(((Rose))),

Well, I don't think your brother is trying to "hurt" you by doing that. From what you have told me about him, first he doesn't understand "how" you are hurting and feeling abandoned, he really doesn't. From what you discribe of him, he is on a fast track to I need to find "self worth" and it must be in things because that is what mother keeps saying by how she raised me. You see Rose, your mother felt that just by being a part of "privilage" means that someone should feel happy and "loved". But as you know, that is not true at all. Beatles "Can't buy me love", remember?

You have more depth to you right now Rose, you are standing outside that picture of your family and their shallowness and yeah, saying WTF?, and yet you can see how "sad" it is too. And this doesn't mean "privilaged" people can't love Rose, but what it does mean is that they can unknowingly believe that if a child grows up in "privilage" they will feel nurtured and loved. Your mother only "buys" love, but it isn't love, it is more about her need to feel that because she "offers up privilaged things" that her offspring will "adore and praise "her"". So a vacation to your mother means, "time for "her" to be adored". And that is why she didn't like that vacation idea being "your" idea, that would have given the "power of adoration to you". This is what a narcisist truely thinks Rose, they are not going to give up "their crown" to anyone, not even their own children.

And your brother? What has he learned, especially fresh back from your mother's vacation? "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?".

Rose, your whole purpose as a child was that you and your siblings were an accessory to your mother amongst her "friends of privilage". This is why you were so upset about that couple that was "adopting a designer baby". However, a baby doesn't have to be "adopted" to experience just being "an important must have accessory".

The story I told you about me meeting a little girl at a horse show that had the very expensive white show pony? She was crying Rose, why? Because her "daddy" was not there to be with her, that is what she "really wanted most". Yet, she had everything else a little girl could want. And her daddy and mommy? They thought that they were just buying her "love" and didn't have to be there. So, a little girl has to learn that "things mean love" somehow. And even though that little girl who was a very pretty little girl by the way, just wanted her mommy and daddy to be with her, she is going to grow up also in some way thinking that "things mean love and adoration somehow". Her parents were teaching her to become a "narcisist". And I have seen this many times, just in the horse show world alone.

Here is how it goes; We are at a horse show and "my" daughter is there braiding her horse, warming him up and schooling him over fences, making him spotless and getting him all ready for the competition. We got up before dawn to begin the day and we talked in the car on the way and "both of us were together, mother and daughter".

It is close to "show time" and up drives a "mercedes" and a young girl gets out of it all dressed in show clothes. Her horse is all braided for her, and her horse is very expensive, the "trainer" warmed it up for her and schooled it over the fences to tune it up to go into the competition and be ready to "do it's job". This girl hops on her horse, and rides it around the "warm up ring" so the "girl" can get her "posing muscles ready". This girl's parents are not even there in all of this. The girl goes into the show ring the horse is a "star" and she poses herself while the "horse does all the work" and she wins the ribbon. She is a star, and she gets off the horse, hands it to a groom and walks over to her "mercedes" or "farrare" and leaves. And this girl often doesn't even know "how to saddle up a horse" and "would be totