As I am writing this she is calling my mother a pejorative – my mother whom she has hit and given a black eye in the past. She is screaming at the top of her lungs because my mother won’t “shell out” 5,000 for her go to see the Olympics. She has been given every chance at succeeding but has blown all of them – and I do pity her – but I tried for years to help her and now I just feel bitterness.

Why? Because she steals my time with my elder sister away. She likes to poach on mutual family resources, and, perhaps out of pity, my elder sister always gravitates to her and is so kind to her even when she screams and swears at her to her face. Even despite all this abuse she seems to prefer my younger sister – and it has been this way ever since she was born – I suppose simply because she is younger and brings out more maternal feelings?

I wouldn’t call us estranged because it is a family obligation to come “spend time with the family” – but I sit here most of the break getting internally angry at her abuse of the “good” side of the family – but I know it is unChristian to go and slug her one when barks at my elderly mother and my sister. If it were a stranger talking to someone in my family like this they would be dead in the street, but as she is family, everyone must treat the little psychopath with care.

And we do. Nobody calls her psychotic to her face, except my husband who comes from a normal family and sometimes can’t help reacting to someone who pulls a knife out on him and tries to hit him with a cutting board because “your cutting is KEEPING ME UP!!”

My mother on the other hand is extremely controlling and has lost her mind, and my father has the responsibility of a gopher.

Have to go do cleanup from the little princess’ mess.

While CJ is more than capable of responding on her own behalf, I thought I’d add my bit anyway.

I’m not sure exactly WHAT you read “between the lines”, but I can tell you you’re way off-base. Firstly, there is much more to the life-long story between CJ and her sister than she communicated in her post, so passing judgement so readily is naive and ignorant, at best.

Second, CJ is not irritated by Craig’s readers mixing them up at times – amused would be a better word. Don’t you think it would be funny to imagine someone reading a girly post and just be assuming that Craig wrote it?? The posts people have written along these lines have been quite funny.

Third, knowing CJ in real life, I can tell you that she is one of the LEAST aggressive people I know. I re-read her post and honestly can’t see where you came up with the aggressive feeling. Keep in mind that her role here is to make us think and ask probing questions, so the story was never meant to be a complete rendition of her relationship with her sister; just something to set the context and open up discussion of the questions at the end.

90% of the world we see is our perception of it. The fact that you saw “irritation” and “aggression” in CJ’s post and were very quick to pass judgement suggests that this is more about you than the post or the topic. What is it that’s going on with you to prompt you to see it in that light, I wonder?

With respect,
Suz

I’m not sure about this. Reading between the lines and taking into account some of your previous posts I think that you don’t like her simply because she doesn’t like you.

It seems to irritate you when you need to remind Craigs readers when it’s actually NOT him writing these particular posts but yourself?

Your post has bothered me. It is quite aggressive, yet the way you have worded the questions at the end. A complete contradiction…

No CJ, there is nothing wrong with you for not loving your own sister. We are very close because we happen to be sisters and choose to be friends.

Marcia is the favourite, I am a distant second and CJ is a very distant third. Marcia was the one who got away with murder, though, in the long run I don’t believe this lack of boundaries did her any favours.

We have made numerous attempts to include Marcia, CJ invited Marcia and her family to our now annual Christmas gathering in CJ’s home, Marcia never responded to the invitation.

I have never been close to Marcia, there is an eight year age gap and we are very different people, however, I have always done my best to maintain cordial relations – then I got married I thought the bride was supposed to be the drama queen but Marcia became a Sisterzilla with everything meant to revolve around her, including the wedding date and guest list. In short, we will have our second anniversary in April and have still not received her or her children’s RSVP.

Well CJ, given the 44 comments you have received, it seems you’ve written about something that resonated with a lot of people.

Cheers,

Cindy
Ps: Marcia does not know that CJ writes for this site, she has never heard of him-dot-com and neither has our wider family.

Letting go of what? Illusions.
What illusions? Man-made patterns of human life (that we have come to believe [mistaken] as reality itself)

Real is the blood and hereditary relation between family members.
Illusion is the “must” of the structure of a family.

I am not talking about abolishing, or fighting, family structure, but for us to see that, outside of family, the possibility to form strong, if not stronger, bonds with others in this world is there.

Coming from a traditional Chinese family, I had the full experience of the crippling effect of such “structure”. (of course, there’s some plus but that’s besides the point here.) Oh, guilt can be such heavy burden. But behind it lies the intention that “I am important as a family member and it is important, a must, for me to maintain this ‘structure thingie’.”

So I gave up being important to become the person I can be with nothing holding back. Even better now, I give my parents the respect as the persons they are instead of the “respect” of me being a good son to them as parents.