Losing Little Sister (And Best Friend) After Diagnosis

[Kizzie]

So very sorry to hear this DreamRiver, it's such a huge loss   

[dreamriver]

Thank you Kizzie  I'm getting through it!

[Kizzie]

   and 

[findingpeace2018]

Im so sorry this is where things are going DreamRiver....I just checked in now after being out of town, hence my absence.   Sending more tea and some flowers if that helps....

We are here and sitting with you.   You are not alone, we support you and will be here when you post again.....

[Kizzie]

      

[dreamriver]

Hi all - thanks for being so present and holding the space for me in this thread and at this time 

I've decided to go completely NC with all FOO at this time and though I still get into those ruminating/guilt loops, I feel LOADS better (which is in it's own way shocking but that's starting to wear off). My M (who I'm starting to piece together, is very, very covert NPD tendencies) sent me a long email that I'm not even going to read until fall, I've decided. I'm too busy and don't want my time and emotion drained or stolen anymore by the scapegoating, and I'm trying to enjoy all the good things going in my life at present - and there's a lot of good things  I've been in such turbulence... I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but maybe it's time for them to shoulder the uncertainty for a while. It feels cruel but sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind. Maybe they'll figure some things out during this time of much needed space.

[marta1234]

Good for you, dreamriver, for choosing what's best for you  . I am sorry that it's come to this, but I'm sending you lots of support as this is what you needed, and as you said, maybe what they need too.

[findingpeace2018]

I think you are taking really great care of yourself by stepping back for a bit DreamRiver.  It takes alot of courage to put ourselves first (even tho sometimes its absolutely imperative).  IMO, you have done well by yourself and your FOO, you are right, they may beed this as well.  And if nothing else, you get to focus on the good things you said are currently going on in your life.....big hooray for you!  I hope these good things help ease some of the pain and uncertainty, and give you something happy to focus on.... if thats ok....

[dreamriver]

Thanks y'all 

Just to quickly share, this article really helped me make the decision...the list part where it says "It's OK to say Goodbye If..."

https://wehavekids.com/family-relationships/Strained-Family-Relationships-When-You-Should-Cut-The-Ties-and-Say-Goodbye

(Is it OK to share articles?)

...and the part where it says that it might be time to part ways if stress is starting to interfere with home and work life. For years it's been affecting both, awfully. I have felt dysfunctional and terrified some days dealing with this and I would be perfectly happy and functioning if this background stuff was just gone.

So yes goodbye, for now  I hope not forever, but I will accept forever if they needs to be the case.

[Kizzie]

Definitely OK, encouraged even to share articles DreamRiver 

[JRose]

I'm so sorry to hear about Parkinson's and your sister slipping into the influences of your family again. Parkinson's is so difficult! (our landlord and friend developed it, it's certainly something that requires support and can also cloud the mind). It sounds like we are both dealing with grief - only in very different ways. If you have more about it to write, please do; I can relate to it a lot and I'd love to be of any support or presence that I can; all I've really learned is that grief is a wild ocean tide that couldn't possibly be controlled....you just anchor yourself in and hope for the best when it hits you and then eventually passes, only to return again....having people present to understand and support is the only salve to the pain, people who don't want to solve, minimize, or take away from it. People who get it.

Hello dreamriver - boy have I been out of the loop! Just as a quick explanation (not an excuse) I was thrown off-track by series of events that came with the Covid crisis; my (grown) daughter came to live with us for a month - lots of EFs there. Then I was sick for literally the whole month of June, following a core-shaking subject in my therapy.  Since then I have been on the slow recovery, physically and emotionally.  So I missed responding to your (deamriver) very thoughtful response to me! I'm very moved by it - thanks!

I am saddened to hear what you have been going through, and glad to see your steps forward towards protecting yourself from FOO.

I also have not been getting notifications of posts, but found the right box to check, I hope, at the bottom of this page under Attachment and other options.  I hope that will help me to keep connected, which I really believe I will benefit from.  I am probably also struggling with the familiar reaction in me to distance myself, from everyone, when I am not doing well - grounded in defensive mechanisms learned early on in my life.  Sorry again, for the long gap in responding.  I will be glad to hear more from you 

[dreamriver]

Hi JRose! It's great to hear from you. I could hardly be resentful towards anyone not responding in this forum right away, especially hearing the things you've had to deal with, wow! Each of us have life to live.

