When you take the place of the real abuser in your abusers life

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Do either of you notice that your sisters can tolerate severe abuse from other sources, but act as though we are the most offensive people on earth?
Serenity, it is about alliances I think. Like Cedar talks about her sister's rules for her devotion and care for their mother. They have conditions to give us love or what passes for it. Like Cedar's sister demanding her mother only acknowledge as a great grand, the sister's grand child...when there were actually 4, I think it is. That I am the one and only is a condition of their alliance. When they cannot enforce their rules...they leave.

There are desired things--things they want, that makes it worth their while to enter an alliance.. In the case of my sister with her 2nd husband, it was the house near the beach in the most elegant of beach towns. If he is the purveyor of what I want, at this moment, he is mine. When he does not or I can make another, better alliance, all bets are off.

You broke the rules, Serenity, when you set a limit with your sister. With that one incident, you put yourself outside of her circle. With the way her personality is constructed, she could not tolerate your making even one rule for yourself.. That was how she had defined the alliance with you. My way or the highway. You broke her rule. You left her circle. Me or not me.You are now "not me." But she longs for you still. But needs to bash you. Because she feels you abandoned her.

You know the Oceans 11 movies? Are you in or out?

You are only "in" if you comply. You play by their rules. You do not get to decide what you give to the relationship. They decide what they want. You say yes or no. If it is no to a rule you are out. The problem is you may not know the rules before you break one.

This is very primitive, I think.

Like my sister with my mother. My mother broke the rules when she let me have any voice or power at all....And even though she was dying. She was out.

And I was even more out than I ever was, by even wanting anything. Even a voice as my mother died.

I am very sad right now. I am sad for all of us.

Cedar, I would do anything in the world right now to believe like you once did "that I could love our way out of this."
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I am very sad right now. I am sad for all of us.
I'm so sorry, Copa. I am sad too.

The saddest part, in my opinion, is that we were given these rules as children.

"Are you in? You make me feel good or you're out." (Mother)

I was not a feel good kid. I think I've mentioned I had learning and behavioral challenges that needed a strong parental role model, strong boundaries and support and I probably hurt my mother's feelings at age three when I kicked her away when she tried to hold me. Or stiffened in her arms as an infant. Or threw a tantrum when she hurt MY feelings as a kid.

But Vain hurt my kids. That's what bothers me/bothered me the most about him. Ever tell you that story? And Vain, by the way, was just my uncle. He wouldn't matter, except that my mother WORSHIPPED him and anything he did/said was ok.

Blah, don't want to tell the story about Vain and my kids now, but he used them, as he used everybody. And everybody let him use them. They were around him "as needed by him."

But I was the kid!!!!!

So because I didn't make her "feel good" she took it out on me. And let her brother, Uncle Vain, call me "the brat" as she laughed white saying, "Now, Vain, stop that."

He was a bigger brat than me :p

Really.

At any rate, Copa, I hope you feel better and stay out of bed and enjoy our holiday weekend with M. Truly, he sounds like a delightful man. I'm not surprised such a good man chose you. You are both lucky to have one another.

Cedar, you have a good weekend and holiday with hubby too! You are both also very lucky!!!
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
But I was the kid!!!!!
The psychiatrist (that I just fired) said that to me early on, when I was so distraught about failing my mother.

Remember. I was taking all of the responsibility, assuming all of the guilt for what our relationship had lacked. I wanted to go back and live my life over again. to be close to her.

I did not remember, then, the hundreds of decisions my mother made to do and not do things that would have resulted in another outcome for our relationship, with me as an adult.

That psychiatrist said, too: "She was the mother."

We have been so conditioned to take the responsibility and blame for everything. Even for wanting mothers who loved us and protected us, instead of rejecting us, stealing from us, and using us.

I am going off the board, Serenity.

Happy, Happy Birthday.

COPA
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feets,_Don't_Fail_Me_Now_(disambiguation)





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Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
We have lost so much that is good and strengthening and kind, in our lives.

