To really struggle with how my sister dealt with my mothers death (TW)

[Erandie]

So first of all, trigger warning as I will be mentioning suspected suicide.

Some context, there is 15 years between my sister and I, we have different dads, were mostly raised in different countries and have very little in common. I also know we had very different relationships with our mother. I’m going to try and be a little vague but I know this might still be identifiable to those who know us.

My sister is now 25, 3 years ago in July our mother passed away, it was officially classed as an accident but we both have our suspicions that this was not the case. Prior to that I hadn’t lived with my mum since I turned 18, so almost 20 years. I know in that time she changed dramatically.
My mother had always struggled with her mental health, this wasn’t foreign to either of us but ultimately she was a good mum, at least to me anyway. Around my 27th birthday my mum moved back to her home country (somewhere I have never lived) and took my sister who would have been 12 at the time with her. My sister recounts the teen years in a very specific way, highs where she would be spoiled endlessly, followed by lows, alcoholism, pill addiction etc. My mother also had a tendency to have new boyfriends all the time. I tried to visit frequently (about every 8-12 weeks), we tried to reach out for help but ultimately you cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.
My sister would have been 22 when my mother died, for the years before that my sister had modelled for a while and had good prospects but ended up giving it up to be with my mother more consistently then she enrolled in university and would call her daily and check on her often.
My sister went through a break up and dropped the visits and calls the 2 weeks before my mother passed. I continued calling but she was notorious for being less honest with me than my sister so it was hard to tell.
After her not answering my calls 2 days in a row I managed to get a hold of my sister who went to visit and unfortunately she found my mother already having passed. I took the first flight and was there by that evening, I took on the majority of the admin side as obviously my sister had a very complicated relationship with our mother and I never held that against her.
I remember very vividly my sister did not cry once, she barely wanted anything of our mother’s possessions, took a very low level interest. I wrote this off as being a mix of shock, guilt (I don’t blame her at all but I know she has been to therapy and to some extent blamed herself for not visiting more) and a consequence of their complicated relationship.
However recently I have discovered that my sister was actively going on dates (including her first date with her now boyfriend) in the 8 days between our mother’s death and the funeral. I don’t know why this has impacted me so much, as I fully understand we all grieve differently and we had very different mother daughter relationships. I try to remind myself of that but in all honestly I just feel a little bit heartbroken to think she kept moving like nothing happened.
I think it’s also one of those things where my sister was clearly my mother’s favourite child (the pretty one, the smart one, the one who modelled) but I was left to do all the really emotionally taxing stuff while she just went on dates.
She has also jokingly told me that she slept with someone the night of the day we found out. I can’t help but think I was in bed crying that night and I find the difference in our responses quite staggering.
I try to maintain a close relationship with my sister now as I know she has very limited family left but I find this response colours my view of her, even though I rationally know it’s just grief looking different on different people.

AIBU to feel like this? Is there anything I can do to get over it before it ruins our relationship?

I don’t think calling the sister self absorbed purely because of her age is very fair. Reading about her upbringing and parentification, self absorbed is the last thing she seems.

Sorry it wasn’t an easy question. Your sister it probably dealing both with trauma from
her up bringing while being a young carer for someone with mental health issues and obviously had a very difficult relationship with her Mum. Her grieving process will be very complicated.

If you visited every 8-10 weeks, how could you NOT have known how bad your mother was? Did you have a blindfold on?

My mother killed herself and my dad declared we should go out for sushi the next day. I went mountain-biking a few days before her funeral.

Did we not care? No, we were deep in shock and wanted to feel better. Or feel anything, to be honest. Grief is an extremely weird place to be. I've had much-loved grandparents die but unless you've experienced a truly shocking death, you don't understand.

Doesn't mean I didn't cry every day for a year afterwards. Like your family, we all had a difficult relationship with her. It's complex.

You can't expect others to grieve (or appear to grieve) like you do. I do find it a bit hard sometimes that other family members have never mentioned my mother since. But that's them. We all have to cope in our own ways.

There is 15 years maturity gap between you. Expect grief to look different. Your sis may have wanted a distraction, comfort etc.

You do not do all the taxing stuff while she sleeps around. She was the person local to your mum and will have carried that burden. So what if you did the admin, usually 1 person steps into that role and thinks they are doing everyone else a favour, someone has to do it, sometimes it's easier to just let that "organiser" person, bull doze on.

I m sorry for your loss, I hope you continue to heal.

