by babygirl30 24 Replies latest jw friends
Babygirl
Sorry for your loss and ongoing struggle with your feelings. It may help to remind yourself that it was not your fault that you had virtually no relationship with your sister for the last ten years.
Feelings come and go; they are not necessarily what love is made of. If your sister were still alive and willing, would you still cherish the possibility of a having a good relationship with her? If so, that is love, whether you feel great emotion over her passing or not.
If your sister were still alive and willing, would you still cherish the possibility of a having a good relationship with her?
I have ALWAYS held out hope that she and I would at some point reconnect - I have wanted that desperately. Every major life event that happened to me, I'd send her an invitation (never got a response). The only thing I wanted was to have my sister be my best friend...that's it. To band together when our parents get too old to care for thenselves, and be each others support. But each year that passed, the possibility of it happening lessened.
The part that hurts most is that I guarantee if the roles were reversed, and I was the one that passed, I bet my sister wouldnt give a rats ass. The fact she had made no attempts to even be in contact all these years is my clear sign. Yet here I am, sad as Hell, over the loss of her...😢
Baby girl 30,my condolences to you.I hope you recognize that the actions of your sister were far beyond her control,Even though it did not appear that way.Humans with BPD are somewhat like a ship without a rudder.The waves of the disorder toss them throughout life,damaging them,and those around them.The heartbreaking part is,that they can't conceptualize the gravity of the self destructive forces within them.At heart,a beautiful person may dwell within.But BPD is an override switch that can not be silenced.Once upon a time,I was married to a woman with the disorder.The poor impulse control,violence and infidelity disintegrated the marriage.The flawed JW DFing system only served as a revolving door for her.It did no good,as shunning discipline only aggravates their anger.It took many years to recover from the trauma of loving someone with BPD.I hope your experience with your sister does not make you angry with God.Although our present lives contain many pains,there is great beauty as well.Beauty in the world around us,and within us.As you go forward,know that we are a small part of this universe,and we don't fully understand what lies ahead for us as conscious beings.But if we show grace to one another,good will prevail,and I think our existence is going to be enlightened.This wonderful planet,and never ending space,couldn't have just been thrown together to end,like this.Love and Mercy to you,and yours.O
I just wanted to say that I am very sorry that you are going though this. There are sometimes I want to reach in the screen somehow and give someone a hug. This is definitely one of those times. One min, day, hour at a time to process.
If it helps somehow, the man who mostly raised me, married to a jw (phyco) died this year days after my pet of 14 years died. He was very abusive. I actually managed to think of some old funny memories of him and times I knew he was "trying". It helped some. Mostly I just really feel detached or numb. Not really anything left to feel about it/him.
About her death being on your Birthday. That sucks! I would make a note of that now, for next year as a potential trigger.
Um, your sis wasn't merely BPD, she was a raging, controlling, manipulative, Narcissist! Worse still, your parents were enablers of her bad behaviour, as she was the "Golden Child" and you were the "Scapegoat."
You need to re-read what you wrote about how this sack of human shit treated you. Yeah, I said that!! You may not believe it now, but in a short time, you will feel nothing but RELIEF that this toxic abuser is out of your life! No more stupid bullshit! No more stalking! Your ungrateful, cruel parents would be the last people I'd talk to.
10 years ago, you should have gone "No Contact" and been done with the whole lot of them. You sound like a much better person without them in your life.
Wish I could say I was sorry for your loss, but I'm not! I'm grateful you are now FREE, and someday soon you will be too. When that happens, don't feel guilty about it. It's 100% justified to feel relief. There's nothing wrong with YOU, but there is definitely something wrong with THEM!
Good Luck. Welcome to the rest of your life!
My dad died 6 months or so after I was shunned. Of course, he pre-shunned like the extreme JW he always was. I remember my mom researching BPD to try to figure him out. It never fully fit as a diagnosis, but in the end it doesn't matter the label, he was who he was. When he died I grieved not the loss of the father I had, but the loss of the father I never had, and honestly my life didn't change for the worse because he was gone. I honestly let go of him when he shunned me. I was dead to him, he was dead to me, same with the rest of my family. I'm not going to sit around pining for people that actively shun me. I mourned their death with my shunning. If they come out someday then it will be like the resurrection I was promised. If they don't, that's on them.