These will be good things for us to address now. Good, strengthening, kind things. Compassion and mercy for ourselves. Copa, especially for you, mercy. You are so hard on yourself, Copa.

I did not know you had waist length hair that you choose not to color. I like that about you. That has been my choice, too. Serenity, I love how you post about yourself and your life and the way you see what matters. Copa and I are getting there, too.

Joel Osteen was about "No excuses", this morning.

He told a story about a crippled man who lived beside a place where a healer would come periodically to heal those who presented themselves for healing. The crippled man could not walk. For thirty eight years, he kept trying to get to wherever the healer appeared, but he was too crippled to get there before the healer left. So, Jesus spotted him one day, whining away on his pallet about being crippled and never managing to get where he needed to be to heal because he was crippled. And the story goes that Jesus said: "Are you serious? If you don't want to live this way, then do something different." So, the man folded his pallet and crawled away to make something more of his life than waiting around for someone to heal him for thirty eight years.

And once he started crawling, he figured out how to walk.

So, he was healed the rest of the way.

Because it was never about whether he could walk.

Joel Osteen is better than me at this stuff, so the story as he told it was better, right? But he likened the crippled man to those of us depressed by rotten childhoods or trapped in any other kind of addiction to a thought pattern that told us we couldn't.

The crippled man's disorder was "a deep-seated, lingering disorder of thirty eight years."

Huh.

Joel Osteen told another story from the Christian Bible. This one about a brother sold into slavery by his own brothers. (Sound familiar, you two?) Then, the brothers accused him. And he was imprisoned for years and years for something he didn't do. In the end, his destiny was fulfilled and he became a king or inherited all the father's stuff or whatever it was. The point of the story was that in the end, the person was "vindicated, honored, filled with prestige, and was a man of influence".

Because he knew who he was. Somewhere underneath, he knew who he was, even while he was enslaved to them; even when he was imprisoned, by them.

So, I thought that was pretty interesting, too.

Oh. And Joel Osteen also said: "Beauty for ashes; double, for injustice."

He also said: You will beat the odds. None of this is a surprise. It's nobody's fault. Take the high road; move forward. (Okay. So, I did take the high road where my mom and my sister were concerned. But maybe, the higher road would have been to listen to "automaton" and believe myself, and stay true to my own truth instead of the one I thought they thought mattered.)

All I would have had to say is "Man, I am so tense and uncomfortable around you. Wish I could stay and listen Mom. I feel responsible to help you through this but man, I feel crummy that you are gobbling my time for me to listen to you hate my grandmother. I don't know what I thought we were going to do, but I do know this wasn't it."

Then, my mom would have said horrible things to me and thrown me out and I might never have seen her, again. Oh wait, that's what happened, anyway. Only in the meantime? They got to hurt my children, too.

Good thing they are as strong and courageous as they are.

My kids, not my FOO.

:O)

***

To name and taste the sting of the way we've been treated makes me very, very sad for myself. And for each of you, too. We have been able finally to bring ourselves back to life only because those we wish to love and be loved by are out of our lives.

Ours is a strange reality.

There must be a purpose in it we cannot see. Our obligation to our own lives then, is to heal and move strongly through them and not be afraid of endings or beginnings or anything but inattention.

We have lost so much, already.

Have devoted so much time to them, already.

As we have moved through this, and as I have finally come out of blaming and raging and telling such crummy, shaming secrets...I am sad. I love that we tried, all of us. You, Serenity and Copa, and me, but our sisters tried, too. (In their f**ed up, biatchy sister ways.)

:O)

When they come through it, they will also be sad, because a sister is a sister. I hope each of our sisters finds someone, like each of us has, to help her make sense of the hurt of all this. We have worked hard and been honest and we are coming through all of it.

Copa, beneath the bed is just fine. Is way better than in it. It was hard for you to go through that paperwork. You did it, and that makes me proud for you.

It is like when we joined the site. Over time, we realized our kids did love us. The bad things had to do with drug use or mental illness and never with hatred or failure, at all. Those thinking patterns are what we are changing, now. That willingness to believe the worst of ourselves, that penchant for taking responsibility, when the truth is that good and bad things happen to all of us.

