my sister, why I have not been getting better, really really venting

[Dee]

I've been in therapy for a year and a half and I really have not done as well as I hoped.  Recently, I had a major setback and an aha moment.  My sister threw a temper tantrum because my parents were giving me something she wanted.  I got to listen to her on the phone tell them they shouldn't do anything for me after all I did to them.  Right or wrong, I thought she forgave me.  I know, I know, it isn't me to forgive, but I thought at least we were there and I was willing to take that.  I realized she is really angry.  Perhaps her anger is misplaced, but that really doesn't matter.  She doesn't forgive me and still blames me.

I talked to my therapist about my mom burning my photos and my therapist asked who told me that, I said my sister.  I then realized that about every two weeks my sister lays something one me.  She recently told me (in detail) how my dad almost killed himself.  She told me he promised her money, but I ruined that.  She told me he was attacked in prison.  She has told me that he had to eat liver and we both know he hates that.  It goes on and on and on.  Each time I dismissed it and thought to myself, I deserved that.  She also said I don't want you to worry about it, but.... don't think about it but...I love you but.... I never even told my therapist because I didn't see what was going on.  Now, I realize she has been intentionally hurting me.  Friday I saw her with a  group and she pulled me aside to ask about treatment.  I said no real news.  She then said she doesn't understand how I am anorexic when I obviously don't care about the way I look.  It was so comical that I couldn't get upset.  She has done everything to comprise anorexia recovery but contradicting my treatment team.

So I want to hang on to my nephews and their families.  I also want my kids to know their relatives.  Additionally, we all adore my sister's husband.  So my plan is to try to not have one on one time with her.  Do family things but no more happy hours for us.  I wonder if that is even possible?  My sister tells me she loves me; but she is really, really angry at me and I don't think she is ever going to get over it.  She can't, because she can't deal with her own reality.

She also recently told me she tried therapy twice and it went really badly.  It was such a bad experience she will never go again.  My guess she went in complaining about me and the therapist gave her a dose of reality, the truth hurts.  People don't confess for no reason and people don't make this stuff up.  Okay, done....thanks.

[Three Roses]

This is the best thing I've heard all day. Good job, you! 

[radical]

Oh Dee,
I don't know whether to high-five or commiserate. Probably a bit of both.
These kinds of realisations can be the most painful and the most empowering - the people in the present day who are covertly sabotaging, hurting and harming you.

I've found this issue a hard road.  It leads to questions about whether it is deliberate (in my experience, it probably doesn't make any difference), whether the person does, and ever did actually love you, or whether they got pleasure from doing this kind of thing and seeing the effect on you).

For what it's worth, my sister does this kind of thing all the time, when I'm around her.  When I was younger I thought she was a nasty bully, as I got older I remembered the good big sister memories and forgot the bad because it's hard to be aware of both at the same time without wondering whch was/is true, and it all churning around driving me crazy with not being able to understand.

I'm glad and sad for you, but know that this will lead you to being able to better look after yourself, and not just with your sister

[Dee]

Radical,

This is the beauty of this forum.  When I read your reply I thought "YES! she gets it, she really gets it!"  And, I remembered the sister that took care of me and forgot the sister that was sometimes mean to me.  Lately, she is the sister that is mean to me.  Thanks for validation!

[Coco]

I had this  realization one night when I was drunk!! I think my normal defenses were down and a new realization could slip through. I'd been drinking with my sister to celebrate a birthday and she played this thing out and I could suddenly see it for exactly what it was: she CONSTANTLY wants to hurt, undermine me and bring me down. All the time. I no longer have contact with her, at all. At the time, when it all hit me, I became full of fury and went absolutely bananas at her. That hurt her and reinforced the story that I am bad, which is convenient to her but does't help her uncover her stuff, which is obviously not my concern or business.

For reasons beyond me, her personality needs people around her to feel very bad, inept, guilty, ashamed, and subservient. My idealised self was the opposite and my critic created very stringent rules for me that I wasn't allowed to criticise others. Maybe even birth order plays a part....

Maybe these dynamics develop in traumatised families to keep everyone playing a role? I made myself very useful to everyone and was the martyr. They need us to feel very, very, very lowly about ourselves if we are to continue that role, accept the abuse, accept responsibility for their feelings, and keep trying to make the relationship work. I'm sure all of this is unconscious and all players are in denial. Ultimately I can't judge my sister because I know I have hurt her with my unconscious behavior, and I know my intention was always to be the best, superhuman sister ever. I also know she belittles, attacks and undermines everyone in her life, not just me, and that is a source of constant conflict for her. I'm sure she feels confused about how it all happens, just as I felt so confused when I was stuck in codependency and couldn't comprehend why my relationships didn't work according to the unconscious deals I'd struck with people. "I give you xyz, and in return, you xyz".

I don't know why they do this. Just a different response to trauma I guess, a different role or different set of defenses.

I'm very disappointed and alarmed about her comment to you regarding your anorexia. What a heartless, ignorant thing to say. That was definitely not designed to support you. I want to envelop the parts of you who heard that with a lot of protective love and soothing.

