My sister is just so awful

[IsaBisaBuildsaBoat]

I am struggling today. Dysfunctional family dynamic in the background. I was messed up. Got a buttload of therapy and am much better. Sis is much younger than me and has refused virtually all therapy and just wallows in having mental health issues. It is like a badge of honour that she can't get a job. Anything she doesn't fancy, she claims anxiety.

Now, I have actually been ULTRA supportive up until now. I am her cheerleader whenever she makes any positive steps. I also chat to her about normal stuff. Sisterly chats about telly and so on. I don't pressure her. I walk on eggshells because she is so volatile and because I don't live with her - my mum lives with her and has to deal with the fallout and I don't think it's fair on mum to say whatever I want.

Today I get copied into some emails in which she is just being so so awful to mum. Really manipulative and abusive. Awful. And I lost it. I said she should be ashamed of herself. Blocked her on FB.

She then blew up at mum. I've been emailing mum saying that no, Mum hasn't been unreasonable, yes Sis is being awful, no there is nothing to feel guilty about.

I am just so so so sick her her crap. I think she has borderline personality disorder or something similar but I don't care anymore. I don't want to pussyfoot round her. I don't want to see her. I don't want to have her show up at the family Christmas and have to play nice. Obviously she has threatened not to come as if that is the worst possible thing for all of us!

Thank you for letting me rant.

I have literally never thought of the guilt of being the gc and doing penance before this thread. It would explain a lot. The therapy I had did not focus on the transactional stuff or the narcissistic family dynamic particularly, it just gave me skills to handle myself and reactions. I kind of picked the other stuff up from MN and other forums. And the gc is usually talked about as experiencing pressure to be good, which I get. But the concomitant guilt didn't really register.

Wow, you're smart! I'd like to thank you for modelling some handy tools I'd do well to re-introduce in my own life. Cheers

Suicide is an awful threat. Threatening suicide is an awful game to start. And the person still has a right to that choice. This doesn't mean it makes sense to go "Oh, fine, you go ahead and do it then, bye!" (although sometimes it is sensible.) But it means you aren't forcing that person to top themselves; by the same token, deciding not to provide the required pay-off doesn't mean you'll make them any more likely to follow through.

My training says never to ignore a suicide threat. Some trainings say the opposite. Usually, when there's an 'always' and a 'never', the correct answer's somewhere in between. Things that I've said, and have been said to me, include:
I hope you won't, I'd be very upset/devastated/miss you terribly.
Person X, Y and Z would miss you terribly, you bring us so much joy.
But then you'd miss out on [some nice thing in the future].
Seriously, how would that help the situation?
Why don't you/we do [something else] first?
... etc. Defusion & deflection.
I'm not a therapist, so would not attempt to talk a person through their suicidal feelings, but have been present when it's done rather brilliantly - with others and when I've been the potential suicide.

Now I'm off to examine my own games and improve my OK-ness

I meant to remind you about Mumsnet's fantastic 'bingo' game, to help us stay sane when all around are bonkers.

You could try counting your mum's victim pleas and matching them to your sister's attention demands, or predicting the next response - I bet you're good at that!

Also, the standard MN replies of Oh dear; I'm sorry you're [hurt/worried/etc]; That sounds difficult; What are you going to do about it? and my favourite, Ouch.
Pretty much the same things we say to screaming toddlers!

Funny, because Mum is actually very very careful never to actually ask outright for help or claim that she is a victim. Ever. It is me reading into it.

I am going to play bingo with my bloody rescuer complex.

And yes, I think I have reached the end with the suicide threats. There just isn't much to say about it. If she ever pulled that stunt again I would just call an ambulance or something straightaway.

I have had some amazing therapists, really. And other amazing help. I just forget to use the tools I have.

And I am so grateful to all of you for helping me cut through the shit to what is really going on. Thank you.

And to Garlic (I hope those days are gone) and to everyone else who has to sidestep these games.

Bear in mind that your sister will be reacting to her situation too. As the scapegoat she will have experienced life much, much differently to you.

I wonder whether your mum is pressing her buttons to get a reaction so she can use this drama to involve you and your brother? I'm wondering because that's what my mother used to do to me.

Ideally your sister needs to get her own place. That distance may help her hugely. I would be watching your mum for what she says or implies about your sister too. If there's a lot of negative things then your sister is being scapegoated. For example the picture my mother painted of me was that I was lazy, weak, miserly and moody. Others heard this so often that when I went NC most bought her story that I was insane.

So keep an open mind about your sister's behaviour for now. Explore the possibility that whatever she is saying might be true. Would that change things if they were?