We are not responsible for anything but to stay present; to stay flexible; to let that need for perfection fly off. Our mothers were wrong; may have been mentally ill. We survived physically, but have continued to live responsible for them lives.

Isn't that something.

Our sisters never hated us ~ personally, us ~ and neither did our mothers. If they hated, it is because they choose hate ~ and that's not for us to decide. Whatever the villain is here ~ mental illness or shattered self ~ we need to not enable those behaviors, not even in our thoughts.

Just like it was with our kids, we had to be healthier ourselves before we could stand the pain of detaching, not from our sisters or moms, but from the emotional chaos of our families of origin, altogether.

My mother does drive the destructive engine, here. She is still doing it, and she will to her dying day. She beat her own children, kicked them and threatened to burn them; scared them half to death when their father was away in the night.

That wasn't an accident. One time would have been an accident. All the time? Is a choice.

Of course she would keep doing it! That is who she is. The question is less why she did that than it is how I ever believed she would change.

Of course she wouldn't change.

We continually are trying to find some way to excuse these predatory, abusive people. There is no excuse. They are who they are. We don't have to like it, and they don't care whether we do or not.

They don't care.

So we are free.

There is nothing more we have to do for or about them.

It is what it is. Time to move beyond them, time to incorporate and move beyond the selves we created with and for them.

I am so grateful to you both, Serenity and Copa.

We did it.

It's a self sustaining thing, now. We no longer have to search it out because we are no longer ashamed to be us. We are no longer ashamed of those true things that happened to us. We claim ourselves, now.

Generous, permeable, flexible.

Strong, fine lines.

***

Until we can get out from under the shame of it, we cannot just step away from the things that happened to us in our childhoods.

Not the guilt of it, which is what psychoanalysis addresses, but the shame of it, which is what we have been addressing, here.

Until we did claim ourselves, until we came to honor ourselves for surviving something so ugly in so beautifully strong a fashion, we could not help but believe the dynamic firing our FOO were valid things, and not the sicknesses they were. Until we blazed through this final part or it, we believed our sisters' treatment must be somehow valid because, though we felt protective or maternal feelings for them, they seemed to hate us. So, we've been listening to that same old hatred because we thought our moms were the only abusers in our FOO.

There were others.

I posted before that I don't remember much about my sister, what she wanted, what she was like as a little girl or an adolescent. True to the family filter, I did not like her or know her.

My sister has been driving a pretty fearsome vehicle, too.

Well, good for her.

I want her to make it out of this, too.

There is nothing between us. Contempt, dirtiness, resentment, fear. Best for us both that nothing more is required. I am glad she has my mom, am very happy she is taking good care of her.

We are estranged.

That is the truth of my family of origin.

We are estranged.

I am no longer a savior. A forgiver. A loyal confidante. I wish I could love them but the truth is I do not. There is no trust without respect. There is no love without trust.

I don't have to do anything when my mother dies. The time that matters is when she is alive. She hung up on me. She is the mother. She should have taken steps to commend herself to me despite what she did to me when I was little.

She knows full well what she is doing.

She chooses this.

I am tired of making excuses for her, or for my sister, or for myself. Or my brother. Whether my mom chooses hatred or denigration ~ whether she chooses to treat herself that way, even ~ that's on her. Whether my sister or brother choose the same, whether they see or do not see ~ that is on them. It's that we somehow believed ourselves responsible for the choices other people make to see however they want to ~ that is the crux of the issue, here.

They get to do whatever they want and take the consequences of their choices with open hearts.

We do not get to enable.

Whether they are sick, whether I think there is a better way for all of us, none of that matters. I know what I know. Finally, I know what I know and that is my truth. They don't have to like my truth, either.

So, we all are free.

This is what freedom looks and feels like. If I don't see my mom again it is my choice to do so. D H says it is not my choice. That my mother hung up. That my sister cheats by pretending things are one way when in fact, she does not like me, either. They get to do that. They get to do whatever they want. I am not carrying the shame of their behaviors because they refuse to do what I want.

