New here! May have a PD sister

[googleb]

Hello everyone! Very happy to have found this resource and forum as it makes me feel less alone!

My counsellor showed me this website. She can't diagnose my family members officially but it is suspected that my sister has some kind of a personality disorder.
Growing up, I went through a lot of abuse from her and always thought it was normal. Now as an adult, I suffered from depression and even suicidal thoughts, thinking that it was caused by my mom's suicidal tendencies when I was a child, along with my dad's aspergers and narcissism.

I see now, however, that a lot of me feeling like this was caused by my sister's repeated telling me I was selfish when I offered to help her after hearing screaming in her room at the top of her lungs when she was a teenager. Being a younger sister I idolised her, making her many drawings daily, and she would just throw them in my face saying things like, "You're so stupid, I'm so mean to you yet you still love me", "You're a sucker", or "You're a pushover."

I see now that she has a very difficult time relating to people, as she has had a very hard time keeping jobs, often blaming all her coworkers instead of ever looking at how she could improve. Moreover, she's had a past of eating disorders and self harm; and I know that screaming at the top of your lungs into the pillow or at the sky while crying isn't normal for a teenager? She used to do that multiple times a day. When I ran to her room to see what was going on, she would tell me that I only ever cared about myself, or that not everything was about me and to leave her alone.

I see now that something is very wrong with her and she uses me to deflect everything she can't confront or fix.

After multiple arguments and verbal attacks by her over the last few years, I've decided to keep my distance, but now I have a family member who is ill, so all of us need to be involved. My sister was reluctant to help, even trying to convince me not to help our mother despite our stepdad possibly dying. Her reasoning is that our mother is a liar and an attention-seeker. However her reasoning doesn't make sense to me. My mom claimed she wasn't able to reach a nurse, and then after asking more questions, my sister found out she actually did reach a nurse but she didn't understand her because of a language barrier. So then my sister deduced that she was lying. Her taking everything so literally makes me see that she doesn't understand people or situations very well. My mother was also panicking and unable to think straight after her husband was rushed into the ER, and calling my sister multiple times in one day to help with english translation or just crying and worrying that she would be all alone after her husband passes. My sister took this as attention-seeking.

I've managed to convince my sister to help them as she is in the same country as them, but I am feeling stressed as she constantly complains to me after. Now after a few days, my sister has told me she is no longer able to help because she can't deal with our mother (who she has called a narcissistic abuser, and has also called me an abuse of narcissism, which apparently also makes me unable to think of anyone but myself). I found myself crying after I heard this, and I'm not even sure why. It shocked me to hear that someone wasn't exhausted because their family member was ill, but because she couldn't stand our mom. For me, it is understandable that someone with an ill family member would need more attention and help; I am struggling to even know how to deal with her, as I know she will never be be able to see it from a different perspective.

I often start crying after seeing my sister's messages, even if they don't seem that bad from an outsider's perspective. But I can hear it in a different tone than a stranger...all accumulated with accusations and verbal abuse from the past thrown in there. I just wish that she could put her own resentments and anger aside in this urgent health-related matter, especially during this time of COVID-19.

I always thought I was just oversensitive until I went through therapy and saw this website. Years of what I thought was condescension is actually true. Whenever I had achievements, it wasn't "I'm so happy for you!" Instead, it was "Good job on your progress!" "I know you are going to do great things in the future!" No acknowledgement of who I am right now. Constantly telling me what I needed to do next, comparing me and deducing me to numerical values of other people of the same age and their salaries, telling me that I would be happier if only I did x, y, z, and that I wasn't able to see that because I was a victim of abuse.

Now I feel like im starting to see the light, to see myself as I really am, not as who she says I am. To live my life apart from her, and starting to not care about what she thinks.

[notrightinthehead]

Welcome! You have found a good place. Check out the Toolbox tab for strategies to protect yourself when you have contact with your sister. I hope you have supportive people around you that can help you do a reality check. Coming from a disfunctional family, we sometimes don't know what is 'normal' and what is not.

I think you are on a good path. The fact that you see yourself as you really are and that you want to live your life the way you see is good for you shows your maturity. See you around on the boards!

[googleb]

Thank you!

[treesgrowslowly]

Hello and welcome,

What came to mind for me as I read your post is that idea of enmeshment and projection. In a family with a PD (or more), people project onto others, the emotional stuff that they can't deal with inside themselves. Other people (in the family) are used as a container for the projections.

On top of that, as if it were not bad enough to project one's misery onto someone else, they resent us for being their container. This is the complexity of a PD affected family. Sometimes it becomes a situation where everyone is upset and everyone accuses one another of being narcissistic because the boundaries are not respected. You're not narcissistic for having boundaries.

The concept of gaslighting has helped a lot of us here to understand why the projections in our FOO were / are so hurtful.

I agree with notrightinthehead.

See you around on the boards.

Trees