or if it's intuition based on observation.

It's like, when I'm around her, only one of us can be right... so I fall into this horrible game where I'm trying to be the one who is, instead of walking away from these stupid rules I didn't invent and I don't want to play. It's very much like what our M does, too. When we were young, the game was still being played between us two sisters, but I didn't have a hope in * of winning, so I never played; just forfeited and crowned her the victor. I wasn't even aware; just didn't trust myself to have the "right" opinion, ever; I was always trying to predict what she'd say, so that I could be "right" and she wouldn't put me down. And I really felt that I was wrong when I failed to anticipate her; I didn't recognise that it was just nastiness on her part and an intolerance for other people's opinions. I thought that I'd failed and my own opinions were wrong. And she enjoyed criticising me. How * up is that?

She is better now than she was... she's had counselling, and she sounds more open and accepting, she says things that sound right. But it still feels wrong around her. What sucks is that I get defensive, aggressive even, and so I am no innocent victim in this. I'm worried that I'm trying to convince myself that I am and that really, I'm the problem. What is more likely is, we both have fleas from my M's behaviour and this is affecting our relationship massively. Also, there is a competitive element to our relationship which is also driving a wedge between us.

When I look at what I'm writing here, objectively, in this post and at several above, I can make a few conclusions.
If I saw someone else, not me, write about a family member of theirs in this way, I might conclude the following:

Your sister is crazy-making, possibly gas lighting, most definitely triangulating. Why wouldn't you believe she backbites you, when she does it to other people in front of you? Your intuition is going into overdrive, telling you "danger, danger"! You've been brainwashed to think that her behaviour is ok when really it isn't. You know it isn't ok, because when you catch yourself behaving the same way, you feel ashamed and guilty. But you have a blind spot when she does it to you, and she feels entitled to be the star of the show, the centre of attention and the only "truth teller" when you're around (golden child/nascent NPD). She doesn't care how you feel, if those feelings conflict with her sense of entitlement. She only cares about looking like she cares - she cares about that greatly. She's never taken responsibility for her behaviour towards you as a teen, never even acknowledged it, and made no effort to maintain a relationship with you in the interim, despite her heavy emotional demands on you when it suited her, so why should you feel safe around her, or respected by her? She is happy to make statements about the family, about how people should behave, but these are not congruent with her behaviour and she does not expect to ever be called out on this.

The conflict between your conscious and subconscious is making you behave erratically, and that is further contributing to your guilt, shame, and general sense of not-enoughness. The confusion is more painful than the actual pain. The actual pain itself is twofold - the pain of having a sister who is an emotional leech; and the pain of knowing that you have not behaved in an exemplary fashion. You think that your behaviour is more difficult to face, and you think you are a narcissist because you are struggling to accept your bad behaviour and take responsibility for it, but actually the hard part for you is labelling your family members' problems for what they are - you are uncomfortable with labelling your sister, because you are a nice person, and because after years of psychological abuse form your mother, father, and sisters, you don't trust yourself. Sure, it's tough owning up to our flaws, but it is coming from a toxic family environment that makes it nigh on impossible, because you've been told that your flaws make you unloveable and worthless.

I don't even believe in the death penalty, because I think that all life is worth something, even if you've done genuinely heinous things. But when I was twenty I attempted suicide, I thought I deserved to die, that I was was worthless, nothing. And I'm afraid of admitting that I was grumpy, moody, passive-aggressive and invalidating when my sister stayed with me, because I'm worried that means I'm admitting to being worthless, no good, and can be treated horribly with justification. The idea that... anyone can be moody, but they still have value, deserve respect, shouldn't have these past transgressions forever hauled out like a talisman to keep them in thrall, and that forgiveness has a purpose in real relationships is quite foreign. I see it finally in my mind's eye, but is isn't fully integrated into my automatic assumptions of the world.

In my experience, if I face an issue, the solution is usually focusing on the opposite thing. So I need to forgive my sister for being as she is, in order to forgive myself for behaving as I did. Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation, so need not traipse back into the lion's den, but I need to stop blaming her. She's doing her best, but she had a tough upbringing with a difficult mother, who also had a tough upbringing with a difficult mother. I will try to feel warmly towards her. They didn't destroy me; just broke me a bit. I still feel the cracks in my chest. I can feel them right now. I could insert that cheesy quote about light coming in through the cracks, but frankly I want to use my own words, not * cliches from * poets telling us how to live. * these * stupid quotes that tell me to turn the other cheek, to love my neighbour, about a brotherhood of man. These only even exist because it is natural to feel anger, pain, hurt, and to seek revenge. I've never been allowed to tap into those feelings, to make contact with this indignant, outraged sense of self that