I don't want them.

That is why I went automaton.

These people are not anything like me.

Interacting with them made it impossible to ignore that they were not the fantasy family. They don't have to be.

They get to do whatever they want. I have to stop pretending they really want something different than what they have so clearly told me, in thought and action, what it is they do want.

That includes my mom.

How could I not have seen this simple true thing.

Because I felt responsible for their happiness ~ but I wanted them happy as I saw happy. They are happy. Actually, so am I.

Shame.

That was the problem all along.

I can address that without them. That is what we are doing, here. Deciding whether we are so ashamed of ourselves, of who we are in our cores, that they can affect us ~ that they can change the wonder of our being alive in our own lives!

Well, for heaven's sake.

***

D H is right. However it was that he said it, about his mom and death being as natural a part of life as being born in the first place. I will accept that this is true for my mom, too. Death comes to each of us and it will come for us, too. Life is what happens, is all the wonderful things that happen, while we live. We need to be responsible to our lives. Let the other guys pick whatever they want.

***

Sadness is a good place to be with our thinking about our sisters.

And for me, with thinking about my mom.

Sadness indicates acceptance. That determination to "love us out of this" would never have been necessary in a family in which could have come back together.

Our families are never going to look any different than they ever did. They were never supportive or strengthening. They never will be.

Why doesn't matter.

Maybe it is working for my mom and my sister. I hope this is so. But I think it could not be so. None of us has a generous spirit, for the others. Not even me, though I like to think so.

The intention for us then, becomes how to accept and perceive and cherish ourselves and our lives, just the wonder of being alive at all, through generous filters where joy is the navigable star, and nothing else, at all. Joy implies integrity. Joy does not happen when we have cheated.

We haven't been cheating.

We have been requiring ourselves to do the right thing as we believed it to be. Making them fine luncheons, having them to our homes or going to theirs no matter how automaton we had to go to do those things.

Yay.

I read something this morning about someone who turned away from FOO. Suddenly, she was no longer a "savior". She was no longer the rational one, or the forgiving one, or the caring one.

Part of our healing is that we are not going to know who we are, anymore.

The savior/rational/forgiving/caring one does not post rotten things on the internet and decide to leave her toxic family as I have done. That was a big hurdle to cross, admitting what a nasty mess everything just kept turning into.

Yay, that we all did that.

Thank you both for listening, and for taking my pain and confusion seriously.

You have made all the difference for me.

***

Having named what we have named about our families, about our sisters, and about the living harm interacting with them does us, we could not unsee the things we have seen. It could be that our families of origin will change...but we sibs are in our sixties, now. If I were a more generous spirit, would I interpret the actions my sister has taken as her own coming into balance around her changed status since her marriage? (It could be that I did stay generous regarding both my mom and my sister, until daughter was hurt. Really, thinking about that now, thinking about the callousness in it, further devalues them, for me.

As I post here about my sister, I still don't know what I see, but the things I see, the pieces of the things as they come together, are forming a mosaic, too. Today, I am coming into balance around the understanding that my sister is functioning through filters that discolor. I have been functioning through filters that enhance or excuse or believe. Both of us operate through filters that eliminate clear perception.

I am going to stop doing that.

They get to see whatever they want.

I don't need to be wonderful or even, acceptable in their eyes.

That was the thing they could use to manipulate me.

I am done apologizing for myself. I am happily alive.

I don't have to like them either, and I don't. There is no trust without respect; there is no love without trust.

The person I need to respect is myself.

That's where it begins, and that is where we three (and those reading along with us) are going, next.

Thank you, Serenity and Copa.

:O)

Cedar

We are going to D H mom today, so I will not be online so much until tomorrow.

Take good care of yourselves. You matter. Know that I will be thinking about each of you, and wishing you well.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
If I don't see my mom again it is my choice to do so. D H says it is not my choice. That my mother hung up.
Cedar, I will be responding little by little to your post.

