How to navigate the mine fields communicating with my (u)NPD sister

[Healing Finally 2]

Hi all 

Some people here might remember my story, I was ousted from my family almost 9 years ago, and for the first time since then I am now in email communication with my (u)NPD sister.

Now that I have a much better sense of anticipating her actions and answers, due to all that I've learned here and "out there", I am more equipped to handle the bad behavior.

But I could still use some help. 

I'm living with my 91 year old mother, and we are in the process of looking for an assisted living place for her to live.  I've been here 1.5 years now, and I moved in due to her not being able to pay the rent, and also to help her to the next phase of her life. 

One example of why I knew I had to move in was my mother struggling to get rides to the doctor (she no longer had a car) and even though my sister lived close by, my mother would come up with excuses to not call her (saying she was too busy.)  Personally I do believe this is due to her being tired of being rejected by my sister, my mother has a very convoluted and enmeshed relationship with my sister (and she is well trained due to her own mother being a narcissist.)

At any rate, this week I sent an email to the family (my sister, her two adult sons, my son, and my mother's brother and SIL, and cc'ing my mother) giving them a full description of the projects we are working on and that I could use some help.  I did this because, as it's plainly obvious, my sister has done NOTHING to help my mother out.  Nothing before I moved down, and of course she has a good excuse to not help out around here because I'm here. 

My sister immediately responded to the email, saying how she's already working with my mother and listed the things she's done (alerting my mother about some appraisers and book dealers.)  I checked with Mom and found out she sent the emails with this info AFTER I sent my email 

I replied, just to my sister, in an attempt to open the door, saying how grateful I was that we are finally able to communicate re our mother, and asked if she could cc me on any info she sends to Mom; so that we can all be on the same page.  She curtly responded that she stated in her last response to me (sent Jan 2022, which was a rejection of my requesting a meeting with her and a therapist) that she was ALWAYS open to communicating regarding our mother. 

I was hesitant about replying back, but I did, to point out that I've been abiding by her wishes to not contact her.

She then "doubled down" and said that she didn't have a copy of the correspondence but is sure she did mention she was always open to talking about our mother. 

As I know she always has to be right, I will refrain from forwarding the email showing that she never said that.  I know that she will find a way to throw this back in my face. 

She also stated "to preserve our mother's dignity" we should not communicate without cc'ing our mother in our email conversations (and a bunch of other stuff puffing herself up on how great her relationship is with our mother.) 

It's taken me awhile to figure this out, but OMG, is she actually accusing me of inappropriately handling myself?  Are siblings not allowed to converse about their parent?  I'm thinking this just her way to keep a step up above me.

I have not responded back, and my plan is to continue to converse with the whole family cc'ing my mother.

Any help is appreciated!  I'm sure you will be hearing from me more!  thank you 

[bloomie]

Healing Finally 2 - I do remember you previously sharing about the difficulties with your sister, her refusal to communicate with you, and your mother's enmeshment and confusing relationship with her. I seem to remember your sister has a strong hold over your mother. Am I right in remembering that? If so, that makes this SO much harder.

Your love and care of your mother is evident in your words. She is blessed to have you in her life to care for her. Doing that with the specter of your sister's potential to find fault, disrupt, and dominate has to be very hard. 

My thinking is you are very wise to continue to communicate with the entire family group. You are an adult woman caring for her mother and can communicate how and to whom you choose about whatever you deem important. Keeping your mother cc'd is so smart. Also, keeping any communication with your sister to only about your mother is helpful. Getting into the weeds with a person determined to find conflict or kick up dust is not productive, in my experience. It also seems your sister is not truthful and her words are not reliable.

You have your hands full caring for your mom and living your own life. Do what works for YOU.

We are in a eerily similar situation with my elderly mil and husband's estranged sister. Everything is a rivalry, competition, gut twisting drama. Most of the time, for the day to day stuff sil is in the woodwork ignoring while mil courts her favor and doesn't ask anything of her. Ever. When others may be watching or there is money involved sil enters the scene like a wrecking ball, obfuscates, postures, confuses and intimidates mil into a state of uncertainty and confusion. Which takes days, sometimes weeks to regain ground from. It has been exhausting to say the least.

The worst opportunity for uhpd/npd sil to twist and then posture as a victim is when there is unwitnessed communication between her and anyone, but especially with DH. With that in mind, it has been helpful to recognize that any communication involving sil is potentially high conflict, and we have found the suggestions Bill Eddy offers when communicating to be a good format.

found here: https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/hci-articles/how-to-write-a-biff-response

What this method has done for us is to help us bypass the false accusations, inferences, outright misstatements and lies, emotional lures into conflict and stick with the facts in a clear and concise way.

