Does this hoover mean sibling could be PD?

[DistanceNotDefense]

Hi all - I've received a number of vacuous "happy holidays" type hoovers from FOO over the holidays (NC with all right now), but the real gut punch came from my younger sib yesterday. To the effect of: I'm very lonely, I can't explain why to you right now, and I'm going to be very vague about it, but all I know and can say about it is that you're not here for me in this hard time, and that's very hard for me, also, I miss you. No apology whatsoever.

We used to have the closest relationship in the family. But it's ironic she is expressing this to me, considering that she deliberately told me that she couldn't be there for me early last year when I was at a very low point, that it was too much for her (even going so far as think my need for emotional support from her was abusive and using her like a therapist, even though I was in therapy at the time... but that's a whole other story).

She also enabled a lot of my other older sibling's destructive and betraying behavior. Who, on the other hand, I'm 99.999% certain is PD as her behavior is very overt uNPD/uASPD/malignant narcissist. She helped the smear campaign older sib created and deliberately broke my confidence several times even when I asked for it explicitly, and I'm fairly certain she did it in order to fuel this smear campaign, too. (Not to mention, this all took place at one of my lowest and most stressful periods of my life, getting diagnosed with CPTSD, and when I thought I could lean on family for support, just like they have leaned on me.)

I have been on the fence thinking that younger sib could even be a PD (at the most severely flea-bitten, or at least very much like a puppet to my M and older sib), and understandably so. It's hard to completely let go of someone you were so close with for years and years and realize it all could have been fake because we were keeping some sort of peace (though this is not the first time we've had conflict, over which she was flippant and didn't apologize - it was just for more minor/non-dealbreaker things I could get over, chocked it up to her being "immature.").

I'm NC with all of them now including younger sib, not just PD sib. But I have left communication open to read messages just in case....of something, anything, without responding. That apology you hope for, I guess. But also to get more "evidence" to myself to support my suspicion that my other two FOO (M and younger sib) are also very possibly narcs to some extent, and are very, very, very covert about it. (Nothing but gaslighting and projection with every contact with them, but a lot of people with just tendencies might do that? - so I want to know, how do they react when communication just stops?)

So, do you think this hoover is evidence of her being PD? I laid things out to her months and months ago. That I needed space from family right now (up until now she's continued to text, just more spaced out, but like nothing's wrong) and that we could discuss this by email (she hasn't done that). I also made it very clear how I feel completely betrayed by her behavior. (When I confronted her about this she deflected and projected on me with everything.)

Again, I feel like so many posters here who write things out and then think, " Oh no, I think I already know the answer."

This is the most convincing evidence so far and it is just so hard to let go, and to really accept you might have lost your entire family to mental illness. But I wanted to know others' thoughts.

A part of me knows the truth, but it's like it's just a tiny pinprick in a huge tapestry of denial, it just doesn't feel like enough. Very hard to accept that a really close relationship through the majority of my life was 100% fake. All of those relationships weren't real, and it almost feels like I was raised by wolves.

I keep telling myself that once I feel I know for certain, I will officially block them, permanently, no more "seeking evidence" to convince and validate my choice. But do you ever really *feel* certain? Will there ever *feel* like there's enough evidence? What am I holding onto?

[Hepatica]

Distance,

How do her words make you feel? Do you feel comforted or do you feel thrown? Are you feeling more foggy or more clear? Her words to me, sound manipulative and self-pitying.

I have no sense of what to make of them but something has told you in the past to protect yourself and trusting ourselves is part of what comes hard after growing up in PD family dynamics.

If you engage will you be setting yourself up for more family drama? Is this good for you in your healing process? Would it cause significant stress for you to hear her out and then decide?

Why does she want you to rescue her from her loneliness? That's a bit of a red flag. And also, if she is not completely disengaging from your other PD sister and going NC with your FOO, how healthy would having a relationship with her be for you?

Maybe sit with her message for a few days and let yourself get more clear and calm before you respond? Know what your boundaries are clearly if you do engage and be prepared to be possibly disappointed, so that you won't be too shocked if she says something that's gaslighty or blaming.

Personally though, her words sound selfish to me. It's all about her. She did not say anything to indicate she's had some realizations and understand where you have been coming from. Therefore I wouldn't expect too much from her.

I know that feeling of wanting certainty. I want it too and I second guess myself but what I keep coming back to is that I feel better not being in the family circle of drama and that's what I need. We just want peace. And I know it's very sad that we lose an entire family to gain it. I hate that part of it. But the thing is, we never had that ideal family to begin with.

Ultimately, unless she is able to point out exactly that she understands your point of view on your decisions, I am not sure I trust your sister.

