Help me disengage from family meltdown

[Anonymous]

My sister and I are both in our 30s. Our parents were physically and emotionally abusive, but we've both maintained relations with them through the years and throughout the years have talked openly with each other about our abusive upbringing. My sister has had a rather close relationship with our father as an adult b/c she felt he had made amends for his behavior. My mother is more difficult (the pop pyschology diagnosis would definitely be narcissism but maybe she's just mean, who knows), but my sister had taken a pretty Zen approach to her... until recently. A few month ago, my sister (who is seeing a new therapist) started sending both my parents angry e-mails about her childhood. In the course of doing so, she revealed that she was far more depressed (even suicidal) as a child/teenager than I realized. My parents were surprised by this and it's now come out that my sister made attempts to express the depth of her suffering to my mother when she was growing up and my mom basically ignored her and turned a blind eye. (My dad was oblivious too but she's more angry at my mom because sis actually tried to talk to her.)

I'm writing because my mom just WILL NOT apologize genuinely to my sister about this. And it drives me crazy. My mom and I have discussed my sister and my mom expresses concern but it's all this generalized worry about what (she thinks) is going on in my sister's life instead of a focus on her OWN relationship with sis and the crap she did wrong parenting her. Once I flat out told her that she needs to apologize and she just looks perplexed and said "I don't know what to say. Will you write it for me?" WTF? Obviously I told her I'm not writing her apology to my sister. This has been going on for months, with my sister sending e-mails intermittedly in response to my parent's attempt to contact her or some other trigger. I am cc'd on a lot of these e-mails, even though no one is really talking about me. I really need to disengage, but everytime I get one of these e-mails, I get pissed on behalf of my sister when I see the crappy pseudo-apologies my Mom is e-mailing (of the "I'm sorry you feel this way" variety) and then fire off my own e-mail to my mom telling her to leave my sis alone if she's not going to genuinely apologize.

I send my parents a book about reconciling with adult children from Xmas. My dad read it and really got it and has actually sent my sister genuine apologies that have helped her heal. My mom is a different story. She's driving me crazy to the point where I feel like I should cut her off, too, as my sister is doing. My parents were crappy to me growing up but, for reasons that I don't want to get into, my sister was more vulnerable and has been more damaged by their parenting. Am I over-identifying with my sister? I'm married and 2 months pregnant now and need to detach myself from this craziness! Has anyone BTDT? How do I avoid being dragged into this emotional rollarcoaster?

[Anonymous]

Send the emails to junk. Don't take any calls for a week.

[Anonymous]

I think you should focus on your own healing. Your parents' apologies may help but they are not the cure.

[Anonymous]

This is ridiculous. You sister needs to accept that your mother will never change, and move forward with her own life, limiting contact with her. Over time, there might be forgiveness.

Is this the new therapist's idea? S/he should know that forcing a genuine apology from someone who is reluctant is impossible. I tried that with my mother and it only led to more resentment and recriminations on both sides. In my 20s I realized that all the wrongs my parents had done were in the past, and that nobody but me had the power to break with that cycle and redirect my life. That continuing to blame them for my adult problems directly caused by their poor parenting was not helping me solve these problems! I moved across the Atlantic and built a new life for myself, far away from my mother's drama and my father's weirdness.

I understand that it is hard to limit contact with one parent while being on good terms with the other - I'm living this right now. Frankly, your mother seems too far gone to turn it around, and your sister HAS to let go for her own health. We all of us only have one life to live - move on already.

[Anonymous]

OP here. My post is full of typos reflective of how upset I am right now. Hope it's comprehensible.

One other piece of this -- my mother is a Christian pastor. (This was a career change for her when we were teenagers.) It infuriates me to no end that someone who claims to be a spiritual leader is this crappy to my sister who is going through such a painful time right now. Really? A Christian pastor can't figure out how to apologize? Really? My husband and I are atheists and my mom was miffed we didn't come to her church service for Xmas. Besides the fact that we are atheists, I can't ever imagine going to one of her idiotic church services again because I have no respect for her as a "Christian." I have plenty of Christian friends who draw actual strength and a moral compass from their faith. She is not one of them.

