Unintended NC

I haven't spoken to my sister now for about five months.  I didn't intend it to be this way.  It just has become this way.  The last time I spoke to her was several days after my youngest's birthday.  She didn't mention his birthday.  Didn't ask how the party went.  Didn't wish him well or ask how he had enjoyed his first birthday.   She talked a lot about herself, what was going on in her life, drama with her live-in boyfriend.  How she was struggling with things.  I did what I always did, ignored her rudeness, gave her advice when solicited, hung up and moved on.

Several months back she had her cancer incident.  Whatever that incident may have been.  I still don't know.    Probably will never know.   I know she had followup test results after treatment.  I don't know the results.  I know that everyone has "moved on" now and that no one is even talking about it.

She's now embroiled in situations of extreme domestic abuse.  Her boyfriend is aggressively abusing her and she is giving it right back.   She is extremely violent to him too, so she is both victim and transgressor.  I know she kicks him out.  I know they are volatile and manic and crazy.   NM sends me emails in between the bouts telling me how they redecorated her apartment or celebrated his birthday.  I'm trying not to let her stupidity in dealing with the situation annoy me.  But it does.  That NM thinks that a new carpet is important information to me when all this is going on boggles my mind.  I mean, what in the hell am I supposed to say?  Yay for them?   NM and I had a big discussion on it.  I told her, in my best adult-relating skills, that I will not participate in this drama.  That my sister needs to grow up, accept responsibility for her life, and that I'm not interested in participating in this chaos.   Several days later, NM sends me an email saying my sister took a two hour yoga class.  She's still avoiding the therapy that she's been filling out paperwork for for two weeks, but she got into yoga.  I'm not even sure what the hell that's supposed to mean.  That she is deluding herself into thinking that yoga will help?  That it even begins to balance out the shitstorm that is my sister's life?  My sister is in a sinking boat in the middle of a hurricane and my mom wants to give her props for slapping at the rain about to land in her boat.  I wish I could even work up the strength to be stunned by her delusions.

Other bloggers and friends have spoke kindly of my sister and with compassion for her.  I appreciate their sentiments.  I understand why they feel so much compassion.  She walked the same road I did.  She came from the same place I did.  I've seen why and how she's dissolved into this place.  She has had some horrible things happen to her.

But she didn't get to this place by luck alone.  She has always been difficult.  She was physically abusive and aggressive to me as a child.  I was afraid of her.  She treated me (and still treats me) as a substitute mother.  Someone to fill in the holes that our mother has left in their relationship.  We have never had a relationship of equals.  She has never been my friend.  We've had good times, I feel close to her, but I don't trust her.  Watching her adult life has been difficult at best.  At times it has been agonizing.  She has been selfish and willful and self-absorbed.  She has verbal abused me, taken advantage of me, stolen from and used me.   She has demanded that I revolve around her like a planet and has accosted me when I haven't met her demands and expectations.   For all my sympathy for her, I've found her to be a toxic person in my life, both directly and indirectly.   She has often sided with my NM and has often berated me for being such a horrible daughter.  She is jealous and spiteful and will purposely ignore my husband and kids due to this.   She has demanded that I participate and "support" her through some horrific things.  She demands that I watch helplessly as she continues to make choices that have lead to some indescribable events.  Her life would make the most dramatic soap opera look tame.  I've tried to explain to other bloggers what her life looks like, the things that have happened, the events I've witnessed.  I can't.  There is no way to encapsulate all that has happened.  It's been too many things, too frequently and they seem so outlandish that they would seem untrue.

And in the end, she is not the type of person I would like or associate with if she was not my sister.  I'm afraid of her and I worry about the effects she would have on me or my family.  I'm angry with her for dragging me down into the muck and mud.  I'm angry with her for verbally abusing me.  I'm angry with her for creating drama at every important time in my life and dragging the attention back to her.  I'm angry with her for trying to wrestle attention from me by rushing to tell people things that are my life milestones before I can.  I'm angry with her for continuing to treat me like her mother and demanding I put her first.  I'm angry with her for calling me in the middle of the night, visiting all her b.s. and drama on me, and sucking up huge chunks of my time but then never doing anything about it.  I'm angry with her for ignoring me and my family at important times in our life.  I'm angry at her for continually telling me that my family and me are unimportant to her by ignoring us and acting indifferent to us.  I'm angry at her for talking a big game about how valued we are but never behaving in a way that would suggest that is true.  I'm angry with her that she continues to wallow in shit instead of doing one damn thing to help herself, ever.

I reached out to her three times during her cancer scare.  During the past five months, I've had several events in my life that she ignored.  When I did reach out to her, she didn't respond, or responded with cryptic messages.  She texted me once, and when I responded by email (as she suggested I could) she didn't respond.  She texted and called in the middle of the night when our grandmother was ill, but I never heard from her again.

I've actually really been relieved to have NC lately.  NM likes to suggest that I'm just to weak to deal with this crap, but really I just don't want to be involved.  I think it's ridiculous.  I have been relieved that she's spared me from dealing with it all.  I really could on like this indefinitely   But part of me feels like I should reach out again.  Make another gesture at reaching her.  But I don't want to.  I don't want to get involved in her latest crap.  I don't want to play supportive while she lies and fabricates and twists the truth to make herself look like a victim.  I don't want to hear her rail on my father.  I don't want to be supportive of her living like this.  Maybe I am being weak.  I just think I'm tired of it all.