I'm not happy that I've been abused. It has not made my life better overall. It has made it worse, and nearly ended it though suicide. I can find the positives in it, just as a child conceived through sexual assault can be truly loved and wanted; but it doesn't make the abuse ok. I'm feeling angry now, though, and I don't know how to express or move through this anger. I can see that I must forgive so that I can forgive myself - it is all the same, forgiveness of one is forgiveness of all, I believe - but the idea of forgiveness is making me * angry. It feels like it doesn't matter whether I feel I can forgive or not - the power to forgive is only afforded me in the moment that my pain and suffering is being swept under the carpet, when my abusers or some do-gooder is telling me to get over it. What is the point of forgiveness, if you are not allowed to blame? What is the point of saying yes, if you are never allowed to say no? If I cannot tell my mother and my sisters and my father that they hurt me, I'm angry, I hold them accountable, and they are not yet forgiven because they have not yet atoned, what is the point? What am I? A beast, to shoulder a burden, to be whipped when I fall behind in this thankless task of carrying their sins silently, and to be slaughtered as necessary? No regard for my story, my feelings, my inner world. Ok, I'm being dramatic now!

So, here's a summary of this incredibly ramble entry, sorry for anyone trying to read this muddle!
1) I'm confused about my relationship towards my sister, most likely because there has been and still is some covertly abusive behaviour towards me from her. It is sapping a lot of mental and thus physical energy, and I'm allowing it to drain my confidence and sense of personal pride and dignity, as well.
2) I feel very similarly about my M and fear triangulation from the two of them; staying grey rock with all the family seems a good idea to protect myself.
3) Sending a short email apologising for things I've done that bother me may help - will draft it and post it on the section of the forum for such letters.
4) I seem to believe that forgiveness - of myself and her - holds the ultimate key to healing, but I'm clearly not ready for it right now.
5) I probably need to engage more with my anger and release it constructively, perhaps in talking therapy, or through posting.
6) I need to give myself permission to define my family's dysfunctions as I see them, so that I can continue to seek the most appropriate help, implement the most appropriate strategies, feel confident in my own judgments, and create my own personal life narrative, instead of still being defined by the "truth" as my abusers told it, which is causing me pain and suffering.

[Blueberry]

I haven't read all of this, though I will in the next few days. For now, I'm just sending compassion  and  on starting to get the poison out here. Also, trust your feelings, trust your intuition.

[Oscen]

Thank you Blueberry, for your kind words. Of course, don't feel you must read my big muddle of thoughts! Especially in this journal, it's not really edited, it's just about getting it out so I can make some sense of it all. I appreciate your thoughts about intuition.

[Oscen]

Following posting my draft letter to my sister, I have more thoughts on my relationship with her and the rest of my family.
Please note, both my parents were migrants, all our grandparents have passed, and none of my sisters or me have had kids yet, so when I talk about my family, it's really just our little nuclear family of mother, father, and four daughters; there are no aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces or nephews etc in the picture.

I have little to no contact with any of my family members, and the little that I do is pretty much meaningless, just emails from M that are like a little newsletter, telling me what everyone is up to. My sisters almost never contact me directly, it is all funnelled through M, the spider in the middle of the web. I live on literally the opposite side of the world to the city my family live in, rarely email or Skype, and even before I emigrated ten years ago, I had almost no regular contact with family then, either. We're just not the kind of family that is emotionally supportive or has regular contact. I guess I have been doing grey rock for a long, long time, without knowing it. I feel I have let my sisters down, particularly my younger sister. It's probably unfair guilt being put upon me by my family, blaming myself for the distant relationship that my parents created. But I wouldn't say we're not close; I feel very tightly bound, even though there is no connection. I'm always defining myself by my position in the family, and looking at myself the way my M or S2 would see me. I am getting better at this, however, but it is a slow process.

When people respond to my posts discussing boundaries, I just have to chuckle. They don't know my family. I've already been well and truly discarded. How do you set boundaries with people you never communicate with, you effectively don't have a relationship with? By moving away, I've set myself up to be the bad guy who never contacts home, despite the fact that no-one except M ever really contacts me, nor did even when I was still living in the same city. Perhaps I'm being unfair to S1, who did help me a lot on early adulthood, although we don't have a close emotional bond. So I am grateful to her, although her values are so influenced by M's I find it unhealthy to speak with her. My main reason for hurt and confusion is the sorrow of not having a close connection with my family, contrasted with knowing that it is probably the most emotionally healthy thing possible, plus the uncertainty of doubting whether I'm able to judge how healthy or unhealthy our relationship is when there's been so little contact over the years.

