BPD sis trying to hoover/flying monkey

[wesorya]

After realising that every contact with this sister involved gaslighting, emotional abuse, and manipulation, I stopped engaging altogether. After numerous texts and emails outlining all the imagined and distorted views of reality she had experienced, all of which described me as abusive, manipulative and cruel, according to her and others whose opinions she had sought (not her therapist's opinion of course, despite my suggestion earlier in the piece that she discuss and even show some of our text conversations to her therapist - what a silly idea that was of mine, that she may wish for someone to see what I had actually written/said, rather than her distorted view of it) I finally responded, saying that even though she had deleted all conversations, I had kept them, and was happy to re-send them to her, as I was comfortable with what I had said and written, and did not agree with any of her accusations.

She then responded that unless I was willing to meet with her in person, to take her up on her offers, that she has been making for more than 11 months, to meet with me with open loving arms and heart, that I was to cease and desist all contact, or she would seek a restraining order. Great! I thought. I didn't respond. This was over a year ago. Then a month after that, she turned up at my house, with my EDad, to give a present to one of my children.

I've received an email every couple of months since then, repeating the offer about meeting her in person, all of which I've ignored. Today I received a letter. Again saying that for 2 years she has been waiting with open arms for me to contact her so we can return to our loving sisterly relationship, and wondering when I might be ready for that. Then the bombshell, she's having a baby, which she couldn't tell me any other way because I've been so awful and told her so many awful things, and because she's scared of me and confused about what I think. Oh and she loves my children and they are missing out on an amazing relationship with her, and so am I.

I am so sick of the hypocrisy that allows her to spew her accusations at me, but continue to tell me that I cannot respond. The idea that because she has put aside everything that happened - apart from raising it all again in her letter - and wants to meet with a clean slate - seems perfectly fine to her - is just so ridiculous I can't even fathom how I would keep a straight face. She makes a big show of being emotionally mature and aware, but really just uses therapist words to manipulate, avoid responsibility, and blame others. It's confusing and hurtful.

I don't really have any desire whatsoever to meet with her, I don't want to be a part of her world again, where my kids and I are nothing but amusing playthings when it's convenient for her, but mostly just discarded for things that are more fun. She no doubt wants my help and emotional support, and the friendship and sisterly relationship she's mentioned is when I have provided that for her in the past - it was never mutual.

I'm just trying to process all of this and get past that niggling feeling that I'm being selfish by not responding to her "loving" requests to see me. The last time we tried to resolve some of the "stuff" between us, she mocked me with a sarcastic dig while I was sharing something very vulnerably and openly. She didn't acknowledge or apologise for this even when I gently explained how it had hurt I ended the conversation when it was clear she wasn't going to acknowledge it, and she never mentioned it again.

[LemonLime]

Oh wesorya.  I almost could have written your post myself.   It sounds like your sister is a little more in-your-face than mine is, but aside from that I recognized so much from your story it's chilling.

My sib, after decades of calm that I took as the new normal and assumed would see us into our senior years, had a huge rage at me and refused to take any responsibility for it.   It was over me not doing enough dishes on a vacation.   At least that was her point of view.  I felt I did enough dishes, and even if I didn't I didn't deserve to be raged at by a middle aged person complete with sweaty face and bloodshot eyes from all the anger.   It was witnessed by her husband and our parents and one of my schoolage children.  It happened at a VRBO during a family vacation, immediately after non-family guests had left the premises.   Because the rages have always been "saved" for family-only.   Non-family members apparently are not to be let in on the family secrets.

She also took the opportunity to belittle my parenting and take personally that my teenage son was isolating during the vacation.  Not sure why that offended her so much, but according to her if I can make my kids wear sunscreen I can make them be polite and social during family vacations.  That's a quote. 
When I told her that I find parenting very challenging and that it feels vulnerable to me to have my kids "on display" because I often feel that if kids aren't perfect moms are criticized for their parenting (my sib has no children of her own) my sib rolled her eyes at me.

I looked up John Gottman's work on marriage and his "Five Horsemen of the Apocolypse" that allows him to predict divorce in married couples.   Contempt (sarcasm and eyerolling qualify for contempt) is the worst of the Five Horseman and I believe is the most predictive of divorce.   Well, I think that probably applies to all relationships, not just marriage.

The next day she wrote a homemade card trying to bridge our "misunderstanding" as she put it.   But it was a hoover and a non-apology.  She refused to take back all the hurtful things she said.  She doesn't have a therapist, but she has a psychology degree, and she spewed a whole bunch of psychobabble about "love and forgiveness and understanding that we were raised so differently "(ie she means that she had it harder from my parents than I did) and blah blah blah.    I am also so tired of the lectures about love and kindness from someone who has resented me from the day I was born.   She has intimated that I am thoughtless and cruel and indifferent to her and that she is nothing but kind.