[Anonymous]

OP, since you're pregnant, best course of action is to detach from this drama as much as possible right now! Don't send anyone any more books. Stay out of the line of fire.

Sorry about your problem childhood. Sometimes when people work through their feelings about really dysfunctional childhoods, they start acting out in ways that can stir things up. Sounds like your sister's at that stage. It's not a bad thing, and she's not wrong, but it probably won't change much in the family dynamic other than creating collateral damage as the really dysfunctional parent reacts - guess you're the collateral damage unless and until you remove yourself as much as possible from the situation.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am so sorry that you got dealt such a shitty hand with your mom. That sucks. I think the earlier posters gave great advice about disengaging with your mom, as well. Focus your energy in yourself and your own health.

[Anonymous]

My borderline personality disorder MIL is a hospital chaplain. She uses her "credentials" to slam her family members. She has no relationship with her siblings, or her cousins in her hometown. She has cut off myself and her other DIL, and her relationship with her sons consists mostly of sending out nasty e-mails.

Some people are just broken, and you can't fix them. For some people, their supposed "helping profession" is just a cover.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My borderline personality disorder MIL is a hospital chaplain. She uses her "credentials" to slam her family members. She has no relationship with her siblings, or her cousins in her hometown. She has cut off myself and her other DIL, and her relationship with her sons consists mostly of sending out nasty e-mails.

Some people are just broken, and you can't fix them. For some people, their supposed "helping profession" is just a cover.

Yes- so true! I could have written this post!

[Anonymous]

OP again. Thanks, everyone. I'm really trying to disengage but it's SO hard. I went to yoga right after this morning's family e-mail barrage to try to get my mind of it and it didn't work. Here I am three hours later still fuming. Also, my sister is lucky enough to live 8 hours away, while I live like 30 minutes from my parents. I WISH i had some literal distance from them. DC traffic makes it feel not so close, at least.

[Anonymous]

Hang in there OP- patterns are hard to break. You'll get there! It takes time but it gets better. Btdt.

[Anonymous]

That your sister is dragging this up again and trying to get an apology suggests she still has a long way to go in her healing. It's fine to tell people how they've hurt you, and to adjust your relationship with them depending on how they respond, but you can't force someone to give you the response you're looking for. Your mother is never going to give your sister what she wants, and your sister needs to find another way to make peace with that.

As do you. You need to find a way to stop getting crazy about your mother's refusal to apologize to your sister. As a first step, I'd suggest completely removing yourself from the situation. That your sister cc's you on all of these emails strongly suggests you and she are very much in need of boundaries, and it's time to tell her that you can't be part of these discussions anymore, that they're between her your parents, so please leave you off the emails. If she keeps cc'ing you, warn her that you will block her email completely if she continues, and then follow through on that if she does. And then everyone involved needs to know that you don't want them talking to you about it anymore either. It's their issue, you're not making it yours anymore.

If you're not in therapy yourself (can't remember if you said you were or not, but I suspect if you were you wouldn't be bringing this to DCUM), you should give it a try. For your own emotional health, you need to work on setting boundaries and on accepting your family the way it is rather than hoping for change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That your sister is dragging this up again and trying to get an apology suggests she still has a long way to go in her healing. It's fine to tell people how they've hurt you, and to adjust your relationship with them depending on how they respond, but you can't force someone to give you the response you're looking for. Your mother is never going to give your sister what she wants, and your sister needs to find another way to make peace with that.

As do you. You need to find a way to stop getting crazy about your mother's refusal to apologize to your sister. As a first step, I'd suggest completely removing yourself from the situation. That your sister cc's you on all of these emails strongly suggests you and she are very much in need of boundaries, and it's time to tell her that you can't be part of these discussions anymore, that they're between her your parents, so please leave you off the emails. If she keeps cc'ing you, warn her that you will block her email completely if she continues, and then follow through on that if she does. And then everyone involved needs to know that you don't want them talking to you about it anymore either. It's their issue, you're not making it yours anymore.