I do not know why I am so tired. But I am.

Your mother chose to hang up on you. As did my own mother, repeatedly, when I was in Rio. Flying down to Rio must not have been in her game plan for me. That is why I did it, I realize now. She hated that I was no longer a single Mom working like a drone, paying student loans, with nothing and exhausted. How dare I, she told my sister, run away from responsibilities all over Latin America like nothing mattered except my Tango.

Your mother hung up on you. She chose it then and every day thereafter she chooses not to call you. Every day she can. She does not.

All she has to do is say, "hi."

If Cedar does not want this family and I as we are, as it is...this family does not want Cedar.

You are refusing her rules, and her rule, Cedar. After a lifetime of willfully not seeing the rules of your family, you have acknowledged the rules...and you have refused them.

You know, now, that there are no other rules possible as long as your mother lives. If she was open to changing them even a little bit she would call. She does not want to.

She can keep her power, and sustain her terms. She knows your sister will accept them.

I think this is why you are so insistent with D H that it was you who chose.

D H does not want you to feel the responsibility of separation. He sees it, I think, that by her actions your mother is responsible. Not you. He is right.

It is a completely different thing you are doing now. You see you are not responsible. You know it is not your fault.

You are going further. You are saying, not only is it not my fault, it is not my responsibility to fix it or to endure it broken.

You are whole and complete without her. Just as she is, without you. It is just that your visions of complete are different.

You see that the deal your mother offers you is no self. And those will always be her terms.

Bow down to me, to my rules.

My rules are exclusion, gossip, power over, ridicule, and threat. To start.

You say: No. I will not see her. "it is my choice." By that you say:

I have rules, too. I choose my own rules. Cedar rules.
 

Daphne

New Member
I was thinking about this during a bored moment, sitting in the car and waiting for my son to finish shopping. That's when I often do my *deep thinking* ;)

Sis started out being on the borderline board because of her boyfriend who she told me she is convinced is borderline. When I used to cheat, she even had a few posts about him. Then she realized, I guess, that I saw them and stopped posting about him and turned to ME being her abuser.

She never ever talked about me abusing her before I finally told her that she could not talk to me about her abusive boyfriend (and she named him as such plus called him borderline and I believe he is also an alcoholic). She really got angry about that and that's when the snub began and suddenly I was abusive to her all of her life.

I'm not validating or invalidating her mindset. I certainly did tease her when we were children and mother, of course, never stopped me so it went on. That's a fact. Other than that, there was no actual abuse and I think she knows that. So I wonder if she'd LIKE to vent about her boyfriend, but feels she can't a nymore because he could actually find out s he was putting their relationship out there on the internet and calling HIM borderline. Now I have not been reading her stuff but she is likely still with him, but can't post about him.

I wonder if she is doing it to me because she's afraid to toss it at her real abuser, the boyfriend. He was so mean to her, cruel even, controlling, jealous, drunk most of the time, dismissive of her, and only was nice to her when she actually threatened to leave. Then he'd turn on the charm and she'd go back. This cycle is why I stopped allowing her to talk about him. I felt he was extremely unstable and did not want to enable her attachment to him. Plus frankly it was repetitious and boring and a bit scary.

So do they sometimes use us as a proxy for the true abuser? I have never never in my worst moment (and I have them) done the things to her that this man has done. Ever. He has been at it for five years. Or more.

Does this happen with people who have personality disorders? I have no doubt that she has some sort of disorder, just as I know I have issues as well. But I'm more forthcoming as in I calls it as I sees it and I am not passive aggressive.

I am not upset at the thought of this. It is simply a question I asked myself yesterday and thought I'd throw it out to my healing chatmates. Answer here or PM.

This just makes so much sense to me. Of course, as always, I know I could be wrong.
 