She ignores the rages that she has imposed on every member of my FOO.  And that she subjected my young daughter to a red-faced, shaking rage directed at me.   Oh yeah that.......she frames that as "passion".       Anything she does is seen by her through a positive lens, and anything I do has the potential to be caused by selfishness, laziness and ignorance.

I have had 3 years of LC with her, after some initial attempts by both of us to "keep the relationship going" with occassional bland emails.  But the email screeds that I have received when her hoovers don't work or I email her to explain why I will not participate in FOO vacations with her anymore....well, those screeds have left me shaken to the core.   You probably know the kind.  It's the kind where I see her name in my inbox and my stomach lurches and then I read a long diatribe about myself and I feel like vomiting afterward.  And I feel dizzy.  And then I spend days picking through all the words in my head and wonder if she's right.  And it is just so very devastating.

My sister has a tremendous amount of shame.  At least that's what I believe.   And she wants to unload it.  And I'm the one she is choosing to unload it on.   I have watched her unload her shame on others our whole lives.   I just didn't realize at the time that's what she was doing.

I am currently working with a T to look into what, if any, kind of relationship is possible with sib.  This T works with family of alcoholics, PDs and other addicts.   I'm hoping it will help me to decide if any relationship is possible since this is my only sib and my kids' only aunt on my side.

I'm so very sorry.  Please know you are not alone.  I am not perfect, and you aren't either.   We are human.  But we don't deserve what we are getting.
And I have to think  "Hey Sister-of-LemonLime, if LemonLime is all the terrible things you say she is, why not do both of you a favor and set her free?  After all, Sister-of-LemonLime, you say you deserve better. "

One article I read on NPD is that the N doesn't want to give up these relationships because they need us.  For supply and to unload their shame onto.
The shame has to go somewhere.....and I suppose logically the PD wants to get rid of it.   I would if I were PD.   But we can't allow it.  It's too devastating.  I can't share that particular burden with my sib, as much as I love her.   I feel empathy, but I can't help her because she need a T and she won't get one.  So I have to get one, and I have to save myself.

My sib does all the "open arms" stuff to me too.....to make it look like she is all about love.  But she refuses to restore the trust that was lost during the rages and the email screeds.   So sure, it looks like LemonLime is unable to forgive and forget.   And that she is the loving one, so confused as to why I can't move on from this.  Well she is asking me to ignore her bad behavior and to accept her rages as "passion".   I can't move forward with her not willing to try to restore trust.    She is asking me to choose myself or choose her.   I will choose myself.   It's her that set up that dichotomy, not me.

[nanotech]

Yes I've  been through this too. And I'm the BB wolf who isn't loving or 'family minded' and she is the vulnerable victim who just wants to me to " reach out"
This is the intermittent stuff.
The ongoing stuff is massive silent treatment and discard.
Carrot/ stick mentality.
Interesting lemon lime- about the shame carrying and the need to offload it. My Nsis was always trying to shame me about something. I'm pretty much NC with her now.
wesorya, the sarcasm- it's horrendous in my FOO. My ndad too and niece nephew of Nsis. Much scathing cynicism and mocking goes on. They loved to direct it at me, sometimes face to face, sometimes behind my back. I realised the full scale of it when my Nsis sent an email about me to her Niece, made a mistake and sent it to me instead. The extreme vitriol and anger in that email, the crude swearing at me,  plus the  gleeful ill -wishing of my life, cut into my heart.
I can't tell you how many times I've been there for her. Emotional. Financial. I was firmly put in charge of her happiness, aged 12, started by my parents.
It was at that time, that I needed her. I'd just lost my job. Instead, I got that horrific email. I hadn't  done anything. She thought I was ringing my mum too much with my problems . My problems were my 'comeuppance' according to her, and she was very pleased about my struggles. She was living with my parents at the time and I was disturbing her enjoyment of having them all to herself.
Even after that. I forgave her!( I was still in the fog)  A faux apology, a plea of mental breakdown. She was SO sorry.
So I gave in. Brief honeymoon period.
Then she was soon back to the old patterns. They were well hidden to begin with, but I started to realise she was simply never going to change.  When I began placing boundaries she quietly told me that she  wasn't going to respect them . Then the mocking began. So I blocked her from social media, stopped ringing her. No calls or contact from her since.  In the past I had tried to move us on to a healthy relationship- tried several times.  Hope springs eternal in the scapegoat heart. But no, she wants either the abuse toon continue, or failing that, discard then nothing.  They may pretend they want a healthy relationship, but it's only an attempt to get the unhealthy one back.