When S2 came to stay with me, that was the most she'd communicated with me in years. She reached out when she wanted something from me. I was unconscious of the abuse at that time and very much lacking in assertiveness, so it never occurred to me to set boundaries by not allowing her to stay, or setting a time limit on how long. I didn't anticipate that we'd clash so much, since I had started developing some independent thought and an expectation of respectful treatment, although it was still very early days for me and I hadn't yet learned how to enforce it through assertive communication of boundaries. The nightmare of her staying was completely confusing and bewildering and threatened to destroy the nascent healthy sense of self that moving to another continent had allowed me to build. It woke me up to the situation between me and her and to the fact that this person, who I'd always thought cared for me and I'd looked up to - been forced to look up to, in fact - was actually self-centred, judgmental, and did not have my best interests at heart. And then she left the country and went back home and stopped communicating with me all over again, as I'd served my purpose. She left me feeling guilty and responsible, because of the last-minute argument she ambushed me with. But if she cared, wouldn't she care about what I had to say, even though I'd said it hurtfully? Wouldn't she reach out to me more often than just when I have something to offer her? She is punishing me for having feelings and opinions different to hers. And I think she always intended to just use and discard me, even if she is not aware of it consciously. She believes she's a good person, a really wonderful, kind, perfect, victimised person in fact; never mind that her actions don't match this.

I think what I want from the email I'm drafting is to change my sister's way of thinking about me, because I've been so brainwashed by my family to judge myself based on others' opinions of me, particularly hers and M's, that I feel I must make her think I'm good in order to be good. This is obviously a selfish, controlling desire, and not possible or necessary. It is, at its root, a narcissistic impulse. We are both on the edge of being NPD/BPD like M and I feel there is competition between us to be the "good" one. It wasn't always like this. I used to be just voiceless (the lost child), while she was outspoken and alternately idealised and scapegoated by M. She competed instead with our eldest sister (S1) back then.

As for changing herself, S2 has done a lot of therapy and I've noticed she is less negative than as a teen, just before she attempted suicide, although that is not saying much. I think she still treats me as a need-gratifying object. When she stayed with me 5 years ago, I felt uncomfortable, judged, and disrespected by her, though not all the time of course - sometimes we had fun; we have similar tastes and a similar sense of humour. And I really must fess up - I was horrible to her, too. I mocked a hobby that she was really into, for starters. Nasty of me. I am ashamed and I can see that's hurtful. When it comes to the idea that I've hurt her, I struggle to care about that, though, and try to put the blame back on her,  which must be a little narcissistic behaviour of mine coming through. I know I'm doing well to even recognise this, so I won't beat myself up too much. When I can stop trying to push the blame back on her and take full responsibility, I'll have healed a lot.

When I went back for S1's wedding a few years ago, S2 used some dog-whistling to attempt to undermine me - I made a suggestion about the hairstyle we would wear as bridesmaids (which I hadn't wanted to be but was persuaded by my BF, who, having a normal, loving family, expects me to keep up appearances like a normal person would!) and S2 replied with "I know you want your hair like X because you're uncomfortable about the bald spot in your hairline, but this is what S1 wants". FYI, my slightly uneven hairline has never been commented upon by anyone except for S2 and M; I used to feel uncomfortable about it and parted my hair to hide it, but when I mentioned it to my brilliant hairdresser years ago and she said she didn't even know what I was talking about, I realised that it just wasn't an issue and completely forgot about it. I have continued parting my hair the same way out of habit, but it is no longer to hide anything. Until that moment, I hadn't even thought about it for years. I was so taken aback, I just didn't reply. But I realised it was outright manipulation - that S2 wants to maintain control and be the only one with a voice, so even making suggestions about hairstyles is verboten and she will subtly cut me down. If I'd called her out, I would've just been the * making waves at our sister's wedding. I wasn't so much hurt by the comment about my hairline, more speechless as it was the first time I'd recognised this particular pattern of covert manipulation. Recognising my feelings and controlling them took all my focus, so I couldn't tackle her at that moment. I looked online and found the name "dog-whistling". How many other times in the past have I been silenced, without recognising it for what it is? Many, I think, because it was a familiar feeling, plus speaking out to my family always makes me feel so vulnerable, it must be regularly met with digs at me like this.

