Do I owe you an apology if I told you the truth and it subsequently hurt your feeelings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, maybe you should focus on being grateful that you didn't get this highly heritable illness. You can't blame mentally ill people for mentally ill behavior. Its not rational.

OP here, legit question, so what does the "normal" one do? Am I never allowed to acknowledge the very real feelings I have because I should be grateful? What do I do with my feelings? Bury them? Constantly cater to others? Won't being the strong one eventually drive me crazy too? Do I just continue on in this twilight zone of a life where no one calls a rose a rose?

You go to a therapist yourself and they help you too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am assuming a lot of you have never dealt with a functionally mentally ill person before, or you may be that functionally mental ill person who everyone in your family is having to tolerate. Which may explain some of the hit dog will holler responses.

+1 my experience has been that people from normal families will never get the scope of what it means to deal with a functionally mentally ill person.
They think you exaggerate or are not compassionate enough after practically becoming Mother Theresa like.

I totally get that. But I'm really feeling like I'm missing something, or that a post was deleted. Where has OP discussed things that her sister did to her?

Not caretaking of dad doesn't count, because the sister didn't cause the circumstances. Nor does the sister having some non-harmful personality things like social anxiety. Like... what has the sister actually DONE to OP? I don't get it.

[Anonymous]

In the future, if you have something serious you want to say, say it by phone or in person. If you wanted to say x, y, and z, and you were on the phone and you had said x and then your sister sounds upset, then you would know not to say y and z. Whereas if you're communicating by text and you go ahead with saying x, y, and z and then you don't know how the other person really feels about it.

I understand the temptation to say something by text, but you really shouldn't.

[Anonymous]

OP - too much to read.

If you are in good shape mentally, and the others are not, you should act like the grownup and you should be the one held to a higher standard of compassion, kindness, and empathy.

Just say the damned apology for the effect of your words. I hope you were kind when you spoke.

[Anonymous]

In a text? Your sisters maybe mental ill, but you are just a mean bitch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am assuming a lot of you have never dealt with a functionally mentally ill person before, or you may be that functionally mental ill person who everyone in your family is having to tolerate. Which may explain some of the hit dog will holler responses.

Mentally ill father and brother, I would never be as horrible as OP. But I’m a better person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you truly believe she is struggling with mental illness, it's not reasonable to believe that she is making a conscious choice to behave the way she does just to upset you.

+1, you have some significant mental health issues in your family. She needs love and support not you being nasty.

That's the thing, I wasn't nasty. I was honest and I am tired. I'm tired of pretending like there isn't a very clear problem. I am tired of my dad pretending like I am not the only one who is taking care of him emotionally. Minus me he would be alone. The brunt is on me, but the credit is being shared. Now that my mom is gone everything is on me, but no one will acknowledge it. I am the strong one and I am absolutely sick of the roll.

1. You seem to be of the mistaken belief that you can't be both honest and cruel at the same time.
2. Who cares about "credit being shared equally?" There is no best daughter prize. Get over it.
3. Only one that is taking care of him emotionally is very nebulous. Did you ever think that the fact that he feels that your other siblings also take care of him may mean that he doesn't view things the same way you do?
4. Honest or not there is no legitimate reason why you needed to "be honest" with your sister via text. Seriously, most people wouldn't even break up with someone they have been on a few dates with via text. Let alone make mental diagnosis of a sibling.
5. If you were trying to help you would have given her some resources (I.e. The name of a mental health professional in her areas). Instead you just told her all the ways she sucks and expected her to be grateful.

All of this. Texting is absolutely the wrong medium for this kind of message, and what you think was just blunt and honest may well have come across as cold and cruel. You shouldn't be diagnosing other people with mental illness in the first place, and if you think there are unaddressed issues, you point her towards resources. You set limits about how much you will listen to or help with. You temper your expectations of her to match reality. But unloading on her via text is not going to make things better.

And if you are doing this expecting recognition and credit, you need to get over that quick. My mom did 99 percent of the work caring for my elderly grandmother. But she never demanded that my grandmother "acknowledge" this, because it would have meant forcing her to acknowledge that her other children were not willing to help care for her, which would have been devastating. So my mom basically made her siblings do stuff to help out, even it it was just taking Grandma out to lunch once in a while, and never let on that she was orchestrating it. Because it wasn't about her and her getting credit. It was about making my grandmother happy in her final years. The only reward she got was knowing that she had done what she thought was right.

