How do I get over the unfairness of being treated so differently to my siblings whilst growing up?

[oneplusone]

To try and cut a long story short, I grew up with a verbally and emotionally abusive dad and a mother who 'abandoned' me, not literally but in the sense she knew my dad was abusing me but she did nothing to stop him and protect me.

I have 2 younger sisters who my parents treated very, very differently. My dad didn't abuse them and my mother was very protective and close to them.

There have been huge consequences for me as a result of the abuse I suffered during childhood and as an adult until I stopped contact with my parents. I have come a long way in sorting myself out and becoming a healthy and whole person again after the mess my parents left me in.

But all the time I am confronted with the fact that my sisters weren't abused or abandoned like me and as a result every aspect of their life has been so much smoother for them. I have had to work so hard on myself and have struggled with so many problems, including severe health issues, all as a result of my childhood.

I am finding it so hard to accept that due to sheer bad luck and for no other reason, I was the only one singled out by my dad to be abused and the only one my mother effectively abandoned.

My sisters have no understanding of what i went through as a child (there is a big age gap between us so they were too young to remember or even notice how my dad was treating me nor the the fact that our mother was not interested in me) and we are not at all close. But my 2 sisters are very close to each other and constantly leave me out of things and treat me as an afterthought, like an outsider, not an equally valued sibling.

I don't know how to handle this situation. It hurts me everytime i have any sort of contact with my sisters as i am always reminded in some way of how different our childhood's were and as a consequence how different our lives as adults now are.

I have considered cutting ties with both my sisters as sometimes i feel that is the only way i can avoid the constant pain i feel whenever i speak to them or see them. But they are just having their own DC's and cutting ties with them would mean my DC's are deprived of a relationship with their 2 aunties/uncles/cousins.

I would really appreciate any advice/experiences from anybody who has gone through anything like this. I really don't know what to do.

ib Again I can relate to your friend, I don't talk to very many people in RL at all about my family situation, but I have found lots of understanding and sympathetic people on MN which has made such a huge difference to how I've coped with it all.

Thank you so much for your input, you and your friend have really helped me move on, I am grateful for your time and like I said, it has been somehow so comforting and theraputic and I suppose validating to know that somebody else has been through such a similar experience to me. The feeling of being alone with my particular issues wrt my sisters was so difficult for me.

Enjoy your time away

Oneplusone, I haven't read absolutely everything on this thread although I suspect a lot of the issues you're talking about go very deep and too deep for a chat online so I am trying to keep that in mind while I write this. However, in terms of your relationship with your sisters, while I completely understand why you are hurt, I can't help feeling that you're seeing their actions in a more negative light than you would if you didn't already have such a huge issue with your family (for legitimate reasons). You mention that your sisters are younger than you by quite a bit? I am a younger sister by quite a bit. And I have to admit that some of the things you mention I have specifically done.

I did not buy a wedding gift when my siblings got married although they then subsequently bought me one. But I was younger when they got married and I didn't have much money, or frankly, sense, to understand these things.

My siblings have been wonderfully generous with me financially over the years - including, like you, a fully paid for holiday when I was younger. But it took me years before I began to pay that back and if I am entirely honest I wil admit that I still have to work hard not to revert to the "baby sister" mindset and let them take care of me.

My sister told me she was pregnant long before she told others. That's because we're close. Friends as well as sisters and, if one of my siblings had come to me to complain, I would have told them what your sister told you "that it's up to her". I know that I will tell her when I get pregnant before I tell anyone else, including my parents.

My sister and I speak two or three times a week. I do nt speak nearly that often to the others. That does not mean I don't love them.

Again, I appreciate that there my well be more to your relationship with your sister, but those examples you gave near the front of the thread really jumped out at me. As I've got older, I've had to work really hard to be more self aware and to understand that I tend to fal back into a certain pattern. I get upset because my sister seems to be so much more in the know on family things, but I have had to accept that frankly, that is because she has accepted the "older sister" mantle and makes the effort - she calls people, sends cards and gifts, remembers things etc. While for me it does not come naturally and I have to work at it all the time. But as a result, I can't complain because she knows that Great Uncle Jack is planning a huge 90th birthday party next summer or whatever.

Only you can decide what you are going to do or whether being around your sisters is simply too difficult. I think that is a choice, that no matter how much it may hurt your sisters is something you have to decide for yourself and perhaps be selfish about. But I would say it's worth at least thinking about how much of your resentment is because of all the other things that went on in your family and therefore you can't necessarily see things the way others would.

I was the youngest of 6 kids and my mum wanted me desparately...to be the menopause. When I wasn't she was bitterly disappointed and seemed to think it necessary to tell me this on a regular basis. Add in a little combative parenting, playing one child off against another, always belittling us to our faces, praising the others to us, and we ended up (somehow) with 6 sociably adequate individuals with slight inferiority complexes.

I think we all did quite well considering and though half my family still see me as the 'babby' and the annoying, bad tempered, thoughtless one amongst us, the other 2 siblings see me closer to what I actually am now.

I think I grew up when I left home. I am told I'm quite a caring person and I became, more through accident than design, a ridiculously good people person. I had to overcome crippling shyness to do this, but managed that o.k. Then I had to overcome the cynical way of looking at people that my mother had and the knack of putting people down with my non-verbal cues.

As a manager I learned how to control my impulses to be negative, sarcastic and a little aggressive and learned instead how to be constructive, supportive and positive.

I now have (mostly) great relationships with others and am nothing like my mum thinks I am.

My mum is now 82 and is dying of lung cancer. I find it really hard to see her with my older sisters as she quite obviously favours them hugely, despite the fact that they have few redeeming factors (imo) in terms of their personalities or their relationship with my mum. The fact that this has been highlighted during mum's illness has been harder on me in some ways than anything else. I can't fudge the fact that I think my mum loves me now. I can't avoid my older siblings and the lack of esteem with which I'm regarded when in their presence and I can't ignore that my mother doesn't value who I've become more than who I once was.

I find that quite sad. BUT at the end of the day I'm an adult and I can't allow my mother's and my older siblings views of me define who I am and how I act. My mother had a lot of issues to contend with during my childhood and that coloured the person she became. I dare say I'll have my own issues which will have coloured my character. I hope, however, that this doesn't make me a bad parent.

I sincerely hope, oneplusone, that you manage to put behind you the feelings of negativity you have for your family. This will help you to put away the feelings they had for you and to rise above them. It's not an easy thing to do, but to some degree we all have to be who we are regardless of others. Casting off your parent's view of you is a key step to being a well rounded, grown-up imo.

Another factor in parents sometimes treating the oldest differently to the youngest (if the oldest is treated badly) is the parents' lack of knowledge and experience of parenting when they have their first one.

I know that some of my DD's (firstborn) behaviours worried me and I was 'uptight' about them because I didn't realise they were normal, but by the time DS came along and did the same things I was more relaxed about it because I'd seen it before and knew it was normal behaviour for children.

I was also less practiced in showing affection with firstborn DD and had to learn this by practicing on her as I didn't have good role models for this while I was growing up. By the time DS came along I was much more relaxed about showing affection and it came more naturally.

My therapist says that my brother (the oldest of us two) didn't bond properly with a primary carer and that the part of his brain that deals with empathy and connection to people won't have formed properly and that is what has 'allowed' him to do some bad things to people, and also means he is unlikely to change much. (He says all this without having met him so I can't be sure he is correct.) I've wondered why I've had some similar bad experiences to my brother but I have not ended up like him. I said to Therapist that my parents must have done a better job on me than him (even though I don't have much good to say about their parenting). He simply agreed. The only explanation I can think of is that our parents were less experienced, more anxious, more uptight, and felt even less natural about showing affection with him than with me because he was the first one they adopted.

OPO, I agree with Blinglovin that you probably see your sisters' behaviours as adults as being worse than it is because it reminds you of when it felt really bad for you during childhood. If you hadn't had the bad childhood experiences you would find what they do as adults much easier to handle.

It is definitely all more your parents faults than your sisters.

I tried sending an email.

Blinglovin and squilly, thank you for your posts which have been interesting to read. But, I think my situation is very different from both of yours. Significantly, in my case there are 3 siblings, whereas in both of your families there are more than 3 siblings. My problem with my sisters is that the 2 of them always get together, without a backward glance at me, and leave me out, exclude me from things, treat me like an afterthought, almost like a step sister or an adopted sister. If there was another sibling in our family ie 4 or more of us, then I think it would be far less likely that 3 would get together and leave one out. I think it is natural for people to 'pair up' so if there were 4 of us it would be likely that there would be 2 pairs of close siblings and I would not therefore always be on my own, feeling excluded and left out.

OSAHM, for the first time ever, I am sad to say that I disagree with you! I don't think I see my sisters' behaviour as adults as being worse than it really is because it reminds me of bad times during childhood. My sisters behaviour now is exactly the same as it was during childhood, nothing has changed, they always left me out then and they are continuing to always leave me out now. So rather than acting as a reminder their behaviour now is actually a continuation from childhood, and it hurts me the same now as it did then.

The only thing that has changed is me. During childhood i was just as hurt as I am now by the way they always favoured each other over me and seemed to gang up together to pick on me and leave me out of things etc etc. During childhood though, I had no control over them or my own life really. I had to live with them, I did try once to talk to my mother about how left out and lonely i always felt but she ignored me and dismissed my feelings as ridiculous, so I just had to put up and shut up about the way i was being treated.

But now, I do have control over my life, over who i allow into my life and how i allow myself to be treated. And like we all seem to agree on this thread, now we are all adults, we are responsible for our own actions and we must accept the consequences of our actions. So, whilst i was hurt by my sisters behaviour towards me during childhood, I do not actually hold them fully responsible as I think, during childhood, my mother should have ensured that I was not always being left out and taken steps to make sure that all 3 of us did things together and that there was a strong bond between the 3 of us.

But, now my sisters are adults, they are 31 and 34 respectively. They, are responsible for their own actions. And they are still doing things which exclude me, make me feel left out, hurt me, etc etc. But now, unlike during childhood, I do hold them fully responsible for the way they treat me. And I am not willing to be treated shabbily any longer and I think the only way they might take a good long hard look at themselves and the way they treat me is if I walk away from them and distance myself. If I allow things to continue as they always have, i have no doubt in my mind that they will not take a minute to reflect upon themselves and think about me, my feelings and the way their behaviour has made me feel. I think only by doing something quite drastic like walking away, will possibly shake them up enough to take a look at themselves. But I am realistic enough to know that the opposite might happen, they might once again blame me for walking away, see me as selfish and uncaring and ungrateful, in which case, i really feel i will have lost nothing. It will be their loss and they will carry on as they always have, blindly continuing the cycle of abuse with their own DC's, because they do not have the courage to face up to the reality of who our parents really are and the damage they have done to them. I am sure that my sisters have their own issues, even if they were not badly abused themselves. They grew up in a highly dysfunctional family and I have no doubt whatsoever that as they get older and their DC's get older, their issues will start manifesting themselves in one way or another.

OSAHM, I do agree with you that ultimately the root cause of all of this is my parents. But I am not willing to allow my sisters to use that as an excuse to continue treating me badly and hurting me. Perhaps it is a case of having to be cruel to be kind. By walking away from them, I might force them out of their comfort zone and prompt them to take a look at themselves instead of always blaming me for everything as they are so used to doing. Using me as their scapegoat conveniently absolves them from looking at themselves and taking any responsibility for themselves and their own behaviour. Once the scapegoat is gone, perhaps they will find the courage to take a look at themselves. If they continue to blame me even after i have walked away, instead of developing some self awareness and insight, they will sadly have missed the opportunity to free themselves from the damaging patterns of our past and more importantly, the opportunity to ensure that those damaging patterns are not passed onto their own DC's.

The trouble is I know them both well enough to realise that neither of them have the courage required to face up to their past and see our parents for what they really are. I would be extremely surprised if even one of them dared to face up the truth about our childhood. I can see that they are far happier living in their illusion of a happy family, colluding with our parents that they are 'normal'. And I am far happier out of it, I don't want to pretend anymore, to me the truth is far more 'solid' and 'secure' iykwim, the illusion that they are living in is like a house of cards that is in danger of collapsing at any moment. I am sure that despite acting like they are a happy family with my parents, deep down inside both my siters are scared, anxious and insecure as far from creating a secure family base for the 3 of us with strong bonds and secure attachments, my parents created the exact opposite and we all had to walk on eggshells all the time to prevent the whole thing from collapsing. If my sisters are happy to continue living like that, it is their choice, but I can never go back to that.

I should also add that both my sisters are far too arrogant and full of their own sense of superiority to ever consider the fact that they might be damaged/have issues/need to work on themselves. As far as they are concerned, I am the 'faulty' one, they are perfect in their own eyes, they never put a foot wrong, and so they have no reason to reflect upon themselves as how can one improve on perfection?

I was youngest of 6 oneplusone, with a big gap between me and my next eldest sister (7 years between me and the next, 14 between me and the eldest, so was always 'alone' and a bit of a loner to boot, thanks to crappy social skills).

Luckily, things got better once I got to 18/19 and realised that I wasn't quite as worthless as my mum/siblings (some of them) had always said.

I think it's tough not feeling loved, no matter how many siblings are involved.

It reminds me of friendships I had problems with through school. There were two girls at primary school who I got to know as friends separately, then the three of us started going round together. Every now and then, for 'fun' they would leave me out and ignore me on purpose and delight in pointing out how upset I looked. It really hurt me but I always forgave them when they finished their little game because otherwise I felt I would have no friends as I wasn't confident about making friends.

At secondary school I had a really good friend and we both liked another girl so started all three hanging around together. Then my original friend decided that the other one was her "best friend" and they started leaving me out. She said to me "You need to get yourself a best friend". She wanted me when the other girl wasn't around but wanted me to leave them alone with each other when she was around. It was horrible. Sometimes I think girls are just bloody horrible!

I know this is probably not as bad as when siblings do it but I'm just saying I have some idea of what it might feel like for you even if I never experienced it as badly as you did.

I always felt like I would never be good enough to be the favourite one of anyone's. I felt less important than other people anyway because my childlike brain at the time reasoned that if I was important my birthmother wouldn't have given me away and that other people had been kept because they were more important than me. I also thought that if I was more important my grandfather and brother wouldn't treat me the way they did (abusively) and my parents wouldn't act like they didn't care and I wasn't important enough to them for them to do anything about it.

I think the feeling does stay with you if you were never made to feel important in the first place by your family and then that feeling gets reinforced by friends, or in your case OPO, siblings, making you feel inferior.

I still feel sensitive if I think that a good friend of mine suddenly prefers someone else to me but I have to have a stern word with myself and think I can't control their feelings and I can't force them to like me any more than they do. I can't stop them liking someone else more than me, that is their choice. I have to appreciate what I do get from them rather than what I don't, or comparing how much another person gets from them. If they are really upsetting me then I find other people to be with who make me feel better.

I agree that parents should teach their children how to include all their siblings and teach them about being kind to people by not making them feel excluded, and more importantly, that the parents should make their children feel important and that they are of equal importance to them as their siblings. But once the children grow up and leave home not much can be done about it just like you can't force a friend to like you more than they like someone else.

I can see that your sisters are reinforcing your feeling of being less important than other people every time you have to see evidence of them liking each other more than you and I can see that it bloody hurts! They could be a bit more sensitive about things when you have told them how it makes you feel, although maybe they don't fully understand if they have never felt it themselves. But the strength of the relative relationships probably won't change. You can't make people feel something they don't.

The main thing you have to do is not believe the voice in your head which says that their behaviour means you are less important than other people generally. Being less important to them than they are to each other doesn't mean that you are less important than everyone generally. Unfortunately this is hard when you already felt less important from a young age because your mother was cold and your father said more horrible things to you than he did to your sisters. All the 'evidence' has built up in your head to make you think you are unimportant.

I definitely think that really believing it is their fault rather than because of something about you helps. Eg. My birthparents gave me away not because I was inferior but because they couldn't (or didn't want to) cope with keeping me. My parents were unexpressive because they have emotional problems not because I wasn't good enough to make them behave differently. They didn't protect me because they were scared and they weren't strong enough to get over that, not because there was something wrong with me. My grandfather was just a pervert and I'm not going to waste space talking about him in any detail. My brother had very bad emotional problems and some bad experiences which he took out on me. I didn't cause him to do it, his other problems did, or rather they caused him to make the decision to do wrong things. None of it happened because of me being crap.

It's the same for you OPO, your bad experiences didn't happen because you are crap, they happened because you had bloody bad luck in having parents who had the particular personal problems that they had at the time (or maybe still have).

I think the key to it all is that if you don't, deep down, feel that what your sisters do means that you are crap, then what they do will no longer hurt you.

At the same time as working on believing this, you need things/people that make you feel good. Those people will never be your sisters or parents though.