Daphne

New Member
Hi,
I'm new to this site but have been lurking for a while here. SWOG, I'm not sure why you keep posting about your sister. Shouldn't you be focusing on yourself? Does your sister know you write such nasty things about her? Shame on you! In her defense, it's her life to live and not yours. Sounds like you're jealous of her and that's very obvious. Why don't you post what's going on in your life. It's all about your sister and I think that's wrong. Your sister appears to be your personal scapegoat which leads me to believe that you're not focusing on the real problem here which would be yourself. Sometimes we all have to look in the mirror and maybe don't like what we see. It's easy to point the finger at someone else as I have done this numerous times. Time to focus on yourself and let your sister live her own life. It's only a suggestion and I think you'll be much happier if you just let go and take care of yourself.
Good Luck
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Cedar, I will be responding little by little to your post.

I do not know why I am so tired. But I am.

Your mother chose to hang up on you. As did my own mother, repeatedly, when I was in Rio. Flying down to Rio must not have been in her game plan for me. That is why I did it, I realize now. She hated that I was no longer a single Mom working like a drone, paying student loans, with nothing and exhausted. How dare I, she told my sister, run away from responsibilities all over Latin America like nothing mattered except my Tango.

Your mother hung up on you. She chose it then and every day thereafter she chooses not to call you. Every day she can. She does not.

All she has to do is say, "hi."

If Cedar does not want this family and I as we are, as it is...this family does not want Cedar.

You are refusing her rules, and her rule, Cedar. After a lifetime of willfully not seeing the rules of your family, you have acknowledged the rules...and you have refused them.

You know, now, that there are no other rules possible as long as your mother lives. If she was open to changing them even a little bit she would call. She does not want to.

She can keep her power, and sustain her terms. She knows your sister will accept them.

I think this is why you are so insistent with D H that it was you who chose.

D H does not want you to feel the responsibility of separation. He sees it, I think, that by her actions your mother is responsible. Not you. He is right.

It is a completely different thing you are doing now. You see you are not responsible. You know it is not your fault.

You are going further. You are saying, not only is it not my fault, it is not my responsibility to fix it or to endure it broken.

You are whole and complete without her. Just as she she seems to be, without you. It is just that your visions of complete are different.

You see that the deal your mother offers you is no self. And those will always be her terms.

Bow down to me, to my rules.

My rules are exclusion, gossip, power over, ridicule, and threat. To start.

You say: No. I will not see her. "it is my choice." By that you say:

I have rules, too. I choose my own rules. Cedar rules.
[/QUOTE]
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Your mother chose to hang up on you. As did my own mother, repeatedly, when I was in Rio. Flying down to Rio must not have been in her game plan for me. That is why I did it, I realize now. She hated that I was no longer a single Mom working like a drone, paying student loans, with nothing and exhausted. How dare I, she told my sister, run away from responsibilities all over Latin America like nothing mattered except my Tango.
I would miss my kids if they left, but it would be their life, their decision. Why shouldn't you have experienced life the way you wanted to? What a strange way of looking at you, Copa. As for mothers hanging up on us, mine didn't even call me. If I hadn't called her, she wouldn't have called me for over ten years.

F-them. Sorry. Why didn't we get it earlier? Why did we try so hard? What a waste. Yet, as we were trying, we WERE living our lives the way we wanted to.

So there, Mothers!!!

Daphne, it has been your choice to post about SWOT. We would welcome your posting about your life and what is going on it, instead.
Don't even answer. This either is my sister or somebody writing for her. Just continue. I read it and knew right away. There is an ignore function too, which I have already used. If this was really about how we should work on us and not talk about our sisters in a totally anonymous way, she would have addressed all of us, not just me. This is sort of what I have had to deal with

Please don't defend me. It is her. Just ignore it. I knew she might decide to post here. And, as I have learned to do, I read one or two sentences and that was it. I do not read abusive stuff addressed to me, either here, in e-mail or by mail. I have gotten good at ignoring written abuse.And don't forget...she reads this and even got my brother to read it.

Cedar and Copa, I would rather keep doing what we were doing which is to focus on our healing, which includes all of our FOO and how to detach and move on, which I know we have all been doing very well.