I'm sorry that you lost your sister, and that with that you lost opportunity. I'm sorry that she was such an awful person to be around. However let me say, in response to......
I have ALWAYS held out hope that she and I would at some point reconnect - I have wanted that desperately. Every major life event that happened to me, I'd send her an invitation (never got a response). The only thing I wanted was to have my sister be my best friend...that's it.
Acceptance means letting go of the hope that it could have been any different. Read that again. Now once more and compare that definition of acceptance to what you wrote above.
Your sister was hurt in some way, thus the BPD. She was doing her best, and sadly her best was pretty awful. My dad's was too. In learning more about my dad's past though I get it. He was the byproduct of terrible parents that drank and threatened each other with guns and put him in the middle of a bitter divorce that split him from his siblings, who as the oldest he felt responsibility for. He was a very hurt person, and hurt people, hurt people.
That doesn't mean that the hurt he caused me doesn't hurt, but I can't hold someone to the fire for doing the best they could with the tools, or lack thereof, that they had. I had to let go of the hope that it could have been different because it couldn't. The same is true with your sister. She was likely doing the best she could with the pain and dysfunction that she carried and that others played into. People with BPD change the people around them too. It impacts others who then act in a reactionary way. It's like an addict and how they make everyone around them sick and often codependent.
If you want to love her then you have to love her for who she was, balance the awful treatment you received with the understanding of who she was and what she herself was up against, and let her go. Maybe write a eulogy you'd give and even if you never give it, get those feelings out and find some closure. Say goodbye to the reality of who she was and who you wished she could be with the acknowledgement that she was likely doing her best. Most people, even awful people, aren't malicious, they're just messed up, broken in some way, taking that brokenness with them everywhere they go and impacting others because they either haven't got help or there's no help for them. For many with BPD they will never get help and honestly the disorder itself precludes them from doing so. It's awful, and she wasn't happy either. A very tortured soul.
Take care of yourself, hugs to you, and I hope that you can find some acceptance in your life. It's one of the stages of grief, the one you want to get to, but also remember the grief isn't a linear process. It's messy. And it's not something you may just go through once and it's done. You take grief with you through life, but you get better at managing it. Let go of the hope that this could have been different. Everyone was likely doing their best, even if it wasn't good enough.
I'll add, with regards to your niece and the possibility of you trying to take her and raise her as your own. If you are doing so because you just love this girl so much, that's a great and noble thing to do. If you do so because you're trying to get some relationship that you missed with your sister, you'll bring all of that dysfunction into that relationship with that girl and it may not be fair to her. Also, simply because an opportunity presents itself doesn't mean that you're ready or really even want to be a parent to the child.
If you want to fight to take her, do it because you truly want to be a parent to the child and because you genuinely care for her, otherwise you may be doing her a disservice if others are out there that she loves and that love her, even if they're Jehovah's Witnesses. It is easy to romanticize things like this and to read in some fairy tale happily ever after scenario that happens just because you kept her from a cult on some level, but it doesn't mean that would be the reality or overcome detached feelings. And doing this as some relationship with your sister by proxy isn't a fair expectation to put on the child. Just some things to think about. I may have missed some of that discussion in this thread.
When he died I grieved not the loss of the father I had, but the loss of the father I never had, and honestly my life didn't change for the worse because he was gone. I honestly let go of him when he shunned me. I was dead to him, he was dead to me, same with the rest of my family. I'm not going to sit around pining for people that actively shun me. I mourned their death with my shunning.
I too did this. When my family shunned me 12yrs ago (sister 10yrs ago) - I mourned all of them. In my mind that was that their 'death' and the most painful experience ever! But I got over it, I worked hard on healing, self care, therapy, and learning NOT to tolerate abuse any longer. So yes, I agree...Im not mourning my hateful sister as a person, I am mourning the loss of any chance that SHE could change, we could be sisterly and loving, and that the stupid ass dream I've always held of having my sister be my 'best friend' is gone - forever. And the realization on the flip side that if she was still alive, nothing would change. She would still be denial that SHE is the problem, she would still be shunning me, and she would still be cyber stalking me and attempting to talk bad about me to whomever would listen. I think THAT hurts more than anything...Im crying over her loss, but if the tables were turned, I guarantee she wouldn't do the same for me.