In your head and not out loud, say to your sisters, I don't care what you think about me because I know that I am not crap. I am not going to grovel for your attention. I don't need it. I can get what I need elsewhere. Just because you don't think I'm good enough for you doesn't mean that I am not good enough for anyone. Who made you an authority on it! Them seeing you getting on with your life and being happy and confident in yourself and not needing them very much at all will 'show 'em'! They aren't such superior beings that you need to desperately chase them for their attention. There are better people for you to spend your time on. Say in your head and not out loud to them, You are not 'all that'!

OSAHM You've made some really good points in your posts.

OPO In the end, it all boils down to the fact that if you have self-knowledge and have been given the tools, then use them....

Not always as easy as it sounds though Lemon. My therapist had to say some of the same things to me over and over again in different ways before I eventually believed those things in my soul, even though I knew them to be logically true! In the same way lots of MNers post about the same thing over and over again to think about their situations in different words/ways until it eventually makes sense to them when they find words that really sink in for them personally.

Oneplusone, I'm sorry, I think you are wrong about it being because there were three and if there were four it would be different. Categorically, my sister and I gang up on the other two. or, my sister, me and our brother gang up on and exclude our other brother. This is not a unique situation that arises because there are three of you. Your sisters are close and you are not. It hurts for very good reason. But I still think you have to seperate that from the other issues you have with your family. You cannot force people, even family, to feel close to you and to want to spend time with you simply because they should. if they are more comfortable with each other, there is little you can do except a) accept it b) try very hard to be the person they want you to be or c) distance yourself. I know none of those choices are ideal.

OSAHM Point taken. But, the thing is that books have been recommended on several occasions, and very good books too. I have posted about methods or strategies that can be used to work around the problems. You yourself have made some very good comments and given good advice.

My posts for the most part are ignored. The posts of other people on here are also ignored with the sentence "but my circumstances are different". Yes, I agree, different circumstances, but not different problems. If someone wants help or advice, then maybe that help or advice could actually be taken on board and not ignored.

I know that it's not as easy as it sounds, but I have mentioned on here and on the Stately Home thread that my family circumstances were very difficult and that I've had to work very hard to get past that and to move on.

I will be honest when I do have knee-jerk reactions to things that my family may do, but I now work through it.....

OPO these comments are aimed at you - this is what I was alluding to when I said that I could see you wanting to move forward, but having one foot nailed to the floor. Often, its subconsiously a comfort zone to remain angry and "not understanding" - the really painful bit is when you do understand and have to start dealing with it.....

Apologies for "subconsiously" I meant "subconsciously" - sorry!

OSAHM, thanks so much for your post, it makes perfect sense. And I feel like I am really beginning to believe, in my heart and soul, not just in my head, what you wrote in your final paragraph about what I should say to myself about my sisters. Before I read your post, I was beginning to think along those lines about them which tells me something has 'shifted' mentally for me and I am seeing them and their behaviour in a different light.

What you said here is spot on "I definitely think that really believing it is their fault rather than because of something about you helps". I totally agree. And suddenly I can now see clearly that it is them and not me. Before I was saying exactly that to myself, but it was just words, i didn't really believe it. But as I said, something has 'shifted' in my mind, and now I know it is true, it is them and not me. I feel I have reached the point of complete emotional detachment that i was struggling to reach before; as I said earlier somewhere, I was feeling 'stuck' in a particular place and didn't know how to move forward.

Blingloving, thank you for your post. And yes of course you are right, I cannot force my sisters to feel close to me if they do not. But, I do think that even if they do not feel as close to me as they do to each other, I do deserve some respect and consideration for my feelings. They are both certainly old enough and intelligent enough to realise that such things as buying each other wedding presents, but not me, is going to be very hurtful to me when i find out. That one sister holding a party and inviting the other sister and not me is going to be hurtful. I am sure they wouldn't treat their friends like that so why me? Unless of course, not only do they not feel close to me but they actually actively hate or dislike me. And that may be not too far from the truth I think. I am sure they have been completely brainwashed by my dad who himself hates me because, due to his mental illness, he cannot really see me and instead sees me as a cardboard cutout to whom he has assigned certain traits and characteristics which actually do not belong to me. My sisters whilst growing up must have completely believed my dad's false picture of me as of course as children it would have been impossible for them to seperate my dad's fictional version of me from the real me.