I see now that there are ways to deal with this assertively, but I so rarely spend time with family members and when I do, either I'm staying with them or they're staying with me so it's so totally overwhelming, it's tough to behave with the dignity and strength I want to, especially because habit is desperately pushing me to lapse back in into old, harmful relationship patterns.

I have been recognising more and more mind control tactics, abusive comments, dog whistling, undermining, criticising, invalidation, dismissal, name-calling, contemptuous facial expressions, and lots of horrible triangulation and back-biting by criticising family members not present every time I have contact with my family over Skype over the last 5 years or so. I am learning to recognise this for what it is, but learning how to respond and deal with it is still taking time. And grey rock is a mixed blessing - it has protected me, but it also reduces the opportunities for practicing assertiveness, and makes me doubt my assessments at times. Still, the abuse would also make it hard to practice assertiveness and feel confident in my judgments, so I probably should just be glad I stumbled upon GR naturally. I think it's the reason I'm just a little healthier than my sisters, and objectively have fewer addiction issues and more outward "success" than them. I probably shouldn't compare myself to my sisters, however, but it's a tough habit to break. When I do speak to M, these positive things make me a target and she tries to pick holes in the good things I've achieved. After I finished my degree, I was terrified she would try to criticise it, by saying I didn't get a first, or I wouldn't be able to find a job, or whatever. So every time I'm successful at something, I feel fear and try to hide it. I think I often avoid succeeding for this reason too, and self-sabotage through procrastination, or just not putting myself forward.

Funny how another post on S2 has once again led to M. There's plenty of rambling here, but I'll leave it for now.

[Blueberry]

It seems that just by writing, things are becoming clearer for you Originally I thought I would read your post because mine are often very long too and relations with FOO is a familiar topic for me. I have skim-read.

My FOO is very far away too. I think in a way that makes it harder with boundaries, when you're still practising setting them as I am. Intensive contact over a period of days or even weeks where I never could protect myself and a FOO who didn't want me to have the same rights as them (e.g. being allowed boundaries, being allowed to say 'No').

This also in my experience: beware of gratitude. I remained grateful to a friend and to B1 for totally different things and through the gratitude I put myself in a lower position than them. Somebody at Out of the Fog helped me come to that conclusion. FOG stands for Fear Obligation Guilt btw.

You're welcome to 'ramble' in your own Journal. Very long posts may not be read by as many people, that's all. Not that members are uncaring, but there are some on here who have difficulty concentrating on a huge wall of text. But as I said, your Journal, you can write long texts.

There's a lot more I'd like to say but I have to go now. Anyway, maybe you'll figure it all out on your own

[Oscen]

Thanks Blueberry. I completely agree about long distance making boundaries harder - when you do have contact, it is so intense because you are literally in the same space so much.

It's interesting you are commenting on the one-down and one-up dynamics; I sense these are at work in my family. The expectation that you should have "positive" emotions, like gratitude, forgiveness, etc can really be used against you in a toxic relationship.

Yes, I don't expect anyone to read it all but I do skim others' long posts often and it is very enlightening. Thanks for your support 

[Oscen]

I've been thinking a lot about the relationship with my S2 lately, and I've come up with some more thoughts.

I googled "covert narcissist sister" and found this list on Quora:
https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-know-if-your-sister-is-a-narcissist
The list is in normal text, my thoughts on each point are underneath in italics.

If your sister and you have a narcissist parent (or both), compare their behavior. "Do they act the same?" is the question you need to answer to know that.
Pay attention to their behaviour.
Yes, this is absolutely true imo. S2 reminds me very much of M, and lots of her behaviours are completely the same.

1) Does she usually make you confused? Are you usually wondering how to act with her or what to think about her?
Yes, it should be easy to see from my posts that I am extremely confused about her, her behaviour, her personality, how to define her behaviour towards me, everything. The confusion in itself is a red flag. AS a kid it was much worse, with me constantly second-guessing myself as to what the "right" thing to say was; if I said something she disagreed with, she'd criticise and shame me and I'd feel bad, not understanding that it's ok to have a difference of opinion, only her behaviour was wrong.

2) Does she get mad whenever you contradict her or things don't go her way?
Yes, she can be surprisingly verbally aggressive in her tone if I disagree with her on certain things. It is impossible to anticipate.

