*Trigger Warning – emotional abuse, family estrangement

Some of you may know, some probably not, but the moon is in Scorpio and it’s time to release some 12 year old dam water.

If anyone wants further clarification on why my family situation is the way it is – here you go.

In 2005, my oldest half sister who shall remain nameless (18 years older than me) commenced what can only be described as some form of mental torture. Taking me as an extremely depressed and confused 13 year old who was trying to find her feet in the world and attempting a subtle undermining of my parents and my life. If you’ve ever seen Charmed, there is an episode where this demon whispers people’s worst fears in their ear and makes them do stuff. Well that was my sister whispering in my ear. I thought I could confide in her my troubles. My parents were after all very strict and I was a bit of a free spirit so naturally I was frustrated. She then wrote down everything I had told her about our parents over an 18 month time period (about 50 pages I think), got it bound at Officeworks and then went to DHS with my brother and with said document in order to gain custody of me. She also distributed it to my teachers, the principal, my doctor and my friends and god knows who else in order to prove I was mentally ill and my parents were causing it. THEN when my parents found out when the cops arrived on the doorstep, she and my other two siblings skulked off never to be seen again. Not saying a word. No explanation. Uncontactable by phone or email. Still in the same house but refusing to say a word other than she did the right thing, whatever that was.

Leaving me as a 13 year old to explain to a variety of authorities and my own parents, grandparents, extended family who were naturally horrified what had happened and to explain the “Why?” of a 32 year old woman.

A few days later I made a pact with myself to never let this affect me. So I didn’t deal with it. I stuffed it down. I went back to school. I’d just had all of my most private innermost feelings distributed publicly without my consent and then used against my family. The mental state of both my parents, me, my grandparents and my even our great grandparents (YEP) had all been questioned publicly. Some things were true but most things were skewed. Over exaggerated. Amended. Skewed to fit someone else’s version of the truth. Bits of her own experiences with our parents stuffed in there. I nearly lost my parents, my home and I’d just lost my three siblings one of whom I trusted and loved above anything. I also lost a few friends, things just aren’t the same after your sister starts calling their houses and spouting that they need to help her. So I didn’t speak the truth after that. If I expressed how I truly felt I would destroy my family, so I didn’t. I became empty inside but kept up the facade.

2 years later this turned into unexplained agoraphobia. I couldn’t remember anything of what had happened with my sister. I knew something had gone down with my sister but I kept drawing blanks. And this subject in my family was a don’t ask don’t tell situation.

Fast forward 5 years and my life at home is no happier. So I leave and things get even worse. Tensions build and I seek out my siblings again. Maybe they were right? Maybe my parents were the cause of everything wrong with me? So I meet up with them in secret. Everyone had said I was never allowed to speak to or see my sister again but I did because curious cats or something. Things are normal, they seem like nice people. We have coffee. I’m confused.

Please note I am still drawing blanks in my head about what happened in 2005.

So I am now estranged from my parents. And I have nowhere to live. So I live with oldest sister and her partner for a while. She’s a caring loving warm person. But there’s another side to her. A side that could never be wrong. She said to me once that “you asked me to help you so I did”

Okay so the responsibility is mine again. (FYI What I wanted dear sister was to be taken to the movies or to use your ID to go clubbing, not to have my life torn apart.)

She understands all of the feelings I have toward my parents. And always reinforcing, we did the right thing. And I believe her. My brother also says the same
Thing. However he confuses me as his mental state seems to fluctuate and it’s as though he can’t decide if he loves me because I’m wonderful or he hates me because I’m defective and not even a real person. Regardless we all know that I’m the issue. I truly am mentally ill, I truly am disturbed. Surely it’s not unusual for your brother who is in his late 30s to tell you you’re ugly on social media. Surely it’s not unusual for your sister to make you sleep on a bare floor with no mattress in the living room for a year and then tell you to be grateful. Yep that’s all cool, got it.

So then I meet Andrew and we fall in love and move in together and we’re pregnant. Yay!

We decide to let my parents know after 5 years of not talking! And we meet up, we clear the air. I can see that they’d really tried to make amends and had taken responsibility for things they’d done. I also understand their actions a little better as I’ve grown up too.

Oldest sister starts acting up. She starts telling me not to let our parents near the baby. She starts telling me that it’s unreasonable of me to expect her to move her storage out of the babies room in my
house when I’m only four months pregnant. She didn’t like it when I said to her she couldn’t make that call partly because she just couldn’t but also, she’d never been pregnant before so how could she tell me when the right time to start preparing was? She starts making quips about my husbands mental state. She starts telling me we are doing baby stuff (like reverse car seat) wrong. She starts just acting weird. When she told me I should be grateful to her I even had a bed, I screamed fuck off and hung up the phone.