And whatever they thought and beleived about me during childhood, is still true today. I think they still have in their minds my dad's version of me. And they do not like that person and so of course treat 'her' as one probably would if one disliked somebody. And so of course I feel very hurt by the way they treat me as I do not feel I have done anything to be treated in such a way. But, I can see quite clearly now that they too cannot see the real me, they are seeing the fictional version, who according to my dad is selfish, devious, manipulative, etc etc, and treating her badly because they think she deserves it. They do not think the fictional me deserves their respect or consideration or love and indeed, if i was that person, then I wouldn't deserve their love.

Sorry, time is running out and I haven't finished what i was saying. Back later.

OPO I do feel for you. But truthfully, I would not invite my brother to all birthday type events if he lived nearby. It's just the way it goes. I would do a family event and a friends event, and invite my sister to both.

I think it's good that you're thinking about all this but I think you need more help and should be speaking to a therapist because the way you write about the issues with your sisters is quite "young" ito I get the sense that where they are concerned you still think and feel like a much younger person. The things you say, are legitimate, but for a woman who is much older with her own family, seem a bit immature - you are being left out on the playground and you don't like it. Understandable, but it shouldn't bother you this much any more. Again, I understand that because it took me a long time to get out of the habit of reverting to the maturity level of a 10 year old when dealing with my siblings, but I do think it's imperative.

I don't think you've said anywhere if you're having counselling? I think you should because as OSOSAHM has said, you need to learn how to turn these things so that you can accept that it's not about you.

Lemonylemon, I am really sorry you feel that I am ignoring your advice. I have read your posts and your advice is much appreciated and I have read the book you mentioned and do think it is an excellent book. But, as OSAHM says, sometimes it's down to the wording, the particular way in which one poster may phrase something strikes a chord with me, whereas another poster may say the same thing in a different way which may not tie in with the way I personally think about things. But I do so appreciate your time and I know you want to help me and I am very grateful for that, like I have already said, the people on here have shown far more sympathy and consideration for my feelings than my own family ever have in 39 years.

I would also like to add that i have got to know OSAHM over some time (not in RL, through MN) and during that time, having read hundreds of her posts, I have developed the utmost respect for her. She seems to have the amazing and rare ability to truly put herself in somebody else's shoes and walk around in them and that is why, imho, her advice to me is always spot on as she truly seems to be able to understand how I am feeling.

Blingloving, I get the impression that you are posting on here from your own perspective and not really seeing things from my pov. You are essentially saying exactly the same things to me as I have heard from my sisters.

I think it is very sad that you do seem to think it is ok to gang up on your other siblings as you have said here "Categorically, my sister and I gang up on the other two. or, my sister, me and our brother gang up on and exclude our other brother." Why do you do this? Why would 3 adult siblings get together and gang up on the 4th sibling? Have you ever thought about how that makes the 4th sibling feel? How would you like it if you were the one the other 3 ganged up against? You might think it's ok to do that sort of thing simply because you're not on the recieving end. If you think that is mature adult behaviour then I think you are very much mistaken. It is, to use your own phrase, playground mentality.

Also here you say "But truthfully, I would not invite my brother to all birthday type events if he lived nearby. It's just the way it goes. I would do a family event and a friends event, and invite my sister to both." Are you saying you would invite your brother only to the family birthday event, or not either event? Why? If you both realise you do not get on and you both keep your distance from each other then i think it's fair enough that you don't invite your brother to family events. But if you do get on and there is no hostility or resentment between the two of you, why on earth would you not invite him to something?

I am really interested in your answer because that is the situation I have with my sisters. As far as i am aware, we all got on, there was certainly no hostility or resentment towards them on my part and as far as i knew, there was no hostility or resentment on their part against me. I had always done my best to be a caring sister to them, and I genuinely did care about them both. I was generous with my time with them both. I truly and honestly feel that I did nothing to deserve to be treated the way they have treated me over the years. Re the wedding present issue, it was not the same as your situation where you could be forgiven as you say for not having a lot of money and being young and a bit naive about such things. But when i got married, I was 31, my sisters were 26 and 23, and were both working in good jobs. So unlike you, they were old enough to know about such things, they had money, so why did they not buy me a present or even get me a card? And yet, when my youngest sister got married, only 2 years later, middle sister bought her an expensive present and when middle sister got married 4 years later, younger sister got her a present? I can only put it down to the fact that they do not like me because they believe I actually am the horrid fictional person my dad has brainwashed them with.

