Is this the right place?

flutterby

Fly away!
The thing is, YOU can't fix her. Only she can fix herself. As far as the ground rules - she'll only follow them if it suits her. And I don't see it suiting her - not for long anyway.

At 30 years old, this is enabling. There are consequences for abusing people. If it were an abused wife, you would tell her to go to a domestic violence shelter. If it were an abused child, you would contact Children's Services. You and your parents are being abused and the only way to stop it, is to stop allowing it. By allowing her into your home, you are allowing it. That is how she will see it. Because yet again she is getting what she wants by exhibiting bad behavior.

At 30 years old, she should be on her own for rent. If you're in an economically and politically sound country, there will be shelters or other such places for her to go.

It's on her. It's not your job to fix her. And you can't, no matter how much you want to. Honestly, I see this turning your life into a living hell and I'm very worried about you.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Oh, sweetie, you are most definitely welcome here. This is quite a situation you are in. First off, what are YOUR priorities? To do well in your work (school, internship), to build some relationships with people at work and from other places? To have a generally peaceful life without huge truckloads of conflama (conflict + drama = conflama)?

Given those goals, what is forcing you to take your abusive 30 year old sister into your home? Why can she not have her own apartment, maybe near you, to keep her drama in? Why would you say yes to ahving her there?

If your parents are pressuring you financially, can you get loans and another job to cover what they will take away if you refuse to house your sister?

If her name is not on the lease you CAN refuse to let her enter. Tell her to go to this "wonderful" family or someone else.

If she EVER is violent call the police. It is NOT YOUR FAULT. YOU are not to blame for her actions. You, being her sister, are NOT her permanent cleanup crew. If you continue the way you are, NOTHING will keep her from behaving the way she has been.

PLEASE go to al anon and narc anon. I am sure sub abuse is part of the picture - it almost always is, esp with partying. You will learn, over time, that you are NOT responsible for her. All that you and your parents are doing is HELPING her continue her behaviors.

If you let her come, set out rules for being a roommate. Tell her any loud parties, parties that last after 10 pm (because you have to be at work the next day), taking/using/damaging any of your things, hurting any animal you may have, etc... will result in kicking her out. Just don't say it if you won't do it. Stick to whatever you say 100%.

If you cannot stick to it, don't say it. It will just undermine everything.

You are going to have to work to sort out your relationship with your mother, father and sister. They may choose to enable her, but they should absolutely not require YOU to sacrifice your life for hers. You did NOT give birth to her. It will be hard. IF you can stick to it you have a chance at a decent relationship with them in the future - IF they can draw some lines for your sister also.

Restraining orders are your friend. It is NOT your fault, no matter what ANYONE says, if she is aggressive enough to warrant a restraining order or if she ends up in jail because she CHOSE to violate the restraining order.

The refusal to take responsibility may never change. It won't change, for sure, if everyone cleans up after her.

I don't know what country you are in, so I don't know what protections are there, but we will help you as much as we can.

To get to the Parents Emeritus section you go to the top of this page and on the right hand side, under where it says Conduct Disorders you will see "Support for parents > Main > General " Click on Main and it will take you to the index. Then just scroll down and click on Parents Emeritus.

Many hugs. It is a hard situation to navigate. But it is YOUR life and YOUR priorities, not your parents or sisters, should guide your actions.
 

mstang67chic

Going Green
Aninom, I do want to stress a thing or two also since there have been some rather "emphatic" replies, mine included.

First, YOU ARE VERY WELCOME HERE! This sounds like a good place for you with your situation.

Second, sometimes it's hard to read a tone of voice over the computer. Please keep in mind that when we give what sometimes seems to be very blunt advice, we're not trying to be harsh. We give advice based on experience and while we all may not know EXACTLY what you are dealing with, we do know what we're talking about. It doesn't matter if you've been here for years for for a couple of days because once you've found us, we take you in and tell it like it is like friends do.

When someone posts and says, this is what's going on, what do you think? .....we tell you exactly what we think. Granted, sometimes we will tell you the difficult child equivilent of "NO, your butt looks GREAT in those pants!" but generally, you will get a straight answer. The answer may not be what you wanted to hear or it may not be what you expected but you'll always get the truth (as we see it ;) ) from us.

I just wanted to make sure you understand we tell it like it is because we care and not because we're crabby. LOL At the same time, one of our favorite sayings is "take what you need and leave the rest". What we think a person should do may not be the most feasible thing at times so take what you can from whatever we say.

There is one other thing that I've been debating on saying and I am going to go ahead and say it. Something you might want to consider if you haven't already is to see a counselor yourself to help you deal with the past and learn how to handle you sister in the future in a way that is safe and healthy for both of you.

Again, you are more than welcome here and I hope you haven't taken our responses in a negative manner.

Hugs.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Mustang is very right about leaving what you can't use. on the other hand, if you really just need to vent, or get it off your chest (cause the over the shoulder boulder holder is not meant to handle that many pounds), just tell us up front in the beginning.

You will see "whine" in a topic, or "Just need to vent, sympathy welcome, advice not so helpful" or some version of that as the first line in a post, or soemtimes even in the title.

Many many hugs to help you through this time.
 

aninom

New Member
mstang, susie, flutter - thank you all for listening, and most of all for the advice. I've been quiet not because I've taken anything in the wrong way (the tough love has been useful as a wake-up call, if anything), I just needed time to digest. I'll make a vent thread in the emeritus forum after I've posted this reply, this thread has probably grown a little too big and vent-like by now, and in the wrong place!

You are all right. I think when you live in a hermetically sealed family situation for long enough, you start believing the most unbalanced situation normal somehow. It didn't even cross my mind to say no. Granted, I'm not in a situation (emotional, physical, cultural) where I can just tell her no, but neither do I have the energy or strength or expertise to handle our amazonic difficult child alone and for such a stretch of time.

So I heeded your advice and simply asked my boss for an expanded vacation during the holidays, and started looking for tickets to my parents'. I know difficult child has to fly back to her school for a make-up exam (she keeps flunking the regular ones :[ ) in early January, and if I can swing a good ticket, that'll put the total under-same-roof time to 10 days. Like mstang suggested, I have had my own boatload, and have seen an amazing counselor for years now because of recurring depression. And I know what she would say: vomiting out of stress for something that may or may not happen in the future - i.e. difficult child staying through spring - does nothing but drain energy I might need then.

I also spent some time with That Awesome Family today. They've only seen difficult child's best side and were heartily glad she was coming - but, and believe this, they asked how I would cope! They'd already seen some "lively temper", and thought I'd get tired.

Being able to tell the truth here, I think, was what made it easier to relate it to them as well. I am so tired of lying and pretending our family is perfect and stable. I was calm somehow, and told them a mild version of the truth - that the temper really was an issue, that she sometimes got upset to an extreme, and that I honestly didn't know how best to handle and support her even though I love her. I didn't tell them about the violence, obviously, but it felt like they'd already guessed and were too polite to ask. They also asked me to come stay with them whenever and for how ever long I needed to, if she ever had a bad day. I mean, can you spell PHEW?

Again, thank you all so, so much for the support, and yes, even the harsh truth is a form of support. Everybody needs perspective: and even though it's harder to carry it through in action, at least it makes it that little bit easier to do the sane thing rather than what you've gotten used to doing, i.e. rolling over and accepting it.
 
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