I raised my younger sister until I was 18 and went to college. Many of our issues now are because she cannot forgive me for leaving her, or for how badly she thinks I did in raising her. (I was eight when she was born.) Before my dad died, he sat down with her and tried to talk to her about how treats me, and her refusal to either accept my apology or even talk to me about what she thinks I did wrong. She tells everyone else how horrible I am, but to my face would say everything was fine. Anyway, my dad tried to point out to her that the people she SHOULD be angry at were him and my mother, because they failed to be parents and left an eight year old in a the position of TRYING to fill the gap, but she refused to see that and continues to just blame me for everything I did wrong.

What has helped me was FINALLY discussing with my T the things that I am horrified that I did in 'parenting' my little sister. Just sat there and said, 'here are the mistakes I made.' I did the best I could as a child to try to protect my little sister from physical abuse. I did a piss poor job of meeting her emotional needs or teaching her what she needed to know and I certainly bullied the snot out of her to keep her in line because I would get beaten for her mistakes. His response was enormously healing. He pointed out there is a reason small children do not have children. It's because small children are incapable of raising a child. He asked me to picture his 14 year old daughter trying to raise a small child. He said, "she's great and she's smart, but when it comes to raising kids, she's still a total idiot." That made me laugh, and realize that it really WASN'T my fault.

It wasn't your fault, Lola. It isn't your responsibility now. If you are able to help her, great. If you cannot, you still can provide emotional support. If you can afford it, maybe you could hire someone in her area to go in and clean house for her, or provide some childcare. You're still helping, even if you're not physically present.