Siblings

Old 01-12-2010, 06:02 PM
  # 1 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
utopia's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Second star to the right....
Posts: 845
Siblings

Handy simple short hints on how to let go and let god with siblings not in recovery.

Parent-child relations have their own list of issues, but sibilings I feel are the ones that were our age bracket and so we had different expectations that caused us suffering. were mine reasonable? should i just try and have no expectations of anyone in my family at all? why is there the conflict,

the TOTALLY different point of view and how can that be reconciled when we converse??

and should i just give up? i dont know how to communicate with my sister who is not in recovery and does not recognise alcoholism as a disease or teh reality of abuse in my family and I DO!
utopia is offline  
Old 01-13-2010, 10:29 AM
  # 2 (permalink)  
Member
 
GiveLove's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Stumbling toward happiness
Posts: 4,706
Utopia,

If this person were not a sibling, not a relative..........would they be the kind of person you would include in your life? Would you still expend the same amount of energy on the relationship, or would you simply say, "Poor fit for me, see you later" and let them get on with their lives?

I've driven myself near to insanity trying to make some siblings/relatives see what I want them to see.

Letting them go -- to believe what they want, to live how they want -- has provided such a refreshing serenity.
GiveLove is offline  
Old 01-13-2010, 02:46 PM
  # 3 (permalink)  
Member
 
GingerM's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Under the Rainbow
Posts: 1,086
"My sister/brother is doing X. That is who she/he is. She/he does that."
(acceptance of the person for who they are, not who you would like them to be)

"I am not entitled to the sister/brother I think I *should* have, I am only entitled to the one I have." (acceptance that there is no "other" brother/sister, only the one you've got)

The first line above was given to me by my therapist at my last session when I was dealing with trying to accept someone for who they were despite the fact that I wanted to throttle them for being so blind to the effects of their actions on those around them.

The second was given to me a few years back by a different therapist for how to deal with not getting into sniping sessions with someone I had difficulty dealing with, but was forced to spend a fair amount of time with on a near-daily basis.

They helped. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That being said, I have found the former to be more conducive to a longer lasting sense of internal peace than the latter. The second statement is good for acute situations, where I won't be dealing with the person again for a long period of time. The first statement seems to help me accept the person for who they are, not only in the moment, but also as future interactions occur.
GingerM is offline  
Old 01-13-2010, 04:18 PM
  # 4 (permalink)  
Member
 
dothi's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Anywhere but the mainstream.
Posts: 402
Hi utopia, I hear your dilemna. It's bad enough that you're ripped off a decent set of parents. Losing healthy relationships with siblings just rubs salt in the wound. Were people like us meant to have no family?

Remember that alcoholism is a family disease. That means everyone picks up on the social/mental/behavioral infection, whether they're drinking or not. Much like the alcoholic, all family members "hit bottom" in a way before they change (before the pain of staying the same becomes more than the pain of changing).

I have two siblings myself. I believe my sister knew long before I could admit alcoholism was an issue in our parents' house. We both left home and embraced hope in an uncertain future at very different times, following very different paths, when we were ready. Nothing we said to each other meant much until we were both in recovery. Until then, the mental infection we endured growing up with an A-parent was too strong. It triggered to much dysfunction for us to help each other effectively.

Unfortunately, it sounds like your sister is far gone in her "infected" state. As GiveLove said, how would you treat this person if they were not your sibling? Until you see healthy behavior from her, treat her as you've learned to treat the unhealthy people in your family. Family or not, if she's unhealthy, keep your expectations low. If she gets healthy, then you guys can develop your relationship from there. It may or may not be your sister's path to follow the outline your parents gave her. Unfortunately it's not for you to determine.

It's been my experience that rational words don't have much effect on unhealthy people who make irrational choices. The best thing you can do to communicate recovery to her would be with your actions (not your words). I believe unhealthy people DO recognize healthy behavior; it makes them confused, uncomfortable, and causes them to shy away. When your sister makes progress in her own path to recovery, she may finally learn how to recognize your behavior for what it is: healthy and unconstrained by alcoholism. Then she can be encouraged to make the next few steps forward.