So, I know now it's not me, they are treating me the way they are because they have issues and deep rooted problems caused by our parents.

I have also realised that the vast majority of nasty behaviour towards me has been by my middle sister. And she definately has a whole host of issues she needs to sort out. I think she suffers badly from 'middle child' syndrome, she was definately ignored and overlooked a lot when we were children, i remember noticing it even though i was still a child myself at the time. So I am sure she has huge insecurities as a result of that. And then she also has loads of issues caused by my parents as whilst youngest sister was the 'golden child', my dad seemed to dislike and despise middle sister a lot. But she was very close to our mother and still is, although in my eyes, middle sister's loyalty to our mother is misguided as our mother has let her down just as much as she let me down, as she didn't protect middle sister from my dad's verbal onslaughts and abuse just like she didn't protect me. But middle sister is totally blind to how badly our parents have mistreated her and let her down, she is totally locked into the family and feels a sense of duty towards our parents even though i have personally witnessed some horrific behaviour towards her by our dad.

What I am beginning to realise, or perhaps more accurately, really truly believe in my heart and soul, is that when other people hurt me, are thoughtless, uncaring etc etc when I feel it is totally undeserved, they are acting that way because of their own, deep rooted, issues. I may have been the person to trigger them in some way, and if they are lacking in self awareness, then they will genuinely believe that I deserve to be treated badly. They will be oblivious to the fact that I have merely acted as a 'trigger'. I think this is what is going on all the time in so many relationships, not just between siblings, but within all relationships. And predictably, it causes relationship problems as of course people take offence, get hurt, etc etc.

Yes, I am posting from my point of view. But I'm trying to show you an alternative to your own. I think you have a slightly unrealistic view of sibling relationships. I get on relatively well with all my siblings, and I love them all. But yes, sometimes we are all on one side and the other one is left out. You ask how I'd feel - well I've been the one the others gang up on and I know it feels horrible. I also know that in some cases, I deserved it and it made me think about things differently and in other cases it was just one of those things that I then got over. In my mind, that's the beauty of sibling relationships - no one can irritate or hurt you the way they can, but on the other hand, you can just get back on the horse with the relationship the next day.

As for the birthday things, just because my brother is my brother and I love him, doesn't mean he has to be one of my friends. When we all visit our parents, we do stuff together, but we also do lots of things seperately. All my friends know my siblings and I know theirs, but that doesn't mean they have to be my friends either. I think the thing is that you want to be friends with your sisters so you can't understand the kind of relationship I have with my siblings where we can love each other and enjoy being siblings, without it encroaching on our friendships. And I don't believe my relationship with my siblings is strange or different.

As for the wedding thing, truthfully - I was 27 when my sister got married. But, I was the little sister, I didn't earn that much money after I'd paid to travel, do the hen party thing etc, so I just didn't get them a gift. I doubt somehow that my sister even remembers or cares. [incidentally, I wasn't her bridesmaide either - her friend was. I didn't mind].

What it comes down to is that what you see as your sisters being mean and malicious, I see as being completely normal. IMO you have a romantacised view of what sibling relationships are and so are allowing normal sibling issues to get you down. Here's my question - if something happened to your DH and you needed your sister/s to come to your house and babysit while you went to the hospital with him, would they?
My brother, the one who I wouldn't invite to a small friends only birthday party, would be there in a heartbeat and I would do the same for him.

Thank you for saying such nice things about me OPO

Blingloving, thank you for your post, it has made me think. Yes, the ganging up thing is horrible but it sounds like in your family, it's not always the same sibling being ganged up on. In my case, it was always my sisters against me, never me and a sister against the other sister. So i guess i feel persecuted and for no good reason. And it was always middle sister who was the leader of the 'let's bully oneplusone' gang. (Of course i realise now she has had huge issues from very early on which she was taking out on me).

I think if the sibling nastiness was more 'spread out' and not always directed against me, i wouldn't feel so hurt by it. And what really makes it worse is that middle sister will quite happily use me when she feels like it, when she wants my advice on something she'll phone me straightaway and if I'm not around, demand that i phone her back straightaway. I have finally seen the light about her and last time she phoned me with her lastest emergency problem, i called her back when i was ready, not immediately as she wanted.

