How to deal with attention seeking sister, and the attention she gets from family

[notallthere]

I am fed up with my sister's attention seeking behaviour. I have had several years of poor mental health, and in the last few years, my sister claims to have developed them too. However I think she is just looking for attention.

I suffer from depression, which I hide from my family as much as possible to avoid worrying them, because I care about their feelings and I don't like the extra attention. When I am having a bad day, I will generally just stay away, so they can't see how I feel so I don't worry them.

I also have IBS, which is probably linked to the depression. Again when I have been ill from this I have hidden it as much as possible, staying in the bathroom when ill to avoid worrying my family.

My sister is very attention seeking, and I've noticed she seems to copy me, to get attention. She has mild special needs and throughout childhood all the attention was on her (and most of the time it still is) but during the time I was most seriously ill, understandably my parents devoted a long more attention to me (even though I didn't even want it and just wanted to be left alone).

A few years ago she claimed to have depression, but rather than hide away, she would spend most of the time shouting and screaming about how unfair her life was, upsetting everyone around her. My parents spent a lot of money on private counselling and therapy for her, none of which helped much (they never spent a penny on me and I've had depression for six years!). Although I am expected to be sympathetic, seeing as I have had depression myself and recognise what it actually looks and feels like, I think she was actually putting a lot of it on for attention, and didn't really have depression, which is why neither therapy nor medication helped her.

She also claimed to have IBS and would dramatically keel over in agony, one time even having an ambulance called to attend to her, when she was taken to hospital all they found was mild dehydration.

Although it is possible that she genuinely had these two conditions, she made a fast "recovery" from both with no long lasting symptoms, whilst I still suffer from these conditions and have relapses from time to time. I feel she is copying me for attention, and because she is the "golden" girl in the family and I am the "scapegoat" I know that nobody will believe me if I tell them this.

How should I deal with this situation? Is there anything I can do or should I just accept that she is always going to be attention seeking, even to the point where it means I don't get the support I need to deal with real health conditions.

Your excuses about counselling are not plausible, I am also a lecturer and although I work long hours, I also have a family and children to look after- you can make a 2 hour slot on Sat or Sunday as a priority.

Or one evening after 7pm, or the holidays which are long (not for me but they are for teachers).

I know your helplessness is just a symptom of your depression- what will kick you out of it? Make a phone call, look at counsellors online.

I hope you find something you can change in this situation, being cross about your sister is going to get you absolutely nowhere. Best of luck.

Hmm, I think I remember one of your previous threads. Didn't you only need a bit more money for a decent deposit? If that's the case then you and your older sister should pool your money together and buy a 2 bed flat together somewhere AT LEAST 1 hour's drive away - you really don't want your parents to be there controlling what you do.

Trust me, I know what I am talking about. I came from a very strict religious upbringing and only moved out of home when I was married. For me it worked out, but that lack of ability to stand on your own has meant that two of my sisters chose complete arseholes for husbands and are now divorced. You need this, you REALLY need this.

The financial aspect is such a small part of it, you need to be able to stand on your own two feet emotionally. You will ONLY be able to do that if you get away from them and live on your own/or share as an EQUAL.

Alternatively, as you're a teacher, perhaps a live in role somewhere? Boarding schools have house masters which need to live in.

My parents aren't overwhelmed by my depression. How can they be when they haven't even noticed?

Yes I did talk on a previous thread about a deposit. I am working towards that, but at the moment my depression is so bad I am risking losing my job, so I wouldn't be able to pay a mortgage or rent.

I do actually work in a boarding school, but I currently am not in a position to apply for a live in role, until I sort the depression out.

I don't want to live with my older sister. As I mentioned earlier, she has recently become rather bossy, dominant and starting to take on controlling traits of my parents. She will tell me what to do, and tell me off if I don't do it. It's a shame because we used to get on quite well, but unless she starts behaving like a sister instead of a parent, I wouldn't want to live with her.