Whatever the actual situation it sounds like not being drawn into the drama is the best course of action for you.

She is the scapegoat. No question, really. I know life has been very different for her. I know she is troubled and life is difficult for her. This is why I have been supportive over the years. See thread above for discussion on guilt.

There isn't really a right or wrong version of events, if that makes sense. My sister wants something, my mum said no. Perfectly entitled to say no, it is her house, her money. Then she ramped up the abusive, manipulative tactics. this all played out over this email chain that I ended up seeing because Mum copied us in, which I took as a reasonable request for backup.

Sis got upset that mum copied us in. She got caught out behaving appallingly. I had been having a great positive conversation with her about a possible future job a few hours before, but the poisonous things she was saying over email to mum were awful. So I said she should be ashamed of herself, and sent her a link to an article saying that mental health issues are not an excuse to be an asshole, and blocked her.

I also sent mum some emails about recognising manipulation tactics,ironically.

I don't think mum was pushing her buttons. The much more typical story for my sister is that something is worrying her (health, job, money, relationship) and she picks a fight to avoid dealing with her real feelings. Happens all the time. My sister might THINK mum was pushing her buttons, because whenever she is thwarted in any way she blows up,so it is easy for her to find examples of why life isn't fair (because it isn't the way she wants it) and people are treating her badly.

Finally, I have been laughing to myself the last few hours because I keep catch ing myself thinking, 'I won't have it! I won't have this behaviour!' as if I am somehow all powerful to stop it.

Disengage, disengage, disengage.

And yes, ideally my sister would get her own place. IDEALLY a lot of things would happen differently. But I have no idea how that will happen,and me putting my oar in is seriously unhelpful, I have learned.

It is everyone's favourite game, 'what should sister do'. We all sit around saying, 'Well, Mum should and Sis should and why don't they and wouldn't it be better if...'

I love what you were doing throwing all those unhelpful thoughts into the fire. I must try that.

Glad to hear Jesus is on the case

springy I really thought He was going to ask me to be more compassionate, give her another chance, turn the other cheek, try to see it from her point of view. But He loves me (and them) so much and knows what is best.

And has more nuance on the whole. Gorgeous, basically.

Psychologically, it's much, much easier to be angry at a sibling than at a parent.

But at the end of the day, it's parents who are responsible for shaping family dynamics, not siblings who were children themselves when all this was fermenting.

You seem to see your mother as the victim of your sister, but your sister was originally (and still is in many ways) the victim of your enabler mother as well as your narc father. Neither protected her, prioritised her welfare, just as neither of them truly protected or prioritised you.

If you as the GC have needed bucketloads of therapy I can only imagine what kind of a state your scapegoat sister must be in!

I think it was unreasonable of your mother to copy you all in on your sister's emails in the first place. There's something quite spiteful about that.

I thought it was good you gave yourself permission to feel angry at your mother, and you could probably do with a lot more of that. Your mother set this dynamic in motion. Your mother - agree that she sounds co-dependent - is keeping this dynamic going for her own benefit, however twisted that may appear, not out of real love for your sister. Why aren't you more angry at her for making such a royal hash of being a mother, and still refusing to do anything (like therapy for herself) to become a better one?

I don't honestly know how you can deal with your sister. But if you stop blaming her for your mother's shortcomings, that would be a really good start. And yes, I do think that, consciously or unconsciously, you have been blaming her for other people's failings. Even in your thread title, it's your sister who's the villain of the piece, the problem. That's what happens to the scapegoat. It becomes a kind of family "truth" that they are the root of the problem, to the extent that they can even be "blamed" for things that happened before they were born. And this can somehow seem entirely reasonable and rational.

Your sister's behaviour and emails didn't come out of nowhere. The context has to be acknowledged. If deep down you unconsciously still buy into the myth that she is the source of the family dysfunction, then all your cheerleading for her be a waste of time, she will still not really feel supported by you, and you pushing her to get therapy will just feel like you are confirming that she is the problem, rather than that you are trying to help her get support for her own sake.

Yes, she clearly has some big problems now. But if you can acknowledge that her problems arose out of a situation she did not create, and a situation she still may not have the resources (inner or outer) to tackle, it might help you step back, and give you a different perspective.

You sound like you're taking some really positive steps anyway, and it's refreshing to see someone taking on board so much of what others are saying to you. I just thought I'd stick my two penn'orths in too, in the hope some of it may make sense.

It makes total sense to me, Talking. Brilliant post.

Talking, good post.

Thanks, Talking.