Your question about emergencies is a good one. I have thought about this myself many times. And the answer is that I wouldn't actually call either sister. Not because they both live over an hour away so would not be much good in an emergency anyway, but i don't feel as if they would be here in a 'heartbeat' to borrow your phrase. Instead I would call 1 or 2 friends who do live locally, who i have only known for a few years, but who I know, for sure, would do anything they could to help me and have specifically told me this, as they know i am alone here with no family support.

And this brings me back to a realisation i had not that long ago. That i should stop wasting my time and energy on my sisters who clearly don't care and don't appreciate me and instead invest far more in relationships i have with friends who treat me with far more care, consideration and respect than my sisters ever have. That's not to say that I will cut all ties with my sisters, but they will be far more peripheral to my life than they have been til now.

Aside from all the sibling nastiness, i also don't feel i actually like my youngest sister very much. Because there is such a big age gap between us, it feels almost like she is from a different generation, with different values for which i don't have much respect. Middle sister shares more of my values i feel, but she has a truckload of issues which I am certainly not going to let her take out on me anymore.

Perhaps when they are both quite a bit older, things might improve between us, but for the time being, i fully intend to keep my distance.

And Blingloving, you are right in that the wider dysfunctional family issue as a whole has had a huge impact on the sibling relationships in my family and what to you is normal, to me is upsetting. But there is really no point in telling me to see things as if i grew up in a 'functional' family (like you?) as i can't and more to the point, even if i somehow manage that, my sisters certainly won't be able to as they are totally oblivious as to just how badly dysfunctional our family was. They think it was normal and that I should just accept our parents as they are! ie they think how our parents brought us up was normal. And of course that is how so many children grow up, being abused, but not knowing any different and thinking that's just the way it is and it's normal or functional as there is no such thing as normal imho.

And that is the real tragedy here, as if my sisters think our parents were ok, then i presume they will bring up their DC's in the same way which i cannot even bear to think about. Like so many people on this thread have said, even if we never fully, 100% heal from the damage our parents caused us, at least, we know we have broken the cycle and will not pass on the abuse to our children. But in my sisters' case, so far, it seems they are going to unknowingly continue the same patterns with their DC's.

It might be ok. Your sisters might not have more than 2 children so it might not happen. Or they might not have such a big age gap between groups of children. The age gap must have made it much more likely for your sisters to group together than for one of them to group with you against the other one. Me and DH have had our DCs fairly close together in the hope that they will be friends...

OSAHM, yes I think both sisters will probably only have 2 DC's each so the ganging up thing is unlikely to happen. But the passing on of my dad's abusive ways, not the obvious stuff but the more subtle stuff of which my sisters are completely unaware, is much more likely to happen, especially wrt middle sister who clearly has loads of issues.

I feel I am far more able to simply accept my situation now. I was very upset/angry/bitter at the unfairness of it all, at how I was made to be different from my sisters because of the abuse. I suppose i was refusing to accept that i am very different from them solely as a result of the abuse; I was fighting the idea that i was different. I didn't want to be different, I wanted to be the same as them, and of course i wanted them to see me as the same as them and treat me as one of them, instead of treating me as seperate and different as they have done. Even though they themselves probably don't know why, I am sure they have a sense that I am different from them and that is why they treat me differently and are closer to each other.

I have realised there is no point in fighting it any longer. I am different from my sisters. I didn't start out that way, but i was forced to take a different path to them from the first day my dad started abusing me. I guess i just have to accept that i am who i am, i am a person who was damaged as a child whereas my sisters were not damaged like me and that will forever be a dividing line between us and nothing is likely to ever change that. It makes me feel very sad to realise this but at the same time i feel relieved in a way, i was trying to fight something that is impossible for me to change. To give up the fight is the only option i have but I actually feel liberated. Instead of wasting my energy on fighting something i can never change, i can use it more constructively in building other relationships.

OPO I once told my mum that if my sister and i weren't related, we probably wouldn't be friends. And unfortunately, that's how it is in life sometimes. Oh, it's all pleasant enough for most of the time, but she has different values from me and I can't/won't waste my time on someone who just "doesn't get it"... at the end of the day, it is a waste of energy and you have so much more to do with your life!

Yep, lemony, I totally agree!