New episode of bad messages and threats of smear

[RiverPurl]

I am estranged from my sister.  For years I was the target of her modes since our falling out.  Every so often she will find away to send me messages.  These messages would be abusive in nature - insulting me, mocking me, making points against me, making points that has no place in our falling out, demands to acknowledge her, demands for apologies and in her tone unwritten threats.   

I received many poisonous acts of revenge from her and a smear campaign from her to my employer. 

She started a new round of abuse back in March of this year.  I never responded to her.  There's no point.  Her anger is too much. She's not able to see anything beyond her own feelings.  I tried engaging with her before but she rebutted me.  I am not able to fix this between us.  Not only am I not able to fix it, I don't know if I want to.  She has wrote so much to me and all of it was to hurt me. She did so much. There is no room in my life for this level of bad and evil. 

She burnt herself out in May. I got a quite spell fr her then. The quite spell lasted for two and half months.  Then it was last week when she started emailing me again.  First it was one email. Then it was a few more and her emails are increasing yet again.  In her email there is yet another unwritten threat against my employer. 

You would think she would feel happy and satisfied the last time she did this to me. To do it again.

It's clear she doesn't like being ignored but I am not doing this on purpose.  Our connection is broken and it's gone.  We haven't seen each other in years but her focus is still on me.

I went to the authorities about her communications to me but I wasn't successful at putting a stop to this.  I was bounced from the police to lawyers and noone wanted to help me.

[moglow]

No that she'd get it, but it's not a matter of you ignoring her. You simply have nothing productive [or otherwise] to say here. Why stand up to/for a bunch of accusations, where there is very simply nothing you need defend or explain to her or anyone else? Worse, she doesn't seem to be remotely interested in hearing you anyway. Every answer raises more questions, every comment and she seems to ratchet up, so what's the point? She's choosing the chaos and I would imagine it's much worse in her mind than any of the reality.

I wonder if in her quiet times she's actually turned that focus on others then cycles back around? Mother used to do that - she'd have one "friend" until she burned that down with the incessant negativity and spite against others, then she'd go to those very other people trying to turn against the one. Now all of her siblings are gone her world has shrunk very small and she has little to do or say to anyone, not even her own children.

I wish I had suggestions, but I've got nothing. We can't control the behavior of others, only build up our own walls against the ugliness so it doesn't become ours.

[SonofThunder]

Hello RiverPurl,

Sorry you are experiencing this from your sister.  I went full NC with my father during a long stretch of my current separation to divorce, which included phone, text and email blocks on all my electronic devices.  My PDf was either too lazy, too cheap to buy a stamp or too frustrated for a postal letter attempt. 

Have you considered a self protective boundary of full NC from your sister, so your devices do not receive (or instead auto-file) her emails away from your inbox?  My Apple devices do a fine job at all three (phone/text/email).

SoT

[RiverPurl]

No that she'd get it, but it's not a matter of you ignoring her. You simply have nothing productive [or otherwise] to say here. Why stand up to/for a bunch of accusations, where there is very simply nothing you need defend or explain to her or anyone else? Worse, she doesn't seem to be remotely interested in hearing you anyway. Every answer raises more questions, every comment and she seems to ratchet up, so what's the point? She's choosing the chaos and I would imagine it's much worse in her mind than any of the reality.

I wonder if in her quiet times she's actually turned that focus on others then cycles back around? Mother used to do that - she'd have one "friend" until she burned that down with the incessant negativity and spite against others, then she'd go to those very other people trying to turn against the one. Now all of her siblings are gone her world has shrunk very small and she has little to do or say to anyone, not even her own children.

I wish I had suggestions, but I've got nothing. We can't control the behavior of others, only build up our own walls against the ugliness so it doesn't become ours.

Thank you for your reply. You provided an excellent summary.  I am getting interrogated and berated.  There is nothing for me to say and as you pointed out, everything I do say will raise more questions and held against me and anger her more.  I am not able to fix this yet she has axpectations for me to do just that.  It was her who called the estrangement - 'you're dead to me' was what I got.

[RiverPurl]

Hello RiverPurl,

Sorry you are experiencing this from your sister.  I went full NC with my father during a long stretch of my current separation to divorce, which included phone, text and email blocks on all my electronic devices.  My PDf was either too lazy, too cheap to buy a stamp or too frustrated for a postal letter attempt. 

Have you considered a self protective boundary of full NC from your sister, so your devices do not receive (or instead auto-file) her emails away from your inbox?  My Apple devices do a fine job at all three (phone/text/email).

SoT

She doesn't have my number. For a few years she was getting around blocks by using fake Facebook profiles. Now she's using email.   I have her emails directed to a different folder.  I am not not reading them however I see the number in the folder climbing every day now.

The issue is her communications is a precursor to a new and fresh round of punishment and revenge.  It's bullying trying to get me to engage with her. 
If she was to just leave it between me and her, I wouldn't have an issue with that but she's  desperate for attention she's dragging other people into this.  Not only that, she's not being fully true. She liked to call me a hypocrite but is she getting her own employer involved.  I think not. Is she informing her employer about all of the bad words that she keeps directing at me.

 

[RiverPurl]

I tapped into the folder and I read a few of the emails but never responded.

'why did you treat me the way you did' she demanded.

There was no treating anything. It was a circumstances at the time.

I had an arguement with her one night and then after that she became utterly passive aggressive to me and she was angry at me too.  I kept my distance from her after that.  Then one night she came to me to try and put it behind us and I agreed with her.  After that, I continued to work and we were living different lives. I was working and she was unemployed.  Our lives were different and I hardly had time for myself never mind maintain relationships.  She took this as a dismissal from me to her.

About two years into our estrangement, there was a family funeral. We were on good terms with each other.  Both of us were able to put the past behind us for the funeral and we became friendly with each other again.

Not even a month passed and she started exploding into my phone, blowing everything out of proportion and claiming I was only jealous of her and I only ever wanted to copy her.  She learned that I wasn interested in getting a tattoo and she already had one.  I wasn't copying her. I genuinely had an interest in getting one.  That sparked a never ending drama of abuse from her.

I can't fix this.

Reading between the line, her self esteem is rock bottom and she's only happy when ever she is lashing out.

[Catothecat]

This may not be of much help, but I think it's useful to keep in mind that people see you, and they see her.  They see how you behave, and they see how she behaves.  And I think most people eventually see through the person doing the smearing, doing all the complaining and accusing.  They get tired of hearing about it because they sense they are being dragged into something they'd rather not be involved with.  Just because your sister says something about you doesn't mean everyone or even anyone she says it to is automatically believing her.  When you're the target, it's hard to see that aspect.

Otherwise, you seem to have done all you can do (I suspect your sister knows just how far she can push things before she crosses the line into an "actionable" offense).  Going NC and maintaining strict boundaries no matter what are tools that often work, especially when dealing with someone who is essentially acting irrationally.

[moglow]

My guess is, she has no recognition that her self esteem isn't others' to build and maintain, no understanding or appreciation that lashing out at others this way is never going to build a bridge worth saving.

While she's now backed away for the most part, that's somewhat familiar with my mother. She took the most random [if not outright imagined] comments as slams against her, and there was no talking to her. She'd demand "answers!" but shut me down if I tried to be reasonable with her - she wanted to believe what she wanted to believe and that was that. Clung to the most asinine ideas, but I didn't dare say that because then I was insulting her. All that did was confirm her beliefs, it didn't get through to her how senseless it all was. I listened [so many times] while she spewed the most vile crap all over me, thinking if she could just get it out there'd be an end to it. There wasn't. Given enough time she'd do it all again, seemed to get some kind of charge out of it. We're down to obligatory holiday and birthday greetings and that's what we'll have as far as I'm concerned. I don't visit and don't reach out otherwise. I've had plenty of the ugliness.

So I kind of get it. In mother's case, she's run out of sources to demean and undermine me to. There's no one left she can use to get to me. I work for one brother -who's seen and heard plenty from her over the years- and he's firmly in the corner with me. Just last year she pulled a totally unexpected performance out for another of her children she'd not seen in over 10 years, so she burned that bridge too. Her siblings are all gone and there she sits. I feel sorry for her that this is what she's made of her life, but I won't miss her when she's gone. To all intents and purposes mother's been gone a very long time and I just didn't realize it.

Doesn't mean this doesn't make me sad, but I do know I did everything I knew and nothing made a difference for her.

Wishing you so much peace, whatever you need to find it. Do that for yourself.

[moglow]

Reading back over that, I wonder if your sister may be bipolar in addition to PD? My admitted limited understanding of uncontrolled manic-depressive behavior is that it comes in waves, up for a while then down for a while. As opposed to the on again/off again quick trigger leaps and dips I've experienced with PD behavior. At least with bipolar disorder, medication might be a possibility to level things out to make life more manageable for her. 

Not that it helps anything, just something to consider.

[Cat of the Canals]

This may not be of much help, but I think it's useful to keep in mind that people see you, and they see her.  They see how you behave, and they see how she behaves.  And I think most people eventually see through the person doing the smearing, doing all the complaining and accusing.  They get tired of hearing about it because they sense they are being dragged into something they'd rather not be involved with.  Just because your sister says something about you doesn't mean everyone or even anyone she says it to is automatically believing her.  When you're the target, it's hard to see that aspect.

 

Is it true of everyone? No. But the old saying is true: Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter. Anyone who willingly gets caught up in your sister's manufactured drama isn't worth your time.

That being said, I imagine this merry-go-round is getting a little tiresome. It sounds like you've done everything right when it comes to cultivating healthy boundaries, and it's had zero effect on her behavior. Which is, of course, why we say boundaries are for US, not THEM. We can't control someone else's behavior, but we can control ours. Your sister is an unfortunate example of how true that is.