Sometimes covert behaviour is brutal because it intensifies our self-doubt. I think they probably know this which is why covert seems nearly more dangerous to me. My sister and father are both covert. They have nearly destroyed my sense of self over the years, slowly and quietly. My mother is overt and I know, at least, that others know she's unstable so they believe me and understand when I keep my distance from her. With my sister, especially, people are confused because my sister is so charming and nice.

[Hilltop]

My initial reaction is not to trust her.  First thing that stands out is that she said you could discuss it by email.  I don't trust PD's with anything in writing.  She can then forward it and show anyone she likes, I would not put anything in writing.  Discuss whatever you need to over the phone or in person but I wouldn't agree to in writing and the fact she states via email is odd.  Would you discuss your friends personal issue over email?  No not likely.

Second thing that stands out is how she says she is lonely but doesn't actually open about anything, its all very vague.  Then she tries to guilt you with how hard it is for her at the moment and then manipulate you with she misses you.  At no point does she ask about you or how are you, it's all about her.

She enabled all your other siblings smear campaign and yet has not apologised.  My theory and I could be very wrong is that you are NC and so she is reaching out to get supply from you, she needs gossip for the other family members.  Or perhaps they have turned on her now and it's hard for her so she is trying to bring you back in.  Since you are NC I wonder if they are thinking you are lonely without them and so she reaches out to hear how you are struggling, in writing of course via email and then she sends it on to smear campaign sib to continue the smear and paint the lie.  If she had of come to you and apologised in a genuine manner then I would trust her more however she hasn't shown you anything to suggest she would act any different to how she did in the past.

I could be very wrong however if you feel the need to protect yourself, trust it, trust that instinct. 

If NC is going well for you, I would continue and not respond to your younger sib.  It just sounds too raw at the moment.  Take this time for yourself.  If you let them back in it will confuse you more.  Take time to reflect and sort things out.  I haven't tried to diagnose any of my family, I think they have certain traits but for me it's whether those relationships are healthy for my life.  I am still sorting that out.  Even if your younger sib has fleas and not a PD, if she doesn't help herself the relationship may stay unhealthy for you.  Take some time to work that out.  You don't need to rescue her or caretake for her just because she said she is at a low point.  She didn't do that for you, you are not responsible for her or her emotions.  This time is for you.

[DistanceNotDefense]

Thank you Hepatica, and thank you Hilltop big hug to you both!

I got another message from her yesterday. Paraphrased: Hope you're OK, even if that means I'm not in your life anymore and that's better for you.

My gut reaction? Ew! Ick! How can she suddenly sound like a forlorn ex-boyfriend? Who even is this person? Does she even realize what she sounds like? I've never, ever experienced this side of her, ever.

I agree with the both of you, Hepatica and Hilltop. My younger sibling's message seemed so distrustful, manipulative, self-pitying, and now this one smacks of it, too. Maybe what I'm feeling is cognitive dissonance, that these words come from a person who I so deeply cared about for over a decade and who by all intents and purposes thought cared about me in return. She has been immensely supportive of me in the past, and it must have all been hollow all along (or suddenly easy to deny with the current smear campaign). I really thought, if there is anyone in my FOO who still has a spark of hope to get out, it would be her. But with these messages, that idea is just getting darker and darker. This is either what she really wants to be, she's a puppet flying monkey to the PD drama, or she's both.

Hepatica - despite how I feel, nothing can bring me to respond to her, or other family members right now, for that matter (unless it is relational). Not going to happen! Their choices these past couple years have gutted me emotionally. It's something I can't just pretend to be OK about and for them to not address. But what I've done is left that door open barely a crack just to see message responses in NC. Out of morbid curiosity perhaps. Also because I've never seen how my FOO reacts or how they communicate when I just don't respond, and how much that will reveal to me about how they really are...to see what happens when the mask slips. (Especially with this family member in particular.)

So far it's really only been mild rug-sweeping, and now....this. The hoovers are definitely ramping up, and it's feeling textbook to me, which I honestly expected. Just didn't expect how it would make me feel, and what I would be forced to accept, especially with this family member. The type of bond we used to have was staying up late having deep conversations, supporting each other through breakups, holding each other when we cried, bringing each other wine and snacks when we were down, telling each other our deepest secrets and dreams, etc. it was incredibly close up until a little under a year ago. We've moved places and traveled around the country together. This rupture has been traumatizing. And now it's clear that she's far beyond being just an enabler.

Maybe there is no amount of evidence that will ever allay my inherent denial that I know is there, and by doing this I'm just kidding myself, because guilt and denial hit me every time. And I need to take a different approach to dismantling the denial with help of a trauma therapist and just go fully NC (if I could ever find a good one in this area...they are scarce), especially where my covert younger sibling and M are concerned.

Sometimes covert behaviour is brutal because it intensifies our self-doubt. I think they probably know this which is why covert seems nearly more dangerous to me. My sister and father are both covert. They have nearly destroyed my sense of self over the years, slowly and quietly.