It would be really natural for a young person having lost their mother to reach out for love and comfort the night she died, and to continue to seek that afterwards. Your poor sister has learnt the endless dates with men is normal. That her support system is the revolving door of men, and that is so heart breaking.

You both deserved so much better op.

There's a clear difference in your upbringing and your sister didn't deserve to have to deal with all of that.

She was just a child having to deal with everything an unfit parent was throwing her way. It's sad she wasn't fortunate to have the same parenting as yourself.

There was probably some sort of relief for her when your mother passed because of everything she had to deal with while she was growing up. She had to give things up to look after your mother.

It doesn't seem like she was a favourite either, neither of you seemed to be.

She doesn't deserve that judgment from you. She didn't have much of a childhood and had to give up a potential career. You had it easier, where your mother is concerned, from afar.

You can't compare stepping in for a bit to deal with a few things after her passing with everything she put your sister through. You got to deal with the easier part, even though it maybe have seemed emotionally taxing for you.

This. She bore the brunt, made the sacrifices, and then had to find her mother's body, all at a young age...and yet you resent and judge her? Amazing.

You weren't all that concerned while she was a teenager were you?

I think you've had some harsh responses given you are grieving. I think some of the anger you feel towards your sister is displaced and is maybe anger at your mum. Something I think could be going on here is that your sister's response is challenging your perception of your mother, and not in a good way. You loved your mum. To you she wasn't perfect but she was there and cared for you in her way. I imagine that's how you want to remember her and picture her in your mind. But your sister's grief shows your mum in a very different light, to her she was a very different woman, one you didn't really know. How do you reconcile that? It's really difficult.

And yes, this is also me. I feel things deeply, I just can't/don't show it outwardly as it feels performative.

I seems possible that your sister was less reliably parented than you were and therefore may feel more distant that you did towards your mother. Children of alcoholic parents may learn to keep distance in the relationship to protect themselves. Obviously she can be very hurt anyway when the parent passes. Also you're older and you've had far more time to process the feelings around having been raised the way you were. Please give her the benefit of the doubt - she is young and I'm sure it's been horrible for her no matter what her reactions. Grief is complicated at the best of times, more so when the relationship was complex.

I think your feelings are probably not really about your sister and how she grieved/is grieving but about your feelings about your mum. You are both -to be blunt - victims of your abusive mum. She seems to have been someone vulnerable whom it was not really possible to blame or criticise safely for her behaviour and so both of you look to each other as responsible. Neither of you are or were. That is simplifying what is going to be a really complex set of feelings for each of you differently.

I think you're doing the right thing by wanting to build the relationship between you. I think that's the only way to approach this. It's ok to feel as you do about how your sister is grieving but not fair or rational, as feelings often are not.

Think about what the mechanism of this feeling is. You were feeling sad and needed support. She was not there for you. She couldn't be there for you. Remind you of anyone? It wasn't your sister's job to help you at that hideous low point, but at other times it was your mum's job, and she didn't do it.

Lots of love op I think this is going to take some processing but talking talking talking to your sister really is the right approach, being careful to keep the love you have for each other in the foreground of these conversations.

It may be that your sister was already traumatised by her mother's situation, and had long realised that suicide was on the cards. In this situation, the actual moment of the death can seem almost incidental, after the joint trauma of experiencing the crises while the person was alive and ruminating on the prospect of the death.

This was my experience. I couldn't really feel anything except confusion after a close relative killed himself.

Your sister is very young, so she may have been less able to see and reflect on her feelings than an older person.This could perhaps lead to more 'acting out' - choosing the distractions of dating, etc, that you mention. Perhaps her deeper response to the death will happen over several years or a lifetime.

It is evident from your posts, @Erandie , that you love your sister and are compassionately tolerant of her different reaction from yours. You are just troubled by some feelings that you are quietly harbouring. I hope that one or other of the explanations of your sister's behaviour will ring true for you and help you to understand. But the other thing to remember is that you, too, are allowed to have complicated, irrational and ambivalent feelings, especially around the time of a bereavement. I hope you can be as compassionately tolerant of yourself as you are of your sister.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that the awfulness of being the one to find her mother's body will obviously have added to your sister's complex reaction. I think that that terrible shock can co-exist with the fracture and numb confusion created by the trauma of so many years. I find it hard to put it into words, but you just can't bring together the two things: On the one hand the long, familiar anticipation of a death and on the other its terrible concrete reality. So the fracture and numbness worsens.