If you're not in therapy yourself (can't remember if you said you were or not, but I suspect if you were you wouldn't be bringing this to DCUM), you should give it a try. For your own emotional health, you need to work on setting boundaries and on accepting your family the way it is rather than hoping for change.

I actually AM in therapy! But here I am on DCUM anyway. My therapist told me to remember that I am not my sister and to maintain distance, but it's just easier said than done. I thought it might help me to hear from people who had been in similar situations. I appreciate your advice. -OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That your sister is dragging this up again and trying to get an apology suggests she still has a long way to go in her healing. It's fine to tell people how they've hurt you, and to adjust your relationship with them depending on how they respond, but you can't force someone to give you the response you're looking for. Your mother is never going to give your sister what she wants, and your sister needs to find another way to make peace with that.

As do you. You need to find a way to stop getting crazy about your mother's refusal to apologize to your sister. As a first step, I'd suggest completely removing yourself from the situation. That your sister cc's you on all of these emails strongly suggests you and she are very much in need of boundaries, and it's time to tell her that you can't be part of these discussions anymore, that they're between her your parents, so please leave you off the emails. If she keeps cc'ing you, warn her that you will block her email completely if she continues, and then follow through on that if she does. And then everyone involved needs to know that you don't want them talking to you about it anymore either. It's their issue, you're not making it yours anymore.

If you're not in therapy yourself (can't remember if you said you were or not, but I suspect if you were you wouldn't be bringing this to DCUM), you should give it a try. For your own emotional health, you need to work on setting boundaries and on accepting your family the way it is rather than hoping for change.

I actually AM in therapy! But here I am on DCUM anyway. My therapist told me to remember that I am not my sister and to maintain distance, but it's just easier said than done. I thought it might help me to hear from people who had been in similar situations. I appreciate your advice. -OP

PP here. My family history is nearly identical to yours (except my mom didn't become a pastor). What I will say with the benefit of hindsight is that setting boundaries is not so much hard as painful and scary. The actual act of setting them is fairly easy once you accept that you can't control the other person's reaction to them, and that they might get angry with you for doing so (which is only a reflection of their own poor emotional health).

The other thing I'll pass along, simply because everything you said is so eerily familiar, is that when I finally started to take care of myself w/r/t my family, I came to learn that my sister wasn't the ally I thought she was, and that was tremendously painful. She wasn't ready to separate herself from the drama and start really healing, and when I wasn't willing to continue going on that trip with her, she became extremely angry with me and lashed out. Hopefully your sister wouldn't react the same way, but it's worth being prepared for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

PP here. My family history is nearly identical to yours (except my mom didn't become a pastor). What I will say with the benefit of hindsight is that setting boundaries is not so much hard as painful and scary. The actual act of setting them is fairly easy once you accept that you can't control the other person's reaction to them, and that they might get angry with you for doing so (which is only a reflection of their own poor emotional health).

The other thing I'll pass along, simply because everything you said is so eerily familiar, is that when I finally started to take care of myself w/r/t my family, I came to learn that my sister wasn't the ally I thought she was, and that was tremendously painful. She wasn't ready to separate herself from the drama and start really healing, and when I wasn't willing to continue going on that trip with her, she became extremely angry with me and lashed out. Hopefully your sister wouldn't react the same way, but it's worth being prepared for.

Yup, that already happened once. At points during this meltdown I've tried to push back against some of my sister's rage, both along the lines of sharing my less harsh perspective on some of my mother's behavior (there are certain things that my sister is just demonstratively factually incorrect about) and along the lines of saying that while I support her, I don't feel the need to cut my parents off (yet) as she was kinda pushing me to do too. She freaked out and called me a traitor. Later she apologized.

On some level I feel guilty because admist our dysfunctional childhood I was not a great big sis to her; I have apologized numerous times to her about this and she's pretty over it now. But on some level I feel like now I'm trying to make up for it and protect her now. But we're adults and there's really not a lot I can do.

-OP