Andromeda?

so, after 4 years of not playing my guitar, i started back up today. i pull out all the old tabs that i have from my favorite band (Del Amitri) and start practicing. i start looking through the music and i come across a small envelope addressed to me in a familiar hand writing. i open it and see that is is from the person formerly known as my sister.

a little history: she is 7 years older than me and we have not spoken in 3 years, this week. she came at me physically when i was pregnant because i said that i didn't like being pregnant. we are talking getting in my face yelling at me, spitting in my face, boxing my ears, etc. come to find out (about a year later) that she had pushed my mom into a wall and made her fall down. the day i found that out, was the last time i talked to her (more like was yelled at by her). the reader's digest version of what happened in the surrounding weeks and following months is as follows: we found out that she had embezzled about $20,000 from my parent's company (that both her and her husband worked for); she tried to sue my parent's for back pay in the amount of $125,000 (they lost); told my mom that my nephews hated her and would sing and dance when my mom was "taken away in handcuffs" (for what we don't quite know); doctored time sheets while they were working for my folks (20 hours billed on my wedding day. WTF?); had set up websites slamming my parent's business; won't let us see my nephews; harassing emails and phone calls; death threats; putting spyware on my mom's computer to get passwords and account numbers; harassed customers of my parents'; talked shit about my parents to clients while on jobs; threatened to claim that my parents molested my nephews if they tried to take any legal measures against them; threatened to do the same to my husband if i contacted my nephews; well, you get the picture.

she has had a history of lying and drug use, not to mention credit card fraud. who bailed them out of jail back in the day? my parents. who paid for a car when they moved back to the mainland? my parents. who paid their rent so they could have their own place while earning money? my parents. who paid bills, car insurance, school books, tuition, and a field trip to DC (among other expenses)? my parents.

i am so angry still at what they have done to my parents and my family that once i get thinking about it, i cannot stop. in the letter i found today she was telling me how much she loved me, missed me, and how proud she was of me. i am near tears right now because she tainted 27 years of memories that i have. i loved her so much and we never did anything to her or her family except love and support them. we knew she had problems, but we loved her anyway, because she was one of us. she has taken away 2 boys that i have helped raise since i was 14 years old, and now i don't know them anymore. she has driven a knife so deep into my heart that i do not know if i can ever move past this anger that i have towards her and her husband. i don't know if my nephews will ever remember how i doted on them and sent them huge packages from europe and at christmas. i don't know if they will ever see their mom for what she truly is, or if they will believe her lies about all of us.

how have you gotten through this kind of pain and anger? i am at a loss as to how to deal with it. i have tried to chalk it up to mental issues and the drugs, but it is not helping. should i go to therapy or something? (i don't want to ruin my credit! hahah! oh, that's only if you go to marriage counseling) i can't take having this rage and anger inside anymore. i know it is only hurting me, and not her. i have thought about giving her name and address to the scientologists and the mormon church because i know how much she hates them, but that would only make me feel better in the short term.

please have some words of wisdom for me.

sorry, it was a really long post.

I think if you want to tackle it in therapy, your first job should be to set a goal for yourself, and discuss with the therapist how to plan reaching that goal.

You can't change the past, and you can't change another person or their actions. People who are high-functioning drug abusers are usually also very VERY good manipulators, my gut feel is that the letter may have been intended to manipulate you.

But wether or not she "somewhere deep down" loves you or not (and no one knows for sure), her actions towards your family have been hurtful and you have every right to, as an adult, say "I have washed my hands of this and am not going to deal with her." If you need help mentally taking the steps towards that, it is entirely possible that a trained, neutral third party (a counsellor) can help.

Blood might be thicker than water, so soak all sacraficial garments 30-40 minutes extra.

haha! thanks for that last comment wookie!

the letter was sent years ago while i was traveling europe, it just happened to be in my stuff. but you are right, she is INCREDIBLY manipulative.

i should say, the letter was sent years before all this went down, back when i loved her and she "loved" me.

My siblings and I had a major falling out after my mother died. She died without a will and everything got really nasty as they tried to disassemble her small estate. It was horrible. I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me -- that all the childhood memories and the support I felt I had with these people had suddenly just changed. I really almost had a breakdown over it, and it was compounded by the grief of my mother's unexpected death.

Five years later, I've stabilized some but I've had to make peace with my new family dynamic -- the relationships that we had are no longer. I have a good relationship with my sister and one brother, but my other three brothers -- very strained. We've managed to become civil but it will never be the same. The family is factionalized -- we'll never, ever all be in the same room together and that is just, well, sad.

I feel for what you are going through. Wookie's suggestion for counseling is a good one. I didn't do that and I think it would have been (and probably would still be) a positive step and would have helped sort things out more postively.

Good luck.

Heh.. I just read Wookie's last line. Love it.

Andromeda - I'm so sorry you have had to carry this around with you. I think wookie is right - set a goal for how you want to feel about this situation in the future, and find a therapist to help you get there.

It's never easy when our loved ones betray us...it makes it so much worse, so much harder to forgive and possibly we never forget it either.

For myself, if I were in your shoes, I would also just write her off - her presence has done nothing but harm for too long. You have to think about what's best for your family now, not hers.

Unresolved anger is incredibly hard to deal with. You have no outlet, no release and no closure on the situation. Your sister hurt you in a way that will probably never heal. You have suffered great loss by her actions. And add into that mix that you at one point loved her. She's family. I deeply feel for you. To put it eloquently, it sucks.

The impulse to want to take some sort of revenge, or disrput her life, is normal. You want to do something to vent your rage. But I think anything like that is a bad idea. It sounds like having no contact with your sister is (unfortunately) for the best.

Weather or not you go to therapy, try to do something therapeutic. Take up boxing, run, dance, sing. Make sure you find an outlet. Try to focus on the positives of your life.

You are essentially mourning the loss of your sister--the one that you loved and loved you. Allow yourself to grieve. But try to let go of the anger. Anger is one of the most destructive emotions we have. It will ultimately weigh you down and bring you nothing good.

Easier said than done, I realize.

Hang in there.

Andromeda, I don't have any sage words of wisdom because I'm struggling with the same unresolved anger, just about a different person. Like you said though, it hurts you, not her, to hang on to it. So, I just wanted to tell you that I hope you figure out a way to get some peace with it. Maybe some kind of ritual, something to help with what DGB astutely noted is a kind of mourning? Some way to help you let go of the anger and move on to acceptance of the way things are now.

Good luck with everything.

The best thing I got out of therapy was the knowledge that I can only change how I react to people, I cannot change the other person and it is not my job to. It sounds trite all typed out, but somehow that particular therapist managed to convince me of it.

I think it's ok to be angry at her. We fear anger, particularly in women. We fear all bad emotions (as was discussed in the Holland thread). We want people to forgive each other or to be content with their lot in life because it makes it easier for us, as bystanders, to not deal with people's bad emotions. I think you are completely justified in being angry at her. I don't think you should feel ashamed of that. She did some shitty terrible things to you and those you love, including taking away people you love. Those are terrible things!! If that anger is negatively impacting your life, and you want to work on that, I think that's totally fair. But I don't know that I agree that anger is something that needs to be let go of. It just needs to be properly dealt with.

Yeah, I've got nothing. Or, what McGlory just said.

And it really, really sucks that your sister turned into this toxic person, but it probably is for the best that you have no contact with her.

yeah, i just miss the hell out of my nephews. i hate that they don't know what a cool kid their cousin is. i'm actually glad she is out of my life, but it still hurts like hell.

thank you for all the great words.

I am in a similar situation with my brother. I have not talked to him in 5 years. Many of the same things happened in our situation that took place in yours.

I hope it is not forever. I feel like I need to have this distance to be safe and happy. I hope some day things will resolve themselves in a way that we can have a relationship (of some sort). If I assume I am cutting him out of my life forever, it is too painful. I have shot him emails a few times asking if he wanted to resolve things. He always says no. I still have my boundaries, and he does not like that.

In your situation, if it is mental illness, maybe she will find a way to get better to some extent. Holding on to the idea might not be healthy, but it might help to let it go, too.

If you are worried about your relationship with your nephews, maybe you could do things for them and save the items for when they are older (notes, presents, pictures). Maybe when they are older, they will be able to hear the message about your feelings for them. And they will know how much you cared even thought you could not be there.

Good luck - it sucks.

i agree about the therapy- i have a situation with some family members that involves a similarly deep betrayal, and it really helps to have some guidance to dealing with the feelings. i was doing stuff to myself because of it that i didn't even realize was connected.

additionally, it's nice (sort of) to see that there are so many other folks here with family separations. it's something i've always felt some shame around, and it's good not to be alone.

Andromeda - I have good relationships with my sisters and I still find that they (and I in return) have the ability to inflict real pain even with off-hand comments. With so much history formed when you are too young to understand how to create barriers to protect yourself, you are left open to famiy in a way that is unmatched by almost any adult relationship. When that trust is abused, as has happened to you, it can make you question every other relationship you thought you understood and your ability to read people.

It might be helpful not to compare your emotions to a death as much as a divorce - a messy, nasty divorce. Whether because of drug abuse, mental illness or just because she is a manipulative bitch you are better off without her in your life.

I'm sorry you have to deal with this and I love the idea of keeping a box of keepsakes for your nephews - maybe ask your folks to contribute?

Andromeda - just wanted to echo everyone else... i do think that therapy has it's place in this and setting objectives is key.

i hope that you eventually can make some peace with this during your journey... but it now part of who you are and won't ever go 'away'.

the keepsakes box is a very cool idea!

wishing you well!

thank you all. it's true about the shame aspect of it, kommishoner. and it stings when i see sisters that are each other's best friends.

my mom has already started keeping things for the boys to give to them should they ever come back into our lives. i want to do that, but i don't know what on earth to save.

i also don't know what to tell my son when he is older and watches our wedding video. the last time they saw him, he was 5 months old. how do i explain to him that he has these cousins and aunt, but he will probably never meet them? he doesn't even know i have a sister. he has lots of "aunties" in close friends of the family and women who are like sisters to me and my sister in law. i just don't want to confuse him. i am probably over thinking it, but like i said, i get thinking about it and my mind gets away from me.

it does make me feel slightly better that i am not the only one going through something like this. i'm sorry for your losses and pain too. sometimes family can really suck royal ass.

I don't know if this will make you feel better, but my parents are both estranged from a sibling. My dad and his brother almost never speak and I have met my cousin twice in my life. My mom and her brother who had kids? The same, and again, I've seen those cousins twice. Honestly, since I've never had cousins involved in my life I don't think it's weird or miss them or anything and I don't think they miss us either. My spouse has much more contact with his cousins, and I still don't feel any sorrow about my lack of my relationship with my cousins. Just like your kids, we always had family we made, I have a "cousin" (and had another until he passed away) who were the kids of my dad's best friend that I grew up seeing. Family you make is not worth less than family you're given. In fact, my real cousin has recently come back into my life (through facebook of all things) and my sisters and I spend time trying to figure out what the hell he wants by contacting us. He seems innocuous enough, we just can't figure out why now, after 30 years he wants to keep in touch (only through facebook).

I heard a saying a long time ago, "Friends are the family you make for yourself" and I think it's very true.

I'm also jealous of people who are very close with their siblings. I'm not estranged from mine, but we are VERY different people, and so we don't have a lot in common besides our DNA. It's gotten better over the last couple of years, but when we were younger they were just rotten.