Emotional neglect and my emotionally unavailable sister

[babbit]

I have come to realise that despite being raised by a jealous boundaryless Narc father and a co-dependent and emotionally distant mother, it is
actually my relationship with my sister that is giving me the most pain.

As we have both gone through the trauma of having this environment as children we have both developed "coping mechanisms" and trauma reaction styles that
are very different from one another.

After studying Richard Grannon's course of "How to stop an emotional flashback" he mentions the different trauma responses for C-PTSD
from  "Complex PTSD - From surviving to Thriving" book by Pete Walker.


I realise that I have the Freeze/ Fawn response while my sister has the Flight response.

The FLIGHT type – 
• By always keeping busy you try to flee from the inner pain of abandonment
• Individuals who rush to achieve
• As a child you were quite hyperactive, either by being a driven student or by being a drop out.
• Flight types tend to have a different type of dissociation compared to the freeze type. It is called a "left-brain dissociation" and it means that you tend to use constant thinking- to distract yourself from feeling. You tend to over-worry and be one step ahead, thinking everything through.
• Prone to becoming addicted to adrenaline
• Can become stuck in the head by overthinking and analysing everything. 

The FREEZE type –
• As a child you were probably the scapegoat and were not allowed to fight, flee or fawn.
• Individuals who get frozen in retreat mode
• Spends time hiding, isolating and avoiding human contact
• Have a deep unconscious belief that people and danger are synonymous.
• Spends a lot of time dissociated and detached from reality, through daydreaming, sleep, wishing etc.
• Can become addicted to the opioids that dissociation creates.
• In extreme cases these individuals give up on possibility of love
• To others, these individuals can appear to have an attention deficit disorder, as they have the capacity to changing the "inner channel" whenever the inner experience becomes too uncomfortable.   
• Tend to project their perfectionistic demands onto others rather than onto themselves.

The FAWN type - 
• Behave as if the price of admission to any relationship is the abandoning of all their needs, rights, preferences and boundaries.
• As a child you learnt that you may gain safety and care by becoming a helpful and compliant servant. Usually has at least one narcissistic parent.
•  As a child, you were parentified. The roles were exchanged so that you took care of the needs of your parents.
• Drawn to narcissistic / fight types
• Over-listening to others
• Problems to say no
• Merges with the needs of others
• Core of many codependents behaviours
• Can invoke others to narcissistically monologue by themselves


With this in mind, I am acutely aware of my sister always brushing me off, running away (literally and metaphorically) and being emotionally absent and closed off.
As a young child I became clingy, not getting the love I needed from my self involved parents. I looked toward my sister for it. I remember being her shadow and following her
around and her shouting "get off get off!" whenever I tried to show her affection.
I remember as a child feeling responsible for my mother who had severe OCD. She would wash her hands again and again until they would bleed.
I would get really upset and carry this painful burden and responsibility to school with me everyday, Sometimes I wouldn't eat all day for worrying.
I remember asking my sister "How can we help mum get better?" She would always say "Tomorrow" Tomorrow never came.

Later, as a young adult, I would turn to her for help or advice while I tried to process the pain of it all. She would shut me down or grow cold.

One time I went to her very distraught believing that a therapist dredged up facts about sexual abuse from my father. I was in bits over it and was
begging her for help. She said to me "I won't let you destroy this family". I later worked out through more therapy that I wasn't sexually abused but the
hurt of this threat still stays with me.

I have realised that over the years she has become an effective block to my recovery. I have looked to her for support. Whenever the conversation turned to
family or feelings she would say "I don't want to talk about that"  or "This is depressing me" or "This talk is making me feel ill" and change the subject to
something so superficial that I would go away feeling rejected and unheard.

I have been no contact with my sister now for a few months and we are talking about meeting up to discuss things.
When I called her up to talk about things she immediately shut me down with "I was in the middle of a film and was falling asleep and I've had wine. Can we talk
some other time?"
I have literally had this response from her now for DECADES.
I have finally realised why I feel so much pain and resentment around her, It is because of this.

