Sisterhood

My sister and I were close, well closer, as children.  I was her protector and big sister.  I looked out for her. A lot.  I was technically in charge, although I wasn't supposed to let her know that, every day after school, on holidays, and during summer break.

We spent a lot of time together, played together, and hung out.  We were close in age.  She was temperamental and had a propensity for violence when angry.  She bit, hit, and gouged skin when she pinched me.  She could rage when angry.  I often had to deal with it by myself, as calling my mother just met with "Quit your fighting!  I'm at work."  But it was more than that.   More than just sibling stuff.  She beat on me regularity and I was fearful of her.

My mother did not seem to try, very hard, to stop her from attacking me.  My father told me to fight back.  I did, twice.  The first time, I finally go angry and dragged her down the stairs and shoved her out of door, locking her out until she calmed down.  My sister LOVES to tell this story now that we are adults as proof of what an asshole I was to her.  The second time was when we were teenagers, me a senior in high school.  I actually got the best of her that time.  I don't remember her physically attacking me after that.

My mother appeased my sister a lot.  I remember a lot of things we kept from my sister when she was really little, so that she wouldn't get mad.  She got her way a lot, and mom had convinced me that just giving her her way was easier than fighting.  My mother complained a lot to my dad that she couldn't get my sister to do anything.  My dad, a depressed hard-ass, would step in and over do things in an attempt at discipline.  And then, when he would leave, my mother would rush to my sister's aide and take back every boundary he'd just set down.  The family often helped my sister with her homework (me too).  My sister will say differently, but she was catered too.

But I loved her.  And we were friends, I suppose.  We had a lot of laughs.  I protected her and looked out for her.  I shared my friends.  I comforted her.  We were always lumped together by my mother from swim lessons to dance class.  I often was enrolled in lower age levels to accommodate my sister.

When my parents divorced, I went into ultra protector mode.  I took care of her, often literally.  NM left us alone a lot on weekends, and I was "in charge" again.  Except I couldn't control a depressed, wild preteen with a propensity to drink and sneak out and rebel.  But I was held accountable.  Often, I just covered for her, as it was easier than dealing with my mother who would rage at us for wrecking her weekend.  When I left to my dad's, she followed.  She hung out with my friends, was with me a lot.  But my dad and her fought, occasionally violently as he tried to get her under control.  I was still lumped in with her.  Once, when my NM found my sister's birth control, she searched my room too.

My sister moved back with my mother when dad and she could no longer be on the same room hardly.  My sister became out of control.  She snuck out, hung with drug dealers, did drugs, ran away.  And by this time my dad had moved, so I moved back with my mother too.  My sister stole from me (or allowed other's to steal from me), was drunk or high, hardly went to school, and was a general mess.  It was horrifying.  And my mother struggled to help her.  I hated being at home, so I often stayed at my boyfriend's house.  I had a job and was in the drama club.  So, I lived out of a duffel bag.  I fed myself at night.  I got myself to school.  I went to work, to practice, and did all my homework-almost straight As).

My sister got worse and worse.  Involved in a robbery, suicides, mental ward stays.  Drugs, and beaten, and raped, and drunk.  She dropped out of school when I was at college.  On one occasion, my mother had to drive eight hours away to pick her up because she'd run away.  My sister was sick.  Very sick. She tried to commit suicide many times.  And to this day, my grandmother and my sister have conflict over a time when NM dropped my sister off with her.  Grandma claims that my sister tried to steal from her and was horrible (which is most likely true).  Grandma claims NM was less than sympathetic.  NM also dropped my sister off with me at my college to stay for the weekend.  I was terrified all weekend my sister would freak out and embarrass me.

I often hated going home from college.  It was stressful and my sister and I openly despised each other now.  She was angry at me, stole from me, or was generally miserable.  My mother was stressed and looked horrible.  I blamed my sister and was SO angry at her for what she was doing to my mother.

Somehow, my mother got my sister a GED, got her in art school, and shipped her down to my father's.  There, she created more havoc and was still out of control.  My father and step-mother fought horribly and blamed my sister (occasionally, unfairly.  Stepmom's a doozy too.  But my sister does create chaos).  It was rough there too, and I often stressed as I listened to the stories.