Say goodbye to the reality of who she was and who you wished she could be with the acknowledgement that she was likely doing her best. Most people, even awful people, aren't malicious, they're just messed up, broken in some way
This is what bothers me most. Because I did 'the work' years ago...when we first stopped talking. I let it all go, gave up, and I accepted that my sister - my little sister - was an adult who CHOSE not to have me in her life. She chose to make this decision to be separate and not include me in she or her childs life. But that like I said in my original post, I always knew my sister was hurting...there was some mental battle she was always fighting, and that battle tended to spill outward (onto those closest to her). I watched my parents kiss her ass when she cussed them out in front of people, I witnessed her doing some of the vilest things at their expense - and them just shrugging their shoulders in exhaustion. I remember asking my mom one day "why...why do you all tolerate her nonsense?" My mother told me that all parents know when their child is 'sick' (or off), and so they overcompensate for THAT child, as a protection for them, and because they feel guilty. That is the reason my sister got away with all her torture. Oddly enough if you asked my sister who my parents favored, she would tell you it was ME (but I was the good kid, the responsible kid, the one who didn't need constant parental attention or help because I was 'ok'). But the reality of our family dysfunction was that she was the needy one, and her behavior always solidified that she got most of the attention. SMH...sad to look at it from the outside in, and realize that my sister has NO clue that she was rotten apple. Even as kids though, I knew my sis just wanted to be loved. I think she had maybe 2 boyfriends her entire life (one of them being her kids father) - and even he got away from her and now is happily married with a family of his own. She was obese all her life, and her mental illness made being her friend hard - so she didn't have many of those either. The last few years of her life she was dependent on our parents and lived with them (due to her illness), so Im assuming that loss of freedom just sent her over the edge. I understand why she was lonely and that her hurt ran deep, but I also understand that I NEVER deserved to be her punching bag.
If you want to fight to take her, do it because you truly want to be a parent to the child and because you genuinely care for her, otherwise you may be doing her a disservice if others are out there that she loves and that love her, even if they're Jehovah's Witnesses.
Let me clarify - I am NOT interested in being a 2nd mother to my niece, nor do I want to take her away from the only home she has known (with my parents). This child has been through enough trauma, and because I havent' seen her since she was 3 (she is now 13), she doesn't even know me - that was my families doing, they made sure of that. When I saw her last week she was caught off guard when I told her I was her aunt?!?!?! That made her cry even more...which broke my heart.
My only wish is to be involved IN her life. She is 13 now, had a mentally ill mother, a disabled grandmother, and an elderly grandfather all raising her. Now that her mother is gone, I just feel like I have to do SOMETHING! I can't sit back and watch this child have no one to confide in (my parents are NOT that type) and relate to, and I can't sit back and watch my parents struggle to do this alone. I don't want to make up for the loss of the relationship with my sister, because that would be a heavy weight to put on a kid...and it would discredit HER value as an individual by trying to make her be my friend, even though we are family. That's it. That's all Im asking for...a chance to be involved. To just be there, for if and when she needs me, to get to know HER, what she likes, what she finds fun to do, do girly stuff with. She doesn't owe me that though, because again, she doesn't know me at all really.
Um, your sis wasn't merely BPD, she was a raging, controlling, manipulative, Narcissist!
I wish I could agree with that...but narcissist she was not. If you read the BPD description it fit her perfectly, almost eerily. All these articles Im reading now really nail home how BAD a case she was, to be honest.
You may not believe it now, but in a short time, you will feel nothing but RELIEF that this toxic abuser is out of your life! No more stupid bullshit! No more stalking!
It sounds so fucked UP to even admit that her passing, in a small way, is a relief. And I don't mean that to be malicious either - but she was so mean, to everyone around her, including my parents. My heart hurts for my niece most, because I can only imagine what it has been like growing up in such a dysfunctional and abusive household with her mom having mental illness. My heart hurts for my parents loss, because they have always 'protected' my sister, im sure that was their life. That part of their life is gone now...suddenly, never to return. Im sure for them, being elderly, that is a hard pill to swallow. BUT, my sis and I have been estranged for years. She has been out of my life for a long time and Ive had that sense of 'relief' in not actively having to deal with her nonsense - it is just that now, her removal is permanent. And I have to be honest, I don't know HOW to feel about that. I'm genuinely confused about it...