Sadly, this is the behaviour your mother modelled to her so it's not a surprise your sister ended up running straight to men too.

Try not to judge her. It would be better if you could support each other instead and hope history doesn't repeat itself.

OK so you are very honest that your sister did not have the same childhood you had.
Your mum had MH and addiction issues that would have severely impacted your sisters relationship with her.
She's very young.
She may also have MH issues of her own due to a traumatic childhood and genetics.
She may have learned to surpress emotions, disconnect with what's going on as a defence mechanism.
It's fantastic you got there so quickly and arranged the funeral, it was a lot for a 22 year old to take on.
I understand why you are upset with your sister and you've lost your mum too and are grieving but you can't control how your sister grieves or behaves. It may hit her later. It does also sound like she may also be behaving in a way that puts her at risk.
I would make an effort keep in contact with dsis and keep up your 3 monthly visits , if she's open to this, to build a relationship and try to support her, particularly if she doesn't have any other family support, you don't mention her dad or other relatives.
I'm sorry you've had such a trauma, you are grieving and your mum had a lot of demons.
Be kind to yourself and your sister.

so your sister was left alone with your mother, who treated her horribly and then had to find her dead body whilst you were living your life in another country, and you’re “struggling” because she isn’t grieving how YOU think she should?
Read that back. Yes YABU.

Why do you care so much that she reacted differently?

Do you feel that she has somehow disrespected your mum?

This.

So, your sister grew io around neglect and had to parent her own mother, who was an alcoholic with a string of men. It’s harsh to say it, but that’s the mother your sister had. She then had to deal with finding her passed away, and you’ve hinted that it was suicide. Your mum knew it would be your sister who would have to go through finding her.

You had a mother who was there, sober and supportive and who parented you and took care of you and didn’t neglect you or expose you the a bunch of different men in your home.

You had different mothers. You can remember yours with love, but maybe she remembers hers in a much more complicated way.

Your objections seem very focused on her behaviours the night you flew over. You needed someone she didn’t, but in fact sought company.

I imagine two things…

• that her sleeping with someone the night of was more nihilistic and self destructive, like taking a drug and seeking to forget
• she didn’t want to be your company and support you through your tears when she was probably feeling traumatised herself and feeling a whole host of conflicting emotions

maybe have a conversation about it one day? But not in an attacking way. Either way, as so many have said, you need to accept people respond to both grief and shocking events in very different ways

Also sex is a common, but unhealthy way, to hide from emotions so I think the dating in itself is a way of grieving and dealing with her emotions as it’s hard to feel your feelings while having sex and much easier to repress the grief.

Op I don't mean to have a dig.
But you say you visit every 8-10 weeks, which is quite frequent.

But you also had just had a baby with no passport and had two other little kids, realistically how long had it been since you'd visited?

I think if you look back honestly at the last 5 years of your mums life, you've seen a lot less of her than you think.
You've been up to your eyes in babies and family life understandable and nobody's fault.
Sis has been left to deal with mum becoming more and more unstable from the moment she left school.

What country is she in, would she like to join you in London?
Is her Dad supportive?

Passing blame is pointless.
You both just need to pick up the pieces

I am so sorry you have lost your Mum.

Honestly, I am not sure it is different ways of grieving. I think it’s this:
My sister did have to parent herself more and had to deal with much more extreme circumstances.

Your sister may also feel great anger towards your Mum. Since you both suspect she took her own life your sister may feel angry that your Mum left her like that, leaving her to feel guilty. Anger is a common response to suicide since it is such a brutal experience for the survivors.

Of course you did most of the admin. 22 is very young to be coping with the practicalities on top of everything else.

Your sister found your mum you say, so I would think that maybe she needed to do anything at all that night to distract her from the traumatising image she must have had replaying in her head. She’s also learnt from your mum that men are people who come and go and short term relationships are normal so seeking her comfort and distraction in the bed of a man is not surprising in her situation. Especially as you say she has not much family bar you. She sounds like she’s had a shit time of it for the majority of her life. I doubt she had fun on her dates. She was probably just desperately searching for comfort and distraction in the only way she knew how.

It sounds like your sister had a far worse time of it then you, she may be feeling relief rather than grief. Many do when someone they have a complicated relationship with dies although it is taboo to talk about. Be there for your sister if she wants to talk, it may take a while for her to unpack everything that happened, particularly as she was still quite young when it happened. Try and see if you can form a closer relationship with her if you can, she done nothing wrong by the sounds of it.