She always has heavy, thick armour on when I talk to her. I have often given her a lot of myself, maybe I gave more than she wanted. Now though the
well has completely dried up and I don't want to give to her any more.
I was meant to meet up with her today but I got myself into such a terrible state over it that I have now pulled it. This is because it always follows a familiar
pattern,,
Her phoned rings every few minutes from her controlling partner
If the phone doesn't ring then she just fiddles with it the whole time
I try to talk about serious issues and she keeps shutting me down
She quickly changes the subject to be either about herself or something unconnected and superficial
I get really upset/angry and become highly emotional in a very public setting
We leave and she's happy that we've had a "great quality time together" and I am depressed as again I have been ignored

This is why I cancelled on today. I felt, what is the point? Why put myself through that again? I have had more involving
conversations with people at the bus stop than with my sister lately.

My partner has argued that "maybe she is not that kind of person" "maybe she is a reserved person and can only give what she can give."

I understand all this and really hear it. I am not incapable of going out and just having fun and not being serious. My complaint is that I have
NEVER been allowed to have a serious talk with my sister and she has always kept it superficial and away from discussions of family and the
effect the family has had on us both. She maintains that we had a "PERFECT childhood" and doesn't want to hear otherwise.

The drift has occurred because my sister doesn't want to give more but she wants me to stay the same "sweet, warm and loving self".
Like I said before, I have nothing left to give.
She is an emotionally detached person so now I have an emotionally detached relationship with her.

This article helped me a lot.

http://www.allrelationshipmatters.com.au/insights-healthy-relationships/emotional-neglect

[Blueberry]

Welcome back, Babbit. I doN't think you've been back on since the forum went down in February.

Anyway, your post speaks to me. Your role with your sister and your new realisations remind me a bit of my brother and me. He being a Flight type too and he wanting me to stay the way I am, kind of down-trodden in the family.

It sounds as if you're making a lot of progress right now.  on turning your sister down today. You were practising self-care!

[Hope67]

Hi Babbit,
I just wanted to welcome you to the forum, and thank you for sharing all the information and also the article about Emotional Neglect - it is such a great article, and I really related to it. 

Thank you.

It was also really helpful to see all the different responses (freeze, fawn etc) written down - I think it's helped me to re-read them.

Thank you for your post and wishing you the best with everything.  I haven't mentioned anything relating to your personal circumstances, as I am trying not to trigger myself - but I do relate to things you've written there. 

Hope 

[babbit]

Thank you Blueberry and Hope67 for hearing me and encouraging me with this.

(possible triggers)


Last night I called my sister up as she wanted to know why I was angry with her and why I had gone NC for a few months. Initially I was angry with her about A) trying to control
my therapy and meds and when I refused she raged at me and hurled insults at me before hanging up. I realise now that I am also angry at B) her complete denial of foo,
her preference that I remain the designated patient and that she never listened to me properly and shuts down every conversation that she doesn't approve of.

Last night I called her mainly to discuss B) when she thought I wanted to talk about A). I did start to talk about A) at the beginning as it was something that hurt me but I was hoping
to get onto B) quickly after.

The thing is and I was really not prepared for this at all as my mind was focussed on the second topic of conversation, she completely denied everything!
It took her a long time to admit that we had an argument at all. She then denied that she lost her temper and was perfectly calm at me even though she raged at me.
She then denied saying the things she said to me and did a very annoying thing where she shouted out everything loudly for her partner to hear so that he could back her
up and also agree that she never said those things. It is difficult to know what to do when two people gang up on you and substantiate each other's lie.
Has anyone else experienced this?

I got really tied up in knots as she completely denied everything and had no memory of the conversation at all. I felt gaslighted as she was implying that it didn't happen
at all! I stuck to my guns as I know the truth and I know what happened. It wasn't a case of misinterpretation of what was said it was a complete denial of the whole conversation!

So at first she said there was no conversation. Then she said she wasn't angry. Then she said that only I said hurtful things to her. I said one hurtful thing in response to two
hurtful things she said. I am not proud of what I said. I admitted I said it, I admitted it was a horrible thing to say and I have sincerely apologised for it.
My sister has completely airbrushed herself out of that conversation and replaced it with a false ideal.