SO GOOD you saw it for what it is!!! A big thing is realizing it is not about you and never was

P.S you've probably come a lot further in your 1.5 yrs of therapy than you can objectively acknowledge, and you've certainly achieved more than you would have without it. We have to be careful not to diminish what we do achieve and the effort we take. The fact that you are showing up to therapy puts you leagues ahead of many CPTSD sufferers, including me. I hope you can work with your therapy on your new insights and acknowledge that the reason we don't realize these things about our sisters earlier is that we are heavily conditioned not to acknowledge painful things like that. Our minds let us see it when we are ready, not a moment before. I have to be careful not to berate or rush myself. This is a lifelong recovery journey, I'm settling in for the ride. At least now I know what is wrong, that is going to steer our lives in different directions

[Dee]

Ultimately I can't judge my sister because I know I have hurt her with my unconscious behavior, and I know my intention was always to be the best, superhuman sister ever. I also know she belittles, attacks and undermines everyone in her life, not just me, and that is a source of constant conflict for her. I'm sure she feels confused about how it all happens

I was so surprised to see this.  This is exactly my sister.  It is true that she can never be wrong and it isn't worth it for anyone to disagree with her.  Because of this everyone just follows her, the consequences are too great.  She once didn't talk to her son for two years, because he didn't agree with her.  I also know she truly believes she is always right.  This is even true in all the jobs she has ever had, it is how they mistreated her.

It is still hard when three of four members of a family stick together.  Everything I read says this happens all the time.  Yet, it's hard to not sit here and think "it's me."  I can see what she has been doing, but I still feel a great amount of guilt over the situation.

[Coco]

It is still hard when three of four members of a family stick together.  Everything I read says this happens all the time.  Yet, it's hard to not sit here and think "it's me."  I can see what she has been doing, but I still feel a great amount of guilt over the situation.

Really? I didn't know that it happens all the time. Fascinating.

Of course you think "it's me". That's natural.

Defiant parts of me are glad I don't fit in with them, because I know the rules of the game. You have to betray and be betrayed constantly, be willing to lie and manipulate, and be willing to put up with abhorrent behavior that's never addressed. You have to dissociate. I'm glad I don't fit in there. I don't want to collude with that. If something about me offends them, if I don't fit in with that code of conduct, GOOD. Let them play in self perpetuating pain, let them enjoy hurting each other and being hurt. Maybe they're addicted to it?
Maybe it IS you. Maybe you don't fit in because you're a bit too honest, too real, too perceptive, too confronting for them?

It is a big deal to lose your whole family. We're mammals. Our genes and limbic system and everything in our brains tell us we need our tribe to survive. Cavepeople couldn't survive if they were rejected by the family. We're pack animals. It hurts on a primal level. Like it or lump it, the loss is profound, we must grieve. On top of that trauma literally damages our brains and impairs certain functioning, so we tend to collapse under shame and confusion.

Good times, huh?

We'll be OK.

[Dee]

Coco, when a child put a parent in prison it is common for the family to support the abuser and turn on the victim.   

[radical]

Victim-blaming is rampant.

It is uncommon for an abuse survivor to be supported when they speak out, in any family or group.  It is one of the things that makes truth-telling in abuse so hard, and which maintains abuse. On some level, whether we admit it or not, everyone  knows the costs and blame will fall largely or entirely on the person who has been abused, in part because of the power disparity that is always a feature of abuse, and partly because in abusive systems, everyone is in denial and everyone has a stake in the abused shutting up and taking it.  (This is community-wide where abuse is a winning tactic for attaining power, and 'winners' are not subject to rules and norms in how they behave towards people with les power).

Most people will be supportive of a victim if the abuser is a member of an out-group, but few are willing to see or acknowledge abuse within their own sphere - too threatening to the group and therefore the members who rely on it.  The worse the abuse is, the more invested family members are, are in denial or victim-blaming.

[Dee]

Off on a tangent, but here is my personal example.  On top of other evidence, my dad failed a polygraph, then confessed, took a plea bargain (guilty pea), and my mom and sister still blamed me.  He was advised by his lawyer to confess and take a plea.  Despite evidence I was still pressured to recant.  I almost signed a statement two years after saying I lied; I couldn't go through with it and didn't sign.  I missed my sister and her boys terribly.  I doubt it would of done anything for my dad because the evidence was indisputable.  Victims commonly recant because of reasons we have discussed.

Today, I am told that I am forgiven.  I know that isn't right, but to get my sister back I was willing to take it.  As you know, recently I have become aware that isn't the case.  I feel enormous guilt for breaking up the family and with every snide remark I sink inside.  This is why I can no longer hang out with my sister.  How can I ever recover with a knife being twisted in my back?  I will always wonder why they didn't choose me?  For my mom I think it was dependence, citizenship issues, her own survival.  For my sister, I think she is unable to deal with her own reality.  That doesn't make it easier.  It's been a long time and time does not heal all wounds.  Sometimes they fester, grow, and get infected.

In the name of family I have gone so far as to sit across the dinner table from my abuser (after his release) and pretend that it never happened.  Yet, when dinner is over I am triggered for months.  Now I am learning that this has got to end.  I hid overseas for 14 years, I'm back and I have to face this.  I was doubly hurt, first by the abuse and then by my family. The super sad part is my story isn't so unusual.

[Coco]

Great post radical.

Dee, I applaud you for realizing this has to stop. Also really appreciate your honesty and sharing in these ways. The identical thing has happened in my family and my extended family - the whole thing is riddled with outrageous abuse and always, the abuser protected and the child victim vilified. You're helping me to uncover and identify and acknowledge another layer of confusion in me, and you're helping me to forgive myself and reframe myself within this context. When it's YOU, not me, it's clear as day that it's utterly insane that you are blamed for breaking up the family, that you need forgiveness of some sort, and that you were ever, ever expected to sit across the table from him. That's crazy-making, upside down world. Also that your own mother and sister can tolerate sitting down for a meal with him after he's legally proven guilty, when the appropriate, healthy response would be for both of them to refuse to ever see him again unless it was to throw said dinner at his head. That's one of the things that confuses me about my family - how can they hang out with these known monsters and pretend all is hunky dory? WHAAAATTTT? So bizarre.

I can't quite get to the depths of this properly, these things are hard to put into words.

You're the scapegoat here, and as you say, it's horrifyingly common. It's a lot of complexity to wade through.