at the end of my rope with my sister's bizarre, hurtful behavior

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08/03/2022 20:40

Subject: at the end of my rope with my sister's bizarre, hurtful behavior

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Anonymous

My sister is my only sibling, and we were never super close growing up. I felt bullied by her when we were young and once I was old enough to push back, I did. When we started having kids, we got a bit closer and it's been a bit of an arm's length relationship for me. The thing is, I am convinced that she is mentally ill, and have been convinced of this for most of our lives. All her life, she has been hot and cold with all of her relationships. Even as a kid, she had a new best friend every year or so, until they had a big blow up and then that person became her enemy. I can't even list all the bridges she's burned in her life. Multiple schools, her kids' private schools, three different churches, countless kid activities, etc. There is always an issue. Everywhere she goes, there is eventually some incident that infuriates her and the other person immediately becomes the one who caused it, and is cut off forever. With most, if not all, of these incidents, the person remains out of her life, because they were usually just a friend. She has had bouts with both my parents (divorced) and our dad makes a point to reach out only on holidays, and does not give gifts, since she has burned him so many times in the past. He is not super engaged as it is, and lives out of state, but we communicate regularly and he sends gift cards to DH, the kids, and me on holidays and birthdays. But not to my sister's family. With my mom, she is much worse--curses her out, invites her over and then refuses to answer the door, threatens to sue over items from her childhood that my mom threw out, etc--but my mom keeps letting her come back in and act like nothing happened.

This past winter holiday season, there was a miscommunication about hosting events, and seemingly out of nowhere in February, my sister removed DH and me from all her social media. I sent her messages and she did not respond. She removed our mom as well, but sent her nasty text messages about old wrongs. I reached out a few more times, and after a month or two, she explained that she had been really stressed and in a bad place, and didn't feel supported. It didn't make much sense, but I'm used to it. Things seemed to go back to normal, and she messaged me asking for advice about things that relate to my career, some of our recent purchases, and vacation ideas.

Today, she messaged me a threatening note about an item of hers that my mom allegedly has at her house. I made the mistake of suggesting she go to our mom about it instead of putting me in the middle, and she lost her mind. I got a barrage of messages telling me that I'm no longer part of her family and that I'd better not contact her or her family again. I asked her to explain, and she went back to the miscommunication from December, which she has turned into an incident of complete and deliberate deception on my part. We went back and forth, with me trying really really hard to be calm and just get her to explain what in the world she was talking about. It ended when she threatened me, saying she would take me down and I should watch my back. Part of me just sees this as typical behavior for her, but I also know that she and her DH have guns, and she's the type who might file false reports about me or badmouth me to my employer, just to make my life difficult.

I just don't know where to go from here. I've made a point to keep the doors open, not because I particularly want a relationship with her, but because I recognize that she has at least some form of mental illness and I want to be there for her when she gets help for it. Her DH has tried to do an intervention more than once, but he always changes his mind at the last minute, and I think he feeds into her delusion by giving it credibility. I could block her number and remove her from my social media (right now her DH can still see my account, and I know he shows her what our family has been doing). DH asked if I would consider getting the courts involved, due to the threats, but I feel as though that would just make things worse. In my heart of hearts, I believe that this will blow over like everything else and she will soon be messaging me to ask what kind of lawnmower we have and do we like it.

I don't even know what I'm looking for in writing this, but it's stressing me out quite a bit. I'd be fine never talking to her again, but making that decision is tough. And cutting her off, even in social media, is really a bell that can't be unrung. Any sage advice for how to navigate this situation?