I do totally understand, rationally, that her problems arise from my parents. But it is very hard and maybe not even right to absolve people of responsibility for their actions/words. Especially when she has refused help.

And maybe my mother's actions are caused by HER family background and subsequent abusive marriage. So where does it stop?

I'm not defending my mum, although I realise it sounds like it. I really get a feeling like she 'won' that game by me storming in all outraged,and it has left me very unsettled and questioning a lot of things on a deeper level than previously.

I could kind of see that my mum was at fault in refusing to parent my sister properly. But I couldn't see the mechanics of how it affected me personally and how she always manages to come off as 'poor mum'. It's like some part of my brain, even as I'm typing this, won't let me see her any other way. But she puts herself in this position!

I unblocked my sister (but haven't refriended her - she unfriended me first so I would have to send a friend request) and called and left a very normal sounding message on her voice mail. 'Just calling to say hi, hope you are okay, lots of love.' Not sure what next. But I think if she tries to talk about it I'll just say we'd better not?

I think its fine to not talk about it with either of them.

'she's my mum, too'
'she's my sister'
'I love you and I love her, too'
'I want both of you in my life'

'... which is why you need to sort this out between you'

Isa thanks for sharing your situation here - I might usually have lurked but just wanted to say thank you, really, for all the wisdom I've read here - Garlick, springy and talkiin also.
I have a different but dysfunctional background and stepping back and giving it time has really helped. To reconnect the brain not just the limbic system. My sister and I are in the era after yours - with mum dead and father non or minimal contact partly through his own choice with us both now - my sister has no one left to blame but me. It's not simpler nor is it harder - but if it had been dealt with better prior to mum's death we would have something now.
As GC which I have been in and out of, you are taught that not being angry is "good", and as an adult I continue to have difficulty with expression of it in a healthy way - I'm not surprised it's hard to get angry with your mum as essentially she taught you this. I won't go on (might start my own thread tho - thank you again ).

This is your process - given its nature, it interlocks with your sister's and mother's (and brother's) processes, too. Your primary responsibility is to yourself: this is why it can be hard to navigate, isn't it? While you can't and shouldn't bend the others to your will, it's still necessary to build your own protection and learn from developments as they happen.

I need to reiterate that you seem to be doing this incredibly well at the moment!

Two of the most effective 'tools for life' are respect and compassion. Compassion isn't some soppy quality of the well-meaning victim: it's multi-faceted, strong; resilient. And has respect built in. I think your post about Jesus not telling you to turn the other cheek demonstrated a growth in compassion - well, that started when you tackled your Rescuer role!

Don't expect yourself to be perfect. Don't expect your development to be linear; periods of growth are usually followed by a bedding-in period, which can feel like regression. Self-compassion's just as important as compassion for others. And, yes, you can just gently hand them back their own processes as Imbroglio said.

Wishing you the best, too, Peas. Christmas wish for us all: "be kind" 🎅

I just spoke to my sister. It was good.

I said that I just wanted to say that I shouldn't have got involved or replied to that email and it was none of my business. She said she'd apologised to mum for what she said, and I reiterated that it was nothing to do with me.

Then we just chatted about normal stuff.

Feel a bit teary now. Very glad we've all climbed down from DefCon5.

I think I will leave it with mum for now. I will say something along the lines of 'nothing to do with me' if the subject comes up.

Oh, EXCELLENT news!!!

Mum emailed me as well saying shed had a large apology. I just emailed back 'Great. I just spoke to her as well and said I shouldn't have got involved. None of my business really!'

oh BRAVO!! that's great news.

Phew, your family are MUCH more functional than mine! There is no way they'd climb down from a fall-out like that - or any fall-out tbf. No way on God's green earth.

Not that this is a competition, mind. And of course I'm saying 'they' because I'm perfect.

To be fair, we have been round this several times. Annually, at least. We are all strongly motivated to stay in each other's lives because things are sort of lovely when they go well.

And my sister has made huge huge HUGE forward steps over the last two years. Really amazing progress. Her climbing down from defcon5 is evidence of that - she didn't try to hang on to the drama.

And the fact that she has shown such positive signs is probably why I was so shocked that she'd been being awful. I hadn't seen that for a long time. And I was frightened what that meant - was she really going backwards after all. You would think I would be used to her ways but I have such faith in her better nature and ability to get well (well enough) that it DOES always upset me. Which I suppose is a sign I haven't written her off.

Also, I totally understand that she often can't deal with things going well for her, just like she can't deal with things going badly. So maybe I should be more prepared for these episodes when things are going well.

Except that obviously I am disengaging. Erp.