Any updates on your own situation with your sister? And I'm very sorry to hear you've been so unwell! Though it sounds like it might be good, as therapy is the cause, and can shake things up on the road to healing.... if you're open and willing to share I'd be here to listen.

I am also not getting email notifications! And not sure how to fix that! 

[JRose]

Thanks for the understanding and encouragement, dreamriver. This is a lifeline I really need right now.

It's not that I don't have any support in my life, since my husband and I talk about (almost) every aspect of my therapy and ongoing process.  Also my three (grown) daughters are very accepting of the need I have to work through things out of my past.  It wasn't always this way; for a long time, at the beginning of my therapy in 2012/13 there was the expectation that "now you are all better" to be realized as the first months and then year or so went by.  This impossible expectation has finally been clarified and we all know that it is mostly a case of me doing better, probably never all-better.

As time goes on I have had to deal with more new realizations of abuse in my childhood (see my history in my introductory post when you are willing to know more).  It then became more apparent to me that ( could not continue to be in contact with FOO as long as they basically would not acknowledge hardly any of this.  I have been on the hard path of learning to believe myself - to un-learn condemning myself for all the things that I struggle with inwardly. 

I am surely hoping for things to get better as I continue to keep NC, which I extended to my older S last year.  With my younger S with Parkinsons I think I was hanging on to a sense of "not being such a bad person" as long as I kept in touch with her. Also she did acknowledge the things I spoke of from my therapy - though now I am beginning to see more signs of what I hear of on this forum, of "fawning" behavior, towards me, and now I have to admit she is doing this with my older S too. 

The big difficulty is my S with P, who I feel is greatly in need of support and any encouragement I can give her.  She isn't even in a state anymore where she can absorb any more heavy subjects, about me or about herself and our family.  So I don't tell her what I really think about our family so often.

The other big struggle is the subject of communication with family, especially this will include my older S, as my younger S's state of health worsens, as it now is.  Younger S knows that I have NC with older S, but at some point there will need to be family intervention on behalf of my younger S.  This is a traumatic consideration for me - my therapist and I are in constant conversation about this, so I have the needed support!

So much for the FOO subject in my life  really not an easy subject for anyone, as I am now realizing the more I read here.

[Three Roses]

Just want you to know I've read all your entries, and although I don't think I have anything of relevance to say, I'm extending what care I can over the internet to you and yours. Family relationships can be difficult even without the added stress of illness. Take care. ❤️

[dreamriver]

Hi JRose - I read your story in your introductory post and a lot resonates....so, so, so much.

*Trigger Warning*

My father was the same with us as kids (all the A's, including SA) and it was only last year that memories started coming back, a few seeping in...it could have been ritual abuse too (we grew up in an extremely guarded religious tradition), at the hands of my sociopathic dad who is far out of my life. Unfortunately I think most of it might of happened in my infancy so solid memories are unlikely to return, but I have memories of regular nightmares, every night, that involved a man hurting me in multiple ways. I have no real memories except for disorienting and wildly out of control emotional and physical pain that surfaces now and again....it is wordless, intense, and accompanied by none of the five senses, except agony. If I could afford a real deal trauma therapist I'm sure that more digging would reveal even more and bring me more answers, but I'm at a financial standstill at present.

Even just opening up a conversation about this possibility, that I might have been abused (it has long been established my older sibling was for sure abused but no one else) with my close best friend/younger sibling, created a huge chasm that slowly built into what it is now: an uncrossable gulf enforced by emotional abuse (gaslighting, minimizing, denial, bullying, etc.) from family that has been sleeping for years since my childhood but has reawoken this past year....all to defend the established narrative: that my older sibling got it the worst, they're the only one who was abused, they require what little love and attention there is to give (specifically from my covert emotionally abusive and highly neglectful mother), and the entire family dynamic swirls and centers on feeding and supplying them both in a cloud of covert narcissism.

I honestly believe all my siblings were abused in some way, though - and my uNPD older sibling, desperate for love in a loveless family (in tandem with my heavily in-denial covert N mother, suppressing her guilt over serious neglect/abuse of all of us and reality itself with meticulous damage control) warped the telling of our childhoods subtly and intentionally over time to help our family look good, and to deny the abuse was that serious (while helping keep all the focus on older sib).