You are whole and complete without her. Just as she is, without you. It is just that your visions of complete are different.

You see that the deal your mother offers you is no self. And those will always be her terms.

Bow down to me, to my rules.

My rules are exclusion, gossip, power over, ridicule, and threat. To start.

You say: No. I will not see her. "it is my choice." By that you say:

I have rules, too. I choose my own rules. Cedar rules.

Copa, I like this very much. We are indeed complete people, maybe moreso without than with them. We have made lives for ourselves that do not include them and that's good, as we are toxic to each other. We do our abusers no good when we engage them. That is the same as enabling them to attack us. I would rather not enable anyone to do anything that I'm trying so hard not to do myself.

We never needed them as much as we thought we did and they didn't need us at all. We were kidding ourselves.
 

Daphne

New Member
Hi Copa,
I'm sorry, this just just seems like a lot of negative energy. I appreciate your reply however the person on the other side just can't seem to defend herself. For that reason, I feel that this is all wrong. I will be posting soon in regards to myself!
My friend has shared with me a similar story and is very upset about her sister posting nasty things about her. I feel so bad because she can't defend herself! Ya know? I'm just wondering why you say that I'm focusing too much on SMOT. What about you?
Copa, I swear that this is sooo weird! I feel like I know the person on the receiving end of this but it's probably a coincidence. Again, I don't want to be negative.... There's really so much similarities, it's bizarre!
Hope ur having a nice weekend!!!
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Copa, put her on ignore.

Cedar, please do it too. Either that or lets go to our other spot for a while.

I have reported it and we'll see what happens.

We can talk in private.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Not at all, Copa. There is an ignore function in your account. I have used it before and already used it for her. She is not adding to the discussion, but insulting us and I do suspect sister and possibly a cohort of hers. I'm not going to engage her. You can if you like :) I'm moving onto other threads.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
SWOG, I'm not sure why you keep posting about your sister.

Hello, Daphne.

How extraordinary that you would post as you have.

We cannot help you Daphne, unless you bring to your posts the courage, sincerity, and commitment required to heal.

I'm new to this site but have been lurking for a while here.

Then you will know we do not disparage, accuse, or belittle one another, here.

You will have learned too that in dysfunctional family systems, each of the siblings carries some version of the primary abuser's dysfunction.

I will repeat: Unless you bring to your posts the courage, sincerity, and commitment required to heal, we cannot help you. For your own sake, I will add that until you require of yourself the courage Serenity has shown in her healing, your own healing will be difficult, if not impossible.

Does your sister know you write such nasty things about her?

How Serenity's sister might interpret the issues discussed here, among them the pain and confusion of sibling betrayal, is not our concern, and neither should it be yours, Daphne. I will say it again: Until you require of yourself the courage Serenity has shown in her own healing, it is unlikely your recovery will be successful.

Sibling betrayal is a painful, but extremely common, artifact of the dysfunctional family.

I'm not sure why you keep posting about your sister.

Duh.

Sibling betrayal is a painful, but extremely common, artifact of the dysfunctional family.

The deeper the level of dysfunction, the more hateful and less rational the actions of dysfunctional siblings will be. The more dysfunctional the sibling, the more heavily invested he or she is in maintaining the structure of the dysfunctional family's belief system unchanged. The more dysfunctional sib will fight with everything at his or her disposal to see the healthier sibling's reputation, sense of honor, and recovery destroyed.

They do it, every time.

That is how you know the sib carries the dysfunction.

Shouldn't you be focusing on yourself?

Duh.

We each are focusing on ourselves, Daphne. I repeat: We cannot help you until you display the same courage, honesty, and commitment Serenity displays in her own healing.

Shame on you!

Seriously?

Did you actually post those words on this site?!?

For heaven's sake.

Not to belabor a point?

But...

Duh.

:)

In her defense, it's her life to live and not yours.

In whose defense? We don't care about the sister. What we do here has nothing to do with any of the sisters. If, on the other hand, the sister were to require of herself the courage, honesty, and commitment Serenity has devoted to her healing, then we would, of course, be most willing to help the sister. Since she cannot commit to her own healing with honor and honesty and integrity and courage?

