My Hell in Paradise – Part I (My Sister, My Enemy)

Since a small child have always been oppressed by a feeling of fear of being annihilated, like my soul was in danger.  Two things in the last two years began the process of what feels like a killing of my soul, which has now been so battered that the thing I’ve always feared seems close to happening.  One of them was my breaking up with my last boyfriend and the other was a run-in with my older sister, someone who’s lured me in just to bash me since we were children.

They are to others perhaps simple events but they are the straws that are beginning the process of breaking the camel’s back.

The following is the account of the run-in with my narcissist sister, which is also an account of my narcissist mother and my dad, her cheerleading husband.  I’ve inserted a sub account within it of the last time I spoke to my sister before then to give you a little better sense of the kind of person she is.

I have never been on a vacation in my whole adult life and have for years seen my siblings here and there all enjoy vacations with my parents.  My parents have a membership to a resort in Mexico (and I don’t know how it works out but they also go to a related resort in Hawaii often) and my siblings often stay with them as it’s more affordable for them.  I could never go.

Last year a near-miracle happened – my mother called and asked if I wanted to go to Mexico with them, I’d just need my own spending money.  They were going to use their air miles to fly the three of us out there.  It would only be for five days for me but I was very excited about going as I knew it was a chance in a lifetime for me.  The trip was to be in March, 2016.

In the interim, my oldest sister began to email me again.  She was going to come with us on the trip as well, funding her own way.  I hadn’t heard from her in about ten years since my younger sister’s wedding.  Here’s a short account of what happened at the wedding:

My sister and her soon-to-be husband had rented a small lodge for their ceremony and for as a place for their guests to stay at.  One of the guests was my now-brother-in-law’s cousin of some sort from Denmark who flew in for the wedding.

This 40-something Danish cousin was drunk throughout the whole of the first day, hitting on every female guest, including my aunt who was in her late 60’s.  When he saw me I had already witnessed what he was doing right in the open and, as he approached he must have seen the frown on my face before he still attempted to chat me up and then with me turning down his advances.

The next morning was the wedding and then that afternoon my sister and brother-in-law left for Denmark for their honeymoon.  That evening some of the family guests still at the lodge gathered on the large porch table.

The Danish cousin was still drunk and still attempting at flirting with me.  My oldest sister, who is very overweight and not as facially attractive, went into a short embarrassing story about me from when I was a child.  It wasn’t actually that embarrassing, but it was made so by her tone that we should think of it as an embarrassing story and she used it to rise above me.  She was jealous.  It was plain and simple to everyone around us.

I was shocked that she would cheapen herself like that right in front of everyone.  But she was compelled.  If my sister is one thing, she’s a ‘swooper’.  She’ll push someone aside and swoop in to take what she thinks they’re getting.

I was grossed out by her behaviour and left the table, like it was my time to turn in.  Get this – she slept with him that night.  At a wedding, with all the other guests at the tiny lodge knowing it.  Everyone else turned him down but her.  She stayed in his room that night because she was the VICTOR in her eyes.  She just made herself look like a whore to a drunk that was hitting on even the senior women and the reason why is because she saw him hitting on me.

This so weirded me out that I didn’t speak to her for around ten years.  I mean, what’s there to say?

Back to when my sister began to email me again.  I had just started to walk and light jog after years of relapses that left me in pain and out of shape.  She seemed to be a cheerleader during this time, asking me how I was progressing and expressing admiration for my determination.  And so I kept her abreast as I was glad to have someone to share my little recovery victories with.

One day I decided to lay off just a little, feeling like my exercise updates were a little too much, even though she encouraged them.  It was only a week or two later, not much time at all, and she emailed to wonder why I hadn’t updated her lately, asking if it was because of the email she sent to our parents that accidentally had my address on it too.  I didn’t know what she was talking about so I went back to my trashed email and found the one she was talking about that I trashed accidentally without first reading it.  In it she was talking about me to them, saying how doing much better (mentally) I was doing as I wasn’t putting things in a black-or-white category.

First of all, I hadn’t spoken to her in ten years – what did she think she was comparing my present manner to?  Secondly – I’ve never been in a black-and-white way of thinking.  Ever.  If anything, my downfall is that I can be too analytical, wanting to take in all aspects of a situation or person to make a decision on them.  I’ve not dropped people out of my life that I should have based on the fact that I’m always too willing to give them the benefit of the doubt (more truthful words would be that I doubted my own ability to assess people right, so I’ve erred in their favour).

My guess, being that I’ve had help for depression about fifteen years ago, is that my sister has developed a narrative with my parents that I must be of a particular mental illness.  I don’t know which one they were making up for me because I didn’t want to discuss with them this whole weird thing they were doing.  She, just a clerk for a small federal government ministry, must have read about BPD or something and diagnosed me with it, or something like it, herself.  She apparently was updating them with how much better I was doing.   ????  Again, she hadn’t spoken to me for ten years.  I should also add that my counselor I’ve known for over a year has informed me that being BPD was “the last thing I was”.

The other strange thing about this is that my parents have been talking to me and seeing me for the last ten years when she hadn’t.  Didn’t they bother to tell her I was doing fine, aside from the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?  I mean, my readers and I know that I still have much to work out from my childhood, but on the outside no one, not even my family, would have any indication of this.  I’m pretty much normal on the outside, if you will.  My two younger sisters have been for that time on numerous medications and in therapy for anxiety and depression, but apparently they’re okay.  But me, who hadn’t been in treatment for anything like that for years and years, was the one my older sister had to ruse into gaining ‘mental health’ information from.  It was a betrayal from all three of them.

 It made me sick to see that email because of the absurdity and duplicity of it all.

I stopped emailing at that point until about two months later when she again asked how I was doing.  I was willing in my head to forgive her because she seemed embarrassed enough about her accidentally putting my address on that email, so I figured she had ‘learned her lesson’.  Also, I had to be with her in Mexico so I figured it’d be best to drop it.

At this point she was living on the other side of the country with her boyfriend of only a few months who was dying of brain cancer.  That is a horrible story of her behaviour in itself, and I will tell it another day.  Anyway, we continued to email back and forth and one day we called instead of mailed.  During the phone call she had me on speaker for some reason.  She again asked about my jogging, which I thought was something I never thought I’d be able to do just a few months before when I was housebound.  I spoke a little of it when her boyfriend, who I didn’t know was listening, said, “Run, Forrest, run” and they laughed between themselves.  The mocking kind of laugh.  It made me go cold.  It was stupid they were using such an old 90’s reference like it was new, and it was stupid that her boyfriend was mocking me with her when he had never met nor spoken to me, ever.  The moment had all the hallmarks of her and him laughing at me already behind my back, obviously with her leading it as she was the only one out of the pair that actually knew me.

I will never understand the evil mind, the mind of those who derive pleasure out of meddling, mocking, and gain energy, it seems, out of causing mental distress in others.  She got me, again.  And I, again, felt like a deer caught in headlights, not knowing what to say or how to defend my boundaries.  I just kinda went quiet and then a little later said I had to go.

I for sure didn’t speak to her again until the trip to Mexico, another few months away.  By that time her boyfriend had died under circumstances that I will write about later.  My sister gained in his death through power of attorney and being placed on the will after only knowing him for a few months.  Also by this time she was ready with her hatred for me and for my audacity to call her out on her insulting behaviour from that phone call, which essentially was how she interpreted my dropping communication with her (and she’d be correct).  She was ready to go in for the kill.

For the comfort of those reading this lengthy post, I will continue this in another part.