3) Does she show plain disrespect to other people and justify it? Does she get mad and deny whenever you call her out?
I don't know about this one. I suppose being verbally aggressive, to myself and others, if she disagrees with their opinions is fundamentally disrespectful.

edit: One other thing I remembered, in the past when we've discussed abuses of power from people in high positions, she often justifies their bad behaviour. The weird thing is, if she were being harassed/abused by someone in a high position, she'd be very resentful and feel victimised, but when we discuss it objectively happening to other people and I condemn it, she sort of sides with the powerful person, almost just to have something to disagree with me about. There's also this weird feeling that by justifying the powerful person, she's identifying with them and feeling like she is powerful like them, and pushing me into playing the lower power position, because I'm condemning this poor behaviour and empathising with the victim. It's one of those invisible strings/weird power-play situations that I used to stumble into, just by saying perfectly normal things like, "I don't like it when X treats his staff this way", or "celebrity X is meant to be horrible to his costars" etc. I don't know if she's just being contrary, or if there actually is this lack of empathy for victims of bullying.

4) Is she particularly close to your narcissist parent? Have you ever been in conflict with her after having pointed to her something wrong in that parent's behavior? Does she blame you for things that parent does to you, even when it is obvious you were not responsible for what happened to you?
Yes, she is much closer to M than me, quite possibly the closest of us all. When we argued before she left town, I criticised a lot of things that I didn't like about S2 (I let off a tirade and I'm not proud of it), but the last thing I said was actually about M, I said I thought M had a PD, and that seemed to make S2 angry in a way that the things about her had not.

5) While talking to her, is she soliloquizing and always keeping you from replying (leaving the conversation, changing the subject, ignoring your answers, making you understand you annoy her and so on)?
YES, YES, YES!!! This one, a million times over. It drove me crazy when she stayed in the same city as me After she moved out of my flat, she contacted me a couple of times for coffee, and she'd just sit there and talk AT me, and if I tried to change the subject, even make a comment, she'd drag it back to the topic she wanted , and sometimes be dismissive of my comment. I felt bad about myself for... I don't know, not being supportive enough? She was the one who made me think that she was entitled to use me as a vessel to pour her thoughts into, she made out that I didn't deserve any better, didn't deserve it to be a conversation, didn't deserve to be appreciated and listened to, didn't deserve to feel good and be treated like an equal. I see now she was using me, but at the time I thought I was overreacting, and a bad person.

6) Does she usually criticize you, make fun of you or put you down even for no reason?
She did a lot when we were kids/teens. She enjoyed criticising my tastes, it made her feel better about herself. She's gotten better, which made me think that she was better overall, and I was being harshly unfair.

7) Does she do all that to you and get mad if you happen to do the same to her?
Yes, completely. Though I'm ashamed of my behaviour when she stayed with me - I was completely unconscious at that time and didn't know what I know now - I can see that all I did was treat her like she's treated me for years. She had reduced this behaviour, but it still cropped up while she was staying with me, in talking down to me, viciously disagreeing with me, dismissing my opinions, gossiping about others to me, and passive-aggressively criticising other people for behaviours that I displayed. I caught myself doing the same, because I hadn't yet learnt how to deal with this behaviour assertively, but I no longer could accept being a passive victim, so I tried to fight back with overt and covert aggression - not good, but at least I can admit it to myself. And she hated it, resented me for it, without recognising it in her own behaviour for years.

When she is mad at you, does she happen to have disproportionate reactions (for instance, she once said she would hit me because I was in the bathroom when she wanted to take a shower)?
Hmm, not so much. No violence in my family; just surprisingly aggressive verbal attacks.

9) Does she usually complain about people behind their back and act friendly with them?
* YES. That's pretty much all we talked about; her criticising this or that person. And then she always acts like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth to their faces - I think she genuinely thinks that she's a nice person and hasn't made the connection that you can't be nice to someone to their face, then completely dissect their characters behind their backs and still have integrity.

10) Is she exaggeratedly materialistic?
Somewhat, yes - she loves clothes and had a tremendously sized wardrobe. I share this affliction with her too, fyi - I love clothes, shoes, jewellery, accessories etc as well!

For years, I've felt like my M and my S2 were looking over my shoulder, judging me, and that I constantly had to mentally justify everything I chose to those two people. As well as being a tremendous waste of my precious life energy, it has made me fearful, resentful, and conservative; afraid to take any sort of action that I desire.
I see now that I would not have this sensation of being judged if it weren't for the abuse in the first place. It is a trauma bond.

I had a sort of epiphany about it six months to a year ago, when I said to a friend that I understood that S2 could never show me approval, because the family dynamics created by NPD M meant that we'd always feel in competition with one another. However, I still doubted my own assessment of the situation, through guilt and low self-confidence.

Ultimately, the best explanation is that, whether my sister has NPD or not, her behaviour towards me has been narcissistically abusive. That's enough to justify forgiving myself and shutting her out of my life, at least for now.