Who cares about the sister.

Sounds like you're jealous of her and that's very obvious.

Of the sister? In the dysfunctional family, it is actually the sibling unable to mount the courage, honesty, or commitment necessary to commence her own healing who will experiences an envy so intense it burgeons into blinding jealousy. In extreme cases? The more dysfunctional sibling, fearing the healthier sib will escape the suctioning whirlpool of the dysfunctional family's toxicity, may actually resort to stalking the healthier sib.

These actions, so I have read, are the last, desperate measures of the more dysfunctional sib to pull the healthier sib back again into those old, familiar, terribly dysfunctional, family of origin patterns.

That is how one knows who is who.

Because the more dysfunctional sibs all seem committed to acting out their dysfunctions in similar ways. Without exception, they seem to commit the same kinds of senselessly hurtful betrayals in their desperate attempts to re-hook the healthier sibs into the whirl of the family of origin's dysfunction. There is hope for these more dysfunctional sibs? But until they require of themselves the courage, honesty, and commitment required to heal, their own recoveries are in jeopardy.

It's easy to point the finger at someone else as I have done this numerous times.

Well, posting as you have here being a sterling example of finger pointing. At someone else, I mean.

We don't care about the sister here, Daphne. In her determination to fire up and re-enact the same old, dysfunctional patterns, the sisters are part of the problem we are addressing here. If any of the sisters were to require of herself the same courage, honesty, and commitment to her healing that Serenity has so amply demonstrated, then of course, we would be more than willing to help her.

Time to focus on yourself and let your sister live her own life. It's only a suggestion and I think you'll be much happier if you just let go and take care of yourself.

There must be an echo in here. Unless I am very much mistaken, Serenity has been posting to both Copa and myself that until our sisters commit to their own healing instead of to envy and jealousy and stalking us, any interaction with our dysfunctional family members, siblings included, will be detrimental to our own healing.

Serenity has been very clear with both of us that we cannot heal until, wishing them well, we leave our dysfunctional siblings behind.

If you are experiencing jealousy or rage Daphne, this may help you. It has helped us immeasurably in healing the wounds each of us carries through trying too many times to forgive.

Pray for their peace and therein, find our own.

Please do feel free as a bird to post whenever you like, Daphne. I will remind you again though, that until you display the same honesty, courage, and commitment to your healing that Serenity has devoted to hers, your recovery will be a difficult one.

Cedar


:hugs:
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Cedar, I am committed to doing all I can not to cheat, meaning I will do the best I can not to read or engage and I did that. The poster, whoever she is, is safely on ignore and banned from writing a PM to me.

I believe I have been upfront about my FOO relationships as I know them to be and if the poster really is interested in learning more, all she needs to do is read, but I am not going to fight with her or anybody.

Cedar, she did not come here to post about herself and her problems.

Daphne, although I can't see you, I have a good idea of who you are or of whom told you to do this. I wish my sister no ill, but she has hurt me through t he years and I'm sure I hurt her too. We are toxic to one another. This site, however, is MY place to heal so it will not address her point of view. I can't know her point of view and no longer care as she is not in my life anymore and never will be again. Nothing good can happen until she faces her own demons and that is something I have never heard her do.

At any rate, you can post all you like, but I will not read one thing you do post. Ignore hides you.

Cedar, I recommend ignore, and thank you for sticking up for me in such a good way. This is definitely my point of view and my own trauma and demons and hers are not important in my healing. I do hope she heals, but she will have to admit she has something to heal from first. And she will not have me anymore, regardless if she heals or not. There is way too much mistrust.

Frankly, nobody cares about sister because they don't know who she is, except for you, Daphne.

In spite of your words, whatever they may be, I hope you can calm down and have a peaceful night.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
At least you are both seeing what I dealt with all my life...lol.

Cedar...ignore is better for your stomach. I did not see w hat she wrote, but laughed at what you wrote.
 
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