Oh absolutely And my response to this addresses something I wanted to respond to from your message too, Hilltop: that I am really seeing how groomed and conditioned I was to be this sibling's caretaker and rescuer. It's a hard habit and impulse to break. Now I realize how much prime real estate it's taken up in my brain, when before I thought it made me such a loving and good sister. Now it's just been turned into a weapon against me by the rest of the family. It's unbelievable. I've rescued and protected her many times while my M was emotionally absent or caught up with the GC/uNPD/uASPD sibling (or herself).

But, no one can rescue or caretake me in this family, even at the barest minimum. I'm "too much" when I do this - and yet still expected to caretake and rescue everyone else, even when unconditional support for my situation is denied.

[DistanceNotDefense]

Oh, and I almost forgot to add Hilltop: it's not her saying email exchange only, it's me. In my FOO things actually work the opposite. In-person conversations get so gaslit and highjacked when there is any conflict that practically nothing gets communicated, I always get majorly steamrolled and it's like talking to a wall. It's actually the only way I can get anything across and have proof of what I said to defend myself, too.

I can also be very, very careful about what I say in case it is passed on and read by someone else. Otherwise I really don't get any words in and what I say in person is more liable to be twisted and misconstrued for the smear campaign. When I had conflict with my covert Narc M right before NC, she would steamroll and ambush like crazy, and refused to correspond over email because she *knew* that in person was how she could best take control of the whole narrative. She has, and she will. Since her and this sibling are most similar in personality I suspect that's how she is too though I've never had a conflict this bad with her, these messages are revealing a lot.

[Hilltop]

Hey Distance sorry I misread the email part, that makes more sense with how you want to handle things.  Conversations with my mother are the same, denial, gaslighting and deflecting, it's pointless.  You have a very valid reason for doing it by email and it would be good if the other person could sit with the words a little and ponder them rather than in a conversation which is just a blaming exercise with PD's.

After reading your description of your past relationship it just sounds so opposite to now, it's baffling.  It doesn't sound like your memory of that time is wrong, it does sound supportive and loving.  I can see how this is traumatising for you.  I am not sure how someone goes from that to then engaging in a smear campaign, in her core she should know you deeply.  I am so sorry, it must be extremely hurtful.

You say you both supported each other back then, through break ups etc.  So there was support between you then.  It seems like something happened a year ago which has drastically changed things unless you look back and see that she didn't actually support you but just spoke of her own feelings however you also travelled together which again shows a close relationship. 

Distance usually helps give clarity.  She isn't giving you much in her messages, just short little messages with little to no information, just enough to try to get you drawn back in without much effort on her part, a little bit of guilt too.  She thinks she may be out of your life and you get one or two sentences in a message.  I don't know about that,  if she was genuine I would have expected a lengthier email by now.

[DistanceNotDefense]

Thanks for your response Hilltop and no worries about the mix-up! Keeping email out of the picture really makes sense for a lot of other/most PD situations.

Yes, the situation with my younger sibling really was a 180 flip. And that is why it is so confusing, figuring out "what" she is, because so much of this is not like her at all.

I know for certain that my other sister, the one who is undoubtedly NPD/ASPD (though not diagnosed), had suddenly started talking to her a lot more before and leading up to that point she flipped, when they had not been close at all prior. Something happened, she said something to her. It sounded like they suddenly got closer and were talking a whole lot more, and about me (bringing my M into it, too).

I even found out that she (PD) was "coaching" her on what to say before spending time with me, as if I was crazy, abusive, and dangerous just for taking to her about my mental health state (really struggling at the time). I think she was starting to plant ideas in her head that our closeness over all these years was because I was abusive and I was using her like a therapist. (I was in therapy though....) PD sib has ways been jealous of our relationship.

Those are ideas that I feel, in my gut, knowing her, are not her original ideas, but the fact she can believe the smear so quickly is horrifying and questionable; and there are some signs along the way that make me feel that she has her very own new negative feelings about me, that it's not just the PD, but I can't be sure. It is possible that PD sibling is still advising her on what to text me too, even now, and that's where my doubt comes that she is not PD. I am not 100% clear what is going on behind the scenes.

On the one hand, her communications are so selfish and manipulative they just scream PD behavior and tendencies, to the point where I think "is she just straight up a PD too?" On the other hand, I know the bonafide PD in my family kind of has her claws in her to some extent. But if she were to be devalued and discarded (PD sibling did that to me...it's only a matter of time), she's already pretty unstable/isolated/alcoholic and knowing her, it could be dangerous because after that she'd be totally, totally alone (and she is quite codependent and extroverted). That is another one of the reasons I keep that NC door open just a crack. When she gets the discard, has no one, and sees that she was played all along, I would be willing to send her resources so she doesn't harm herself. But only if it was 1000% clear she finally realized what she really got swept up in.