[LemonLime]

Nanotech, I can't imagine how hurtful it must have been to get a letter intended for someone else, and have it be all about how "awful" you are.
It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.   For some reason I find my sib's written word more hurtful than her spoken word.   She is intelligent and a very good writer, and her email screeds are eviscerating.  They are designed to be surgically precise in targeting my vulnerabilities, and she hits the mark well.  She often inserts links in her letters in order to fortify them......for example she has referred to "triangulation" and then linked to a definition of the word.  Ironically of course, it's she who is triangulating but she is accusing me of it.     The projection is mind-boggling.    My sib owns a business and occasionally she gets an unfavorable review on Yelp.  I have watched her type out a response to these reviews, eviscerating the reviewer just like she does to me.  They make a brief complaint and she writes a novel, complete with the links, the sarcasm, and the covert nastiness that she dishes out to me when I dare "cross" her.  She looks delighted as she writes these responses, like she is engrossed in the "project" of tearing someone down.  She has a smirk on her face.  It is truly creepy.

The cruelty is the point, not a side-effect.   I'm quite convinced in my theory that the shame must be offloaded.   My sib NEEDS to hurt people.  It may not be a conscious choice, but that doesn't make it hurt less.   I'll add that although she is very very smart, my sib chose a very alternative lifestyle and has borrowed money from my parents all her life in order to live remotely and on a shoestring.  You know, eschewing all that "corporate golden handcuff" stuff, she never made much money and lives very modestly but needs "loans" from my parents (which I suspect are either never paid back or are so low-interest it's sort of a joke).  My parents play along and allow it, saying they'd rather she spend her inheritance now than when they're gone.  So OK, I guess nobody is being taken advantage of here.    I don't have a huge issue with it myself, as it's really none of my business.   But I suspect sib DOES have a huge issue with it somewhere deep inside, and the shame she has about the money means that I have to suffer. 

"They may pretend they want a healthy relationship but it's only an attempt to get the unhealthy one back".
Oh my gosh, so perfectly stated.

Wesorya, I hope I didn't hijack your post.  As you can see, you are not alone.  And the types of shenanigans they pull are fairly predictable.
Ugh.

[moglow]

She then responded that unless I was willing to meet with her in person, to take her up on her offers, that she has been making for more than 11 months, to meet with me with open loving arms and heart, that I was to cease and desist all contact, or she would seek a restraining order. Great! I thought. I didn't respond. This was over a year ago.

You'd think that once one throws down that gauntlet they'd buy a clue, but apparently not. I became rather fond of forwarding those messages back when it was thrown in my face later - "here. This is what you said and exactly the way you said it. I did exactly as you asked, do with that what you will."


After one of her tantrums and a choice voicemail, Md claimed she "would never have said any such thing" to me. For her to believe that she said what *I said* she said, she needed PROOF! Fine. I forwarded her voicemail right back to her - oh but that's not what she meant, I twisted her words, read something into them. Um no. I know nothing of the sort. That's your message in your voice, and those were the words and  snotty sniping tone you chose. I shut down at that point, ended the call and refused to go into it again. Actions have consequences.

Today I received a letter. Again saying that for 2 years she has been waiting with open arms for me to contact her so we can return to our loving sisterly relationship, and wondering when I might be ready for that. Then the bombshell, she's having a baby, which she couldn't tell me any other way because I've been so awful and told her so many awful things, and because she's scared of me and confused about what I think.

I'm not sure but what I'd quote that back to her [along with the original cease and desist where she was abundantly clear], with the message: We weren't loving, that certainly isn't loving. Clearly I'm not ready.

[nanotech]

The good thing is wesorya, you're tackling this while you and your children are young. I really wish I'd done that! I was an extra in my sister's film for as long as I can remember- extension of her to be treated however she chose. At all times I was made responsible for her happiness, by all of my FOO, her included.
I've resigned from that role and left the film set. She's found no-one  to replace me, hmmm what a  surprise.
It's great to be free. Should have done it decades ago. There's damage been done to my marriage, my relationship with my parents, and to some extent, my kids. My grandkids don't really know her, thank goodness.

[BerneseMtnMom]

Hi, wesorya, I do not have much to add other than I have been NC for one year, and VVVLC for the year before that.   There are so many points in this thread that ring a bell.  Rage at boundaries, uses my kids as props, triangulation, not taking responsibility, called me selfish when I would not go along with her plans , says she will do something and then does not follow through. You are not alone.  You are not selfish to protect yourself from her hurtful actions. 

I laugh when I look back to something my therapist told me very early - find your authentic self.  I honestly didn't know what that meant.  Two years later and lots of reading and therapy and journaling, and I know now what that means, and I like me. 