FWIW I also have a brother who has estranged himself from me since I backed out from my alcoholic dad's life. In order to protect my feelings, I try to keep my expectations low. I forget that especially while he remains close to my parents, he is unhealthy too and needs ACOA recovery. But I know I can't make him do it, and if I push, it will push him away. All I can do the rare times that we do talk is model healthy behavior. If/when he is ready to change, he'll have at least one person in his life to look to. It's sad because we could be close and supportive of each other, but that's the way this cookie crumbles...
dothi is offline  
Old 01-14-2010, 05:33 AM
  # 5 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
utopia's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Second star to the right....
Posts: 845
thanks, keep em coming! this is gold!..i now regret a bit writing a long letter to her about my feelings but its all out there now, if it was a mistake, well, i guess ill try something else next time. serenity prayer.
utopia is offline  
Old 01-21-2010, 07:32 AM
  # 6 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 688
For my family, I can say the 4 of us siblings have different points of view at least in part (maybe entirely) because we were raised by different parents. The same two people, yes, but my father was strict and condemning and critical with me and my older sibling. With the two youngest, he was much more laid back and permissive. If you look at a chart of the roles of children in an alcoholic family, you'll see that one is treated as the scapegoat while another is lauded as hero. When being raised with such dramatically different treatment, children will grow up with radically different views of their family and parents. It took me a long time (thanks to the tapes of my mother's voice telling me I was just paranoid, blame-shifting, and refusing to look at myself) to realize this REALLY WAS happening, that I could point to many specific instances of it.

I look at my younger sister, who was raised by indulgent, encouraging, and loving parents, who was actually given what she needed (I spent 8th grade in the same two outfits, getting teased for it, because my mother couldn't stand to spend $--on children-- never mind that my parents had a nice house, crystal, china, a Mercedes, and a great deal more). When someone picked on my younger sister, that person was bad; when someone picked on me, my mother said I must have done something to deserve it. (I was not a bully or trouble maker, either. I was the kind who was friends with the nerds and so on. I didn't deserve that from my mother.)

I finally put two and two together and realized if my mother is trash-talking me to my face, to my children, and even to my best friend, she has no doubt spent my younger siblings' entire growing up years saying the same stuff about me to them. Sure, they 'love' me, but thanks to her ugly words all these years (verifiably not true, btw), they will probably forever interpret anything I say or do in the ugly light she has painted me. I'm guessing they and my mother have said some of the same things to my cousins, aunts, and uncles. Who knows how far the damage goes?

For me, yes, I've realized I can't fight years of my mother brainwashing others and destroying my name. I had limited my contact with them because of my parents' negativity and harshness toward my children. When it got to be too much (that story is in other things I've posted), I cut contact completely. They don't like it. Oh, well.

My answer is to try to live my life in peace, try to be right before God, pray for them continually, try to see them with compassion-- my siblings can't really help how they view me, my father is ill and fighting his own childhood demons, my mother-- well, I don't know what her excuse is, but she can't be happy inside her own head.

I now put my time and energy into friends and have found that people outside my family actually LIKE me. Not only that, they admire and respect me and TREAT me with respect.

So, no, I probably won't have much more than a surface relationship with my siblings. I wish it were otherwise, but accept I can't really change that and am not willing to accept their treatment of me. Someone on this board said men think of their families as just people who happen to be related, and thus aren't as affected as women, who think of family as everything. I'm trying to look at it more like men do, and having some success.
EveningRose is offline  
Old 01-24-2010, 08:24 PM
  # 7 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
utopia's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Second star to the right....
Posts: 845
well im a man, and i dont see things that way. i thought i saw family as everything because i had a european background, guess for whatever reason, its just seen differently, sometimes i dont know how to view blood family but ultimatelyI have come to feel better in my belief that only God is something that I can always depend on.
utopia is offline  

Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are Off




All times are GMT -7. The time now is 03:47 PM.