I'm sorry that this post is reading like a very pedantic autopsy(!) but it was so maddening and confusing and so hurtful.

All it does it add to this narrative that I am a sick deluded person that needs to get better without involving the family in the dysfunction they created.

She then started sobbing and said that "if I did say those things then I'm sorry but I definitely didn't say those things and would never say those things."

Just like a back handed compliment, this felt like a back handed apology.

I have realised that my sister has adopted the "Golden child" mantel in adulthood and my parents do support this claim to the throne.

The painful thing is that she gets to hurt people and play the victim at the same time! Richard Grannon said that narcissists can cause drama and then
distance themselves from the drama as though it came from someone else. They can even act disgusted at the drama they create themselves while they
maintain an unblemished self.

I have had a suspicion for sometime that my sister and her partner hold ideas of superiority over others but this was proof of it to me.

I think it is really dangerous to seek perfection and think that you are perfect. In my mind robots can be described as perfect, while humans are not.

"To err is to be human". I would rather be a human with all my faults and failings than a unfeeling robot.

Anyone can get along with my sister fine as long as you agree with this mask of perfection. If you disagree with it, or criticise her in any way then she will
attack you mercilessly.

This has come as a massive shock to me. I never saw my sister as a golden child, as perfect and beyond reproach. It is clear to me now that my family sees
her in this light and she prides herself in this position.

I am not sure how I am to go about relating to my golden child sister? Is it advised to grey rock/ medium chill with her too as I do with my mother and father?

For a long time I have believed this illusion myself but recently I have been building boundaries. It is painful to notice that a sibling can hurt you and then deny they
even said it. My sister said "I am incapable of saying such things." She then told me it was because she loved me so much but I was almost expecting her to say
"because I am perfect and incapable of wrong."

[Blueberry]

I can't read most of your second post here, I'm worried aobut the triggers for myself. I read a little though. I hope you're doing OK now? Or not too badly?

The "role of designated patient" - that's me! I can really relate to that.

These realisations of the role of FOO members and how they deny things and then scapegoat me (or in this case you) sent me spinning in the past, really spinning with the pain of it all. All I can say is I've worked through some of my feelings but also how to deal with FOO members bit by bit in therapy and I'm now VVVLC with the whole of FOO. For me, VVVLC means occasional email contact, or snail mail. But there's no routine or regularity to it. I don't accept phone calls. I don't visit. I'm very far way geographically. That is a blessing. Makes some things easier, I suppose. Idk if you would define any of that as Grey Rock or Medium Chill.

After a Horrendous FOO Event about 2 years ago I evolved this bit by bit for myself. It isn't laid out in stone, I can still alter it and I do and will continue to do so but undoubtedly not towards more contact. I now allow myself the time to think what an appropriate answer is for me, what an appropriate reaction is. I no longer allow myself to be rushed into decision-making. If I need 3 months or 12 months to work out how to react, I take that time. I'm much more focussed on my own healing. I no longer see some sort of family reconciliation as a goal in therapy. No. I'm focussed on myself. It's taken me a long, long time to get to this point though.

[Gromit]

I keep coming back to this Babbit, although I haven't commented before. It reminds me of issues with my sister. I used to run to her room for safety, although I never said as much, it was just a space to escape as she would just ignore me, let me sit there.

Otherwise my memories of my sister are scant, she escaped as much as she could. There was a big age gap so she could be left home, or go out, not join in with family trips etc.

Now I am vlc with her. I have had the kind of email where she got angry & asked me to explain myself, it was on here last summer I asked for help understanding it.

Being older she has bullied me, and scapegoated me, quite willing to accept whatever our parents say about me without asking me first. Sometimes she seems normal then she seems just like our mother & not knowing which one I would get was just too much for me. I think she learnt how to treat me from them & yes, she is definitely like the 'golden child', although she seemed to handle things by having another separate identity outside the FOO, which I could not be a part of.

Use the tools here, & in Out of the Storm. Be careful.
G