My sister worked at some strip club as a cocktail waitress, she had an abusive boyfriend, she still was drinking and partying to excess.  Her boyfriend was an asshole and their relationship was abusive.  She got pulled over for drunk driving.  And on and on and on.

My sister and I often didn't speak at all during this time.  We were not close, knew nothing of each other, and never spent time together.  At my wedding, I prayed that she wouldn't cause chaos.  She did, but I was able to get around it.  We knew nothing of each other and disliked each other.

NM decided at this time to plan some "girls' weekends".  Two of the worst weekends of my life.  There was drama and fights and tears and rages.  It was a war zone, often with two people feuding and the other left comforting each other.  Often my sister and I comforted each other against NM.  We knew she was horrible to us, but we couldn't put the finger on it.

As horrible as these trips were, when they were done, NSis and I talked.  We started to compare notes (all you ACoNs know where I'm going with this).  We discovered the triangulation.  The attempts by NM to blame the other sister for all her "stress".  She would tell both of us how horrible the other was.  You can imagine my surprise when I discovered my mother blamed ME for any stress.  Here, I had thought I was supportive and the good daughter and the one who was helping her with my awful sister.  But some issues over my wedding and fights (as I figured out later) over my emerging independence, had apparently made me an enemy.

For awhile, I thought NSis was getting her shit together.  The boyfriend was a jerk, but she seemed better.  Normal.  More stable.  She seemed to come up for air and catch a glimpse of reality.  She got through college.  She and I talked about things.  We seemed to be closer now that we had identified "the enemy".  It was so nice to feel I had an ally.  That someone out there understood and I wasn't crazy.  That yes, NM could be horrible.  Sure, she still called me at 3 a.m. (despite me having to work in the morning) sobbing and drunk.  There were still A LOT of crazy things that happened...lots.  But they seemed to be getting farther apart.

Things went on like this for a couple of years.  NSis and her boyfriend's relationship kept dissolving into worse layers of dysfunction and I convinced NSis to get out, move away, start over.  I really believed that if she moved, got out from under the thumb of my parents, started over with new friends, she'd grow up.

So, she moved.  And things didn't get better.  She just found the same people in a different town.  She wound up in the same situations.  Still chaos.  Still drama.  Domestic violence.  Severe accidents. Suicides. Late night drunk phone calls.  Lots of drinking.  And she became less interested in me again.  She had no time to really be supportive.  I mean, she would make token gestures, but nothing significant.   And she demanded me to be there for her.  To support her.  She clung to me as her sounding board and foundation.  But she was angry and aggressive and I could never really tell her how I felt about anything.  I still feared a huge emotional reaction from her.  Whenever she was around,  I worried constantly about pissing her off.  I also made excuses for her and defended her and explained to my parents that they didn't know how hard things were for her.  I felt for so long it was my job to protect her, and I had a hard time laying that down.

She hurt my feelings.  She dismissed me.  On occasion, she'd call me up and chew me out for something I'd done.  Or blame me again for NM being angry.  She always acted like her life, her problems to priority.

And then, last summer all shit hit the fan, and I couldn't take it anymore.  And I'm no longer talking to my sister any more.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that this latest "riff" isn't just some little fight, but a life long pattern of dysfunction between us.  That the stress and anxiety and destruction she brought to my life was there for years.  That she was destroying me.  And I was sick of dealing with it.


I realized the other day that she's been weighing on my mind.  Over the holidays, we each had a birthday, and I was holding my breathe waiting for her attacks.  She tried desperately to manipulate me, but I held out for her to deal with me in a real way.  And now that the holidays have gone, I feel like the pressure valve has been turned down.  I don't feel it so pressingly.  My parents haven't mentioned her to me.  So, I don't know what is going on with her.  And it's peaceful.  But she's there, pressing me.  Pressing that little nagging voice in my head.  I know this isn't over yet.  And I'll have to figure out what to do soon.  And until I do, she'll always be like a weight sitting over my head.    But, really, we didn't have a "real" relationship at any point in our lives, what is there for us to build one on now?