I had no idea why I even did that. But things were starting to come back to me now, I wasn’t drawing blanks anymore. Things like, why on earth would she think it’s okay to separate a child from their parents? And her parents?! Why on earth did she leave me to pick up the pieces of her mess all alone? No phone call? No letter of explanation to alleviate me of this burden? She had said she didn’t want to cause anymore mess for me. Ummm well maybe try cleaning it up first?! And why on earth was she contacting my 14 year old friends to get them on her side? As a 33 year old woman, surely that’s bizarre. I couldn’t imagine involving someone of that age in anything like that at 24, how could you do that at 33?

And then I started having the more worrying thoughts. If she truly believed I was mentally ill, would she then try the same undermining of me with my baby? Would I open the door to policemen on the doorstep and a 50 page document about all of Daphne’s issues with me?

But apparently the words fuck off were enough to trigger her sending me an express posted 3 page letter about my mental state. I was mentally ill, I was abusive and I was going to abuse my child. I’m just like our mother. If I continue to misbehave she was going to cut me out.

So naturally, I called her and apologised. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have sworn over the phone or hung up. I am mentally ill and I am sorry. We were all good then.

Until Andrew and I invited her to our wedding. And it turns out she couldn’t make the date and my brother had “prior commitments” (washing hair maybe?Its almost as though he plans to do that on my birthdays, Christmas and our baby shower) I thought she would understand that it was our anniversary. I was wrong. I went to her birthday and she basically refused to acknowledge me, only to ask us why we brought the wedding forward a year.

And I didn’t hear from her after that. But I was feeling weird. If she couldn’t make our wedding, what was she expecting? For us to change the date to accomodate her holiday? No, surely not. It was just poor timing for her but everything was booked now and it was our anniversary. We wanted to get married on our anniversary, that was important to us.

So I emailed her. Explained my position. I also told her that I actually had reconsidered my initial apology for saying fuck off and said that I didn’t think it was appropriate to send such a long letter about how I’m going to be a bad mother to a pregnant woman. And I wanted an apology for that. In fact her letter had left me dumbfounded and numb for about 48 hours. And also maybe she didn’t realise, but she hadn’t said congratulations to Andrew or me about the wedding. Maybe she might want to get on that.

So 3 weeks later she replied

“I just thought I’d let you know I won’t be responding to your emails or messages. Love from *insert name*”

Then, I finally got angry. I was a little mean but I actually meant to send an email
about the injustice of being completely dismissed. After all, my initial email was all about wanting to start afresh and just to be on an even playing field. Well no. Nope,that won’t do. Within 30 mins of me sending my stern email, my brother blocked me on Facebook. I haven’t heard from him in about a year.

And I haven’t heard back from sister either. Also blocked on Facebook. I could call her landline I guess but I don’t really want to. And I’m starting to realise more and more. Particularly the controlling and the gas lighting. Both from her and my brother. I suppose if there was actually nothing wrong with me, then they would be wrong. So they had to keep reinforcing my defectiveness otherwise then everyone would know who they really were and their credibility would be shot.

Why am I saying this now? Firstly because it needs to be said. So few people know of the burden I have carried and I DO NOT want sympathy but I don’t want to store in it in me anymore. I’m acknowledging the enormity of the confusion and turmoil I experienced and am grateful I no longer experience that anymore.

I’m also saying this because this sort of mental abuse and emotional gaslighting within families is ridiculously common. And while some people may say I react strongly to people overstepping boundaries, particularly with my family, I know what it’s like to be a consequence of not enforcing boundaries. Half my life was tainted by someone else’s agenda, someone else deciding who I was and where I went, what I did. Being subject to criticism, pseudo psycho analysing which ultimately reinforced their power above me. A strong reaction isn’t the same as an overreaction.

I can see clearly now so I don’t engage with narcissists anymore. And I won’t offer my child up for them to mess with. I see clearly now so I know that I’m actually okay. Despite everything I’ve been through and yes this is just a snippet of the fucked I have traversed, I’m actually extremely together and very logical. I always wondered why people in my family who were perpetually in hysterics were so focused on what I was doing. Because they didn’t want to look at themselves. Got it. Makes sense. I see clearly now and I know that I’ve carried this around, being the private person I am, to my detriment. I suffered in silence while my abusers got to shout to their own circles how right they were. And I will continue to call them my abusers until they apologise or acknowledge what they’ve done.

Well whether you acknowledge me or not darling sister, we are on an equal playing field and I can also speak now.

Family estrangement hurts so damn much and it’s a pain I have endured for 12 years. It’s confusing and to me it feels unjust. I want to move on and I want to leave it behind but it is so damn hard to do so when you don’t have the answer to “WHY?” I don’t know why. I have my suspicions about vengeance on my parents, maybe jealousy of me being the youngest by a big degree and being doted on. Perhaps she thought she was doing the right thing and I sort of get it. Maybe. It’s the other stuff I don’t get. The sense of entitlement, the controlling, the gaslighting. The lack of owning up and the lack of cleaning up your own mess. Also the lack of wedding congratulations.

As I was not afforded the capacity to state my piece directly to my siblings, I feel that in order to move forward I have had to state my piece to the “public” aka a trusted list of friends. Too long have I covered up for the mistakes of these people and I just won’t do it anymore.