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[quote=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?[/quote]

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