We only communicate to sil about mil and only in writing including a family group. And only when we absolutely have to. We have learned not get into a he said/she said and only correct gross misstatements or deliberately misleading statements when we must, keeping it factual and unemotional.

From what you shared this relationship has been contentious, rivalrous, and dishonest for a very long time and will have to be managed by you as you care for your mom. Your sister had effectively removed you from most of your family gatherings if I remember correctly with your mom submitting to that in fear of reprisal from your sister. I am so sorry and wish things were different for you.

Dh offers complete management of mil's care. All aspects. What I have learned, through our dealings, is any acknowledgment of what is going on with mil and what DH is doing for/with her, no matter how benignly stated, is perceived as one upping and it is game on. My sil's hypersensitivity to how she is perceived is harrowing to navigate at times and is predictably unpredictable. If that makes sense? She does not lower herself to cooperate and collaborate.

So, we stick with certain ground rules - we take no phone calls, have no one on one conversations, everything in writing and everyone that needs to know is looped in. Nothing personal, nothing emotional, always BIFF.

It has also helped me to read on the co parenting board here because so much of this is very similar to co parenting with a high conflict, manipulative person.

You are courageous to put yourself in this position. I hope you will keep coming back and sharing for support and encouragement.

[Healing Finally 2]

Thank you bloomie!  You have provided me so much good info and support, I can't thank you enough 

Thank you for sharing about your family situation, your experience has provided you the ability to stay in front of the curve (so to speak) and this is what I hope to do too.

I think back to the days when I was totally clueless of what was going on between my sister and mother, and myself; and feel sad that I wasted so many years always stepping on eggshells and allowing myself to be manipulated.  But I was really in the dark.  I am actually thinking of writing a book about it!  I've got major triggers!  I've got c-ptsd!  Who knew??  I didn't, until all this happened (and I got support from you all.)

"My sil's hypersensitivity to how she is perceived is harrowing to navigate at times and is predictably unpredictable."


I appreciate your pointing out that that I am now in a situation of "game on".  Yes, I feel it.   So far my sister hasn't had to do anything, and now she is being forced, in public, to help out; so it will be a competition.  I appreciate knowing this so that I can be prepared for the bad behavior.

I have a piece of paper stuck to my monitor that says "Anticipate the bad behavior so that it doesn't trigger you.  She wants to be important and in control."

Thanks again for your response and good luck to you with mil and sil! 

[Sheppane]

You have got great advice here from Bloomie.

I'll just briefly add what you said about anticipating future behaviour has been SOoooo helpful to me.

That feeling of " game on" is very familiar to me. It's a very visceral response.  Sometimes I find the " game on " feeling can serve as a type of " go, you got this" reassurance. My body telling me there is a minefield about to explode but its OK, I can handle it. I can trust myself. I don't have to be torn asunder by it. That's because I used to - not quite so much anymore - have such a fast trigger response that my system would race ahead of me and once that trigger genie was out of the bottle it would take days / weeks to put it back in. So " game on" can be a sort of brief pause to acknowledge your own inner power.

Another way of looking at " game on" is that yes , it's on ...but hey,...Guess who's not playing ! Refuse the invitation. As was said already stick to the facts, end of. I find so much relief in that. Nothing needs to be added. I do my part, communicate factually what needs to be said, and that's it.

Back to the first point about anticipating behaviour. I have in the past before I know there is likely to be a reaction/ drama/ mine explosion in response to some interaction on my part ( once I have checked my motives are all healthy and I am not adding to the drama) , drawn out a list of what will he/ she likely say or do in response. I can expect they will : ........and write out bullet points. I sit with it , look at it, until I feel a sense of safe distance that even if all this happens, I can handle it. It has proven to be weirdly accurate over 90% of the time because the behaviour is quite predictable. Somehow that makes me feel stronger heading into the situation as far as potential triggers are concerned.

Good luck!

[Healing Finally 2]

Thank you for your response Sheppane 

What a great idea, to write up a list of what might be said by my (u)npd sister and/or my enmeshed mother; so that I can feel prepared. 

I have felt more empowered these days than in the past, so now it's just making sure I do what I can to not go into fight/flight/freeze; where I can screw everything up. 

thx