Anyways....I digress....my opening up about the trauma has put me in a similar place as you, a lot of rejection from family. Even talking about the possibility brought on immense distance, mostly at their hands which they deny and blame me for in every open and honest communication I attempt. Even referencing serious neglect from my M that affected all of us was a problem...while my whole fam complains about my M (and everyone) it's not acceptable when I do it, but they can do it all day long (and about each other too).

This year the situation accelerated into an intense climax (just a few weeks ago, actually), where it was suddenly clear my younger sib couldn't absorb or process what I was telling her about abuse I opened up to her about months ago (understandable) but ultimately sided with my M and older sib's narrative that has been established for so long. She has always been kind but a fawning personality, but when confronted, she morphed into a person a hardly knew, ready and willing to use narcissist tactics to bury my plea of hurt and pain as much as possible... and avoid accountability for her actions as an ultimately less than supportive friend and sister, and turning the blame for our crumbling relationship all on me.

This experience also recovered a lot of memories from my childhood of my scapegoat position in the family when very little, and the emotional abuse (and physical/medical neglect) that came with it. Which honestly, is far worse feeling for me to reckon with even to the PA/SA. I look back to myself as a child and it was all too obvious I suffered from anxiety and depression, regardless of the cause, and this was neglected. My other physical medical needs we're often neglected. My older siblings abused me but this was ignored, and when I tried to protest it with parents, golden child older sibs we're protected and the fault of the abuse was mine, I was "too sensitive" and a "weird child." So now, I'm NC with all family indefinitely, who knows when I'll feel up to talking to them again.

The expectation to get better and be better rapidly is something I so relate to as well....my husband can get frustrated. Though he is very supportive. He just doesn't understand that this type of childhood neurologically alters you forever. You are differently-abled and neurodivergent, which is limiting and extremely difficult sometimes but I see some great gifts with it.

And yes, my realization was that for as long as family couldn't acknowledge this discovery  (or even just lightly consider it!) about my own traumatic childhood story instead or in addition to my older sister's, I couldn't tolerate being around them. At first the unwillingness to see it as truth or talk about it was unspoken, and they just turned the other way and avoided talking about it, and I could kind of handle and come to terms with that with basic boundaries. But the more I even basically maintained some sort of relationship with them, this willful ignorance transformed into rejection, isolating me from the rest of family, calling me a liar and insane behind my back, questioning my memories or denying them and saying I'm making them up for attention, smear campaigning me, smearing my DH too, saying "I've changed" and implying it in a bad way (this directly from my former best friend/little sister)....when all that started happening contact with them was beyond unbearable. Both my siblings also alleged that my opening up about these issues meant that I was abusing my younger sibling by using her as a therapist (a terrible thing, especially when I stopped talking about my therapy when we were together but then younger sibling expected me to therapize her experiences and even keep secrets from the rest of family!) Despite all this, I regularly doubt myself and think I should open up communication again.

Yes, NC and the long, hard road (which I'm just at the beginning of) of un-condemning and re-validating yourself is so difficult! And it's so much more difficult coming from an enmeshed family, like my own, where the desire to be part of their lives and the fold is like a craving for a drug. I'm not sure how your relationships with family have been, but losing the support of your younger sister in your own case.... harrowing. And I'm so sorry she's not wanting to honestly support you, but instead uphold the family narrative at your expense. This is a choice I still don't understand. And it's all the harder when some family (like your sister, and my own) can be easily seen as kind, good, and having a sliver of empathy and light in them still, and you want to see that and turn attention to that .... but then the ugliness emerges ....

Again I'm so sorry you're in a similar position. It's ultimately up to you if you want to get deeper involved be though you're NC. I think one thing to consider is that your younger S expects unconditional support but can't give that to you in return. Is that worth letting down your boundaries for with the rest of your family too, for this intervention? What's the price of doing so, and what's the payoff? I know it's hard to not be there for your sister but you also need to keep yourself safe. If the rest of your family is taking care of the situation, then maybe that's OK and you can support her with thoughts and prayers from a distance. Still, if you don't think you could live with the idea of not showing your support, then you should follow your instincts there too...and do what feels right. Only you know.

And here I am with a long long message, too long. Take care JRose and thanks for writing....I wish you the best of luck and nothing but good feelings towards you and where you are at in your healing journey ❤️