[wesorya]

Thank you all so much for sharing your stories and thoughts. I found I had so much going on in my head that was too much to respond, but it really helped to be able to read your replies <3

In follow up, she turned up for my next childs 13th birthday, to drop off a present, early in the morning, without permission or welcome. It was early on a weekend morning (day before the childs birthday) no one was up, she spent 15 minutes repeatedly ringing our door bell(I have video doorbell) before my youngest was roused and answered it. Presents were dropped off for the 13 and soon to turn 15 year old. She had written on the outside of the presents about how they would be getting another present - a cousin - in the near future.
This was information that I really did not want shared with my children.
I hoped that this was the last of it.
Then yesterday, another letter put in our letter box (hand delivered -not posted), more information about her pregnancy.

This was it. I could finally see that we were reaching stalker level harassment. I had really not wanted to engage with her at all - my edad is very unwell - Parkinsons for past several years, and a recent prostate cancer diagnosis. The thought of having him be further upset and involved in this was - and is - really difficult. He has often tried to be a peacemaker between BPDsis and I, but I have reminded him that the issue is between us. He doesn't like this and has withdrawn - a combination of my uNPDmum's influence as well as BPDsis and uNPDsis.

Anyway, I couldn't bear the thought of this letter dropping just going on and on, clearly with the intent of engaging the kids, so I sent an email. I said that deleted conversations were not resolved or acknowledged, and that I still had all of our written conversations as I have a clear conscience about everything I've said and done. I said that her continuing to come to my home without permission was verging on harassment, and asked that she stop.
She replied, again threatening to take out a restraining order against me if I was to contact her in any way whatsoever. I had to almost physically restrain myself from responding, to explain to her how patently ridiculous that was, but was able to remind myself that my knowledge that it is completely ridiculous, is enough.
No doubt I am now being further painted as the abusive, harassing one to my family.
Urgh. I almost want her to apply for a restraining order, just so I get the opportunity to provide the massive amount of evidence I have that it is me who has been harassed, despite my refusing contact and ignoring 99% of her harassment, and despite her multiple threats of a restraining order, and then repeatedly physically attending my home.

[moglow]

I sent an email. I said that deleted conversations were not resolved or acknowledged, and that I still had all of our written conversations as I have a clear conscience about everything I've said and done. I said that her continuing to come to my home without permission was verging on harassment, and asked that she stop.
She replied, again threatening to take out a restraining order against me if I was to contact her in any way whatsoever. I had to almost physically restrain myself from responding, to explain to her how patently ridiculous that was, but was able to remind myself that my knowledge that it is completely ridiculous, is enough.

She truly doesn't get ... I mean... what about her stopping by ... I'd probably have responded with, Thank you. I believe we're both clear now.

The mind truly boggles.

[guitarman]

Thank you for your posts.

I have an uBPD/NPD sister. I have gone no contact with her since our mother passed away over two years ago. Our father passed away over ten years ago.

I call my sister my abuser now and I am her target of abuse. That is how I have redefined our relationship. She has alienated everyone in our family. No one wants anything to do with her any more, including her adult children whom she professes to love so much but has abused for so long.

She has started smear campaigns and made false allegations to purposely damage family members.

I have learnt so much over the years, well decades, about BPD and NPD behaviour.

I now realise that she is never going to change and that I can't change her. I can only change my own behaviour. That's very empowering to realise.

She is never going to become the person that I thought she was capable of being. I once had hope that she would. It was hope that was keeping me in contact with her. I had convinced myself that if I was even more kinder and more loving towards her then she would change. That's how warped my thinking was.

I am not to blame for her behaviour. I am not the cause of any of her problems. I am not responsible for her.

I care about her but cannot cope any longer with her abusive behaviour.

I cannot get on her emotional rollercoaster with her ever again. The cost would be too much for my physical and mental health.

There is the cycle of abuse where the abuser turns everything around to become the victim. They can do this by provoking others into anger with them by getting them to shout at them, then they have the evidence they need to prove they are the victim. So be aware of what is happening.

My rule is to always stay calm no matter what happens. That way I do not feed my sister's narcissistic supply.

Observe, don't absorb.

I still get triggered and am experiencing CPTSD from all the decades of stress, trauma and abuse I have witnessed.

Other people don't really understand what we have endured, unless they have been in a similar situation themselves. You are not alone here.

The author and counsellor Kris Godinez specialises in Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome. Her YouTube channel is called "We Need To Talk with Kris Godinez". She says "If this person were not a member of your family would you have anything to do with them? If the answer is "NO" then act accordingly". I always think about that.

Keep calm. Stay strong. Stay safe. Keep posting.