You are in a hard place, and you really need to find a therapist or support group or something so that you have a place where you can talk about these issues and get some constructive suggestions for dealing with your situation, rather than letting things build up until you can't keep it in, and then attacking people around you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you truly believe she is struggling with mental illness, it's not reasonable to believe that she is making a conscious choice to behave the way she does just to upset you.

+1, you have some significant mental health issues in your family. She needs love and support not you being nasty.

That's the thing, I wasn't nasty. I was honest and I am tired. I'm tired of pretending like there isn't a very clear problem. I am tired of my dad pretending like I am not the only one who is taking care of him emotionally. Minus me he would be alone. The brunt is on me, but the credit is being shared. Now that my mom is gone everything is on me, but no one will acknowledge it. I am the strong one and I am absolutely sick of the roll.

You have crazy running in the family and your issue is who gets "credit"? See, that was honest, did it hurt your feelings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, maybe you should focus on being grateful that you didn't get this highly heritable illness. You can't blame mentally ill people for mentally ill behavior. Its not rational.

OP here, legit question, so what does the "normal" one do? Am I never allowed to acknowledge the very real feelings I have because I should be grateful? What do I do with my feelings? Bury them? Constantly cater to others? Won't being the strong one eventually drive me crazy too? Do I just continue on in this twilight zone of a life where no one calls a rose a rose?

Sorry that you're in such a difficult situation, OP. Here's my advice - start setting boundaries on what you will do but don't expect that your sister will ever help. There must be some chores you could let go of that someone else besides your sister (whether paid help or a neighbor) could take over. Your sister will never do what she ought to do. You're better off if you try to figure out how to alleviate the burden you have without counting on her. So sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am surprised how many unsympathetic responses OP is getting . Shows how stepping in and helping out is a fruitless job. PP got it right, lower expectations to O. Nothing coining from your sister nor your father that would help your mental stability. I am sorry OP, I feel you.

I'm not convinced that OP is really helping. She only says she is doing the "emotional work." That sounds to me like her father is in some sort of facility where he is being cared for and she assumes she is the only one to call him.

[Anonymous]

You didn’t tell the truth. You told her your perception, which on some level is uncharitable. Thinking something is true doesn’t relieve you from the obligation to communicate it in a way that is likely to be received. Did you expect her to say, “oh you’re right, I’m a total gaslighter”? No. You were laying it on her and now you want it to be her fault that you were a jerk about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You didn’t tell the truth. You told her your perception, which on some level is uncharitable. Thinking something is true doesn’t relieve you from the obligation to communicate it in a way that is likely to be received. Did you expect her to say, “oh you’re right, I’m a total gaslighter”? No. You were laying it on her and now you want it to be her fault that you were a jerk about it.

This, ooooooh THIS! How horrible it must have been for the younger sister to hear the ping of her text messaging system, pick up her phone to read the text, be happy seeing she has a text from her older sister and find herself getting dumped all over by said older sister. No warning, no nothing. Just sewage spilling from her older sister. Not nice, not helpful and NOT truthful.

[Anonymous]

OP I can definitely relate I have a sister with severe social anxiety has never dated has no friends and is in complete denial that anything is a problem.

I've tried in a lot of different ways to get her to open up about why she does not socialize or date or have any contact with human beings outside of her nuclear family and her co-workers.She just does not want to talk about it and it's just been always a non-starter.

I don't think texting a big confrontation to a person is really going to help them at all especially when it's coming out of the blue. I think you should try to apologize to your sister and figure out other ways that you can vent your feelings about being the person who has to be the strong one or has to be the default caretaker. I think it's one thing to complain to a sibling about their lack of support but you text them all kinds of theories about your armchair psychiatrist diagnosis is not helping

[Anonymous]

Next time tell her in person and preface it with "With all due respect sister, " then no need to apologize.

[Anonymous]

OP - she didn't ask for your opinion/help. It's a MYOB, even though it's family. You are the one with the problem