Also, I don't want my parents to know I am hang counselling because I will have to put up with their warped "woe is me my daughter has depression" act and I can't be bothered with that.

hang= having

So don't tell them. You can go in the evening and say your at a class or something. Or working late. Or just nothing at all, you don't have to tell them everything. Just please , please stay in work, I can't emphasise this enough.

Ok, you need to stop, step back and think.

Picture a glass, water half way.

Is it half full or half empty?

Right now every time someone makes a suggestion you knock it back. You have become conditioned to think of everything as half empty. Whether it be upbringing, depression, your own personality, whatever. Stop it.

Look at that glass, and it is also half full.

Have a look at all of the suggestions, they may not work out exactly as offered, but with a bit of tweaking they may be possible. Or they may be something you could work towards. Of the negatives which you keep going on about may be outweighed by the positives, but you just find it hard to believe that.

Try to make your life half full instead of half empty.

Maybe your parents find your sister hard work and that is why they feel sorry for themselves.

I'll be honest that you sound rather like my middle sister "woe is me" but won't help herself in the least. Middle child syndrome at its best.

There have been many posters who have helped you on this thread and your other threads all saying the same thing. You just won't listen.

It's a new year: sit down and make a list of what you wish to achieve this year. Get some counselling and do done exercise to get the endorphins helping your mood. You need to help yourself before you can sort out family issues and deal with your issues with regards to your younger sister and now your older sister.

Telling people that they aren't being helpful is because they are telling you the truth but you don't want to hear it. Skin gave some fantastic advice further up. Read it properly as it's excellent advice. You're being rude by saying it's not helpful.

The thing is whether your parents and your sister(s) are right or wrong you can't change them. You can't change how they behave or react to each other, only they can do that.

What you can change is yourself. You can either change this internally by reminding yourself that you can't change them, by mentally blocking them out or by getting out of the house for the time the drama is going on or living elsewhere. You don't sound like you currently have the mental energy for the first two options so you need to start getting out of the house for headspace.

The only other option is to carry on as you are, but accept that this is your choice. Not your parents' or your sisters' but yours. No-one is suggesting that because how you are living at the moment sounds so bloody miserable, but its still a choice you can make.

Starting with getting treatment for the depression, even if you just assess your options with the GP then don't take any of them, is probably a good first step if you want anything to change.

I mean this with kindess and encouragement, but you seem to be what my colleagues and I would call a 'yes, but-er' meaning that any suggestions are met with a 'yes, but...' And we end up in this stupid ping pong game of us putting a idea out and you batting it back ad infinitum.

It's not your 'fault' you are like this, it sounds as though your parents have created this family culture of dependency/ co-dependency that both benefits and restricts all of you. But in order to feel different, you have to start doing things differently. Start today, go to BACPs website and find a local counsellor you like the look of and email them. Do it!

Both you and your sister appear to have grown up in and are still living in a household with self-absorbed/toxic/unhelpful/whatever parents. You have adapted to this situation by keeping to yourself and hoping they will one day realise that they aren't giving you the support you need. She has adapted to the same situation by being excessively demanding of their support for conditions that she feels she has. I think I'd be pitying of your sister's desperate attempts to get attention rather than jealous and keep out of it.

You have said that you don't want to be like your sister, or even tell your parents that you are ill because you don't think their reaction will be helpful to you. That is a valid choice. You can even be disappointed that they are so wrapped up in your sister's dramas and their own that they haven't noticed you have your own problems and that you suspect that they wouldn't be helpful even if they had.

But that is who they are. You cannot change that. You can only change how you react to it.

You can sit them down and explain your feelings to them and ask them to be reasonable.
Or you can continue to keep your head down and plan to leave this toxic situation as soon as you've scrapped together a month's deposit for rental and accept they won't like it.
Or you can be miserable and ill for the time required to save a deposit for buying a home (years and years?!?)
Or maybe you can think of some more options?

Depression can also really affect one's thinking though. I mean you have needs that aren't being met. You wish your parents would meet these needs but you are so afraid of them not doing so that you will not express them and even go to lengths to hide them (to protect their feelings apparently). Instead you expect them (or have fantasies about them, even if you don't expect it) to suddenly become mind readers and detectives to discover the problems you are hiding from them and your preferred method of support despite evidence to the contrary that they are not this perceptive or empathetic.

I think you either need to tell them about your problems and the ways they could support you and find out whether they will do so, or you need to realise that you not telling them is a choice to be more private and stoic than your sister and not expect them to suddenly understand you while you arrange to live somewhere else and get the support you need from other people.

It hurts that they seem to care more about your sister than you. But you also recognise that she fulfills a role for them ("how terrible it is that we have an ill daughter") and they aren't really caring about her as a person or really helping her.

They seem to take you both at face value. She comes across as vulnerable, ill and needy so they respond. You come across as healthy, coping and independent. So they assume you are.

Please do consider moving out as soon as you feel able, as it will help to not deal with your parent's unfairness and drama day to day. In the mean time do try to get help and support outside your family, through counselling and informally through friends. Hope the new year allows you to look ahead and start forging a life for yourself outside your immediate rather suffocating family.

They know I am struggling with my job, as I have told them, so it would be odd for them to assume that I am "coping". Their attitude is just that I have to pass this NQT year, there isn't really an alternative.

They also know that I spend a massive amount of time up in my room rather than downstairs being sociable. Now I don't expect them to be mind readers, but I would expect most people to be concerned when someone they know has a history of depression is choosing to distance themselves from everyone else.

The fact that I literally only come down at meal times, and almost no other time should be a good indicator. That I hardly ever go out with my friends and stayed in at New Year's. Most people would notice and ask the person if they were ok, especially if that person has a previous history of similar behaviour with depression. But the fact that my parents don't notice or care is just because they are so wrapped up in my sister's non-problems.

Although I agree that my parents attitude doesn't actually benefit my sister in the long run, at least temporarily it does benefit her because she has everyone's attention, which is exactly what she wants. It's hard to pity someone who always gets exactly what they want, even if they want the wrong things and for the wrong reasons. It's far easier to be jealous of someone who gets what they do not need whilst you always go without.

What do you want?

I remember your previous thread. The issue really isn't your sister at all, and I think your resentment of her is clouding your perception of what is actually going on.

The dynamics in your family sound really unhealthy. I think the very best thing you could do would be to detach from them as much as possible and develop your own identity separate from them. You may view withdrawing from your family as a negative, but actually I would say that the less time you spend with them at this point the better.

It seems as though you are stuck, emotionally speaking, at a point in adolescence and you never successfully broke away from their influence. Counselling could really assist you in understanding the family dynamics, IMO. But TBH, I believe that the very best thing you could do would be to move away from your family and strike out on your own.

Elk, I think it's partly my sister, and partly my parents.

They feed her attention seeking, and she allows/ encourages them to do so. It's impossible to say how much of her attention seeking is part of her SN, and how much is just her personality (my uncle sometimes acts in a similar way, perhaps it is just a family trait). I suppose I blame her because if she didn't behave in this way, family life would be different. I know this is actually my parents fault for treating us in this way, but I can't help but think that if she didn't act in this way, my life would be slightly easier to manage.

I already mentioned on this thread that I can't switch of from thinking about my sister, simply because it has been the focus of my family for almost my entire life. All my life the focus has always been on her, I know no other way to think. Whenever we did anything, the focus was always on her, and it still is.

For example, my older sister and I went away, and encouraged the rest of the family to come too. But because my sister decided she did not want to go, my parents didn't go either. (NB she lives away from home at university, so no concerns about her not being able to cope being left by herself for a few days).

So it is hard for me to focus on myself, and looking at what is best for me, because I have been brought up to only think about my sister with special needs and what is best for her.

I disagree with you that 'having everyone's attention' is good for your sister, 'having everyone's attention' isn't good for anyone unless 'everyone' is a qualified psychologist or doctor and they can actually do something to improve your condition.
Having everyone's attention won't make a blind bit of difference to ill health imo.

Can you speak to someone outside your home circle about a career or future plans??

Parents are limited to what they have experienced in their own lives. You need to be looking outwards for help and encouragement for the future, not at home. Is there anyone at work who might have some ideas?

It's worth mentioning with my uncle, who is my dad's brother and in his 5os who is in his 50s, that he currently lives with my grandparents and refuses to get a job and move out.

He is a massive strain on my elderly grandparents. The problem is they have pandered to him his whole life and are still e.g. giving him money to go out and do stuff, let him use their car etc. Ironically, my mother is irritated with him and thinks my grandparents needed to kick him out long ago. What she doesn't realise is that she is doing the same thing with my sister.

I can basically see my sister turning into my uncle, as she also expects e.g. money for stuff (she has a student allowance, but she doesn't know how to manage her money and spent it on too many clothes) and it frustrates me that my parents are allowing it to happen, when they can see the result this pandering has on the family.

I hear that what you are finding stressful is your parents' focus on your sister's life-long SN. But you can't change that. You can't argue them out of focussing on that. All you can do is reduce your own involvement in that game if it is detrimental to your own mental health.

Going away in spite of their staying at home was a very good step in that.

I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking about this at work, or to my friends.

Even though it appears from mumsnet that difficult family situations are actually not uncommon, everyone I speak to has a good relationship with their family, and are especially close to their siblings. I think some of them must be lying.

They're not necessarily lying. Close families exist. But in my experience the vast vast majority of people have trouble of some sort with their siblings. The thing is once they move out of home and get their own life that trouble becomes irrelevant and usually with a bit of distance and maturity sibling relationships improve. You're still stuck in a very childish dynamic withvyour sisters, mostly due to your parents it seems.

What sns does your sister have?

It doesn't have a name. That's the frustrating thing.

She has some learning difficulties, language processing difficulties, some traits of dyspraxia, aspergers etc.

But she doesn't really fit any diagnosis. Which makes it especially hard sometimes because nobody really understands.

At least if she had e.g. aspergers I could say "She has aspergers" and most people would have some idea of what my family have to deal with. But just saying "she has some learning difficulties/ special needs" nobody really understands what I mean, because that is so broad, and I don't want to go into details.

As you said, "I know this is actually my parents fault for treating us in this way." I think you're right.

To look at things from your parents' POV, they are probably desperately worried about your sister and concerned for her future due to her SN. They may have become accustomed to seeing you as the reliable and stable daughter who doesn't cause them the same kind of concern, and perhaps you have grown used to playing that role. Family dynamics can be tricky when one child has such identifiable needs.

My family situation is different, but my eldest brother is on the autism spectrum. He is intellectually more than capable of an independent life, but socially and emotionally he really struggles. I think that my parents should have encouraged him toward independence when he was younger, but their worry about him and feelings of guilt (misplaced, IMO) meant that they tried to protect him. As a result, he still lives with them, and I very much doubt he will ever have an independent life. And that makes me very sad for him.

I left for university at 17 and since then I've never lived with my parents. We have a good relationship, and I admire my eldest brother a great deal though I still wish he were living a different kind of life.

Anyway, I'm sure you really wouldn't want to live your sister's life, as she sounds very unhappy. Since you can't change how your parents interact with her or with you, it's possible only to change how you interact with and think about them. It's difficult to rewrite deeply ingrained patterns of thought, but it really is possible.

Spindly, I was never given the opportunity to vent when I was younger, I was just told I was being intolerant of her special needs and it was my problem (if I bring it up now I am still told that).

Even though we knew for years that my sister had these problems, my older sister and I were never given any support (I know some siblings of people with special needs are encouraged to meet other siblings)

Also the problem I mentioned before: her special need has no name. I can't say "My sister has aspergers, it's difficult sometimes" because it isn't true.

I remember learning about autism at school (we were studying the MMR controversy) and they asked if anyone knew anyone with aspergers or autism. But I couldn't raise my hand because although she has traits of aspergers and autism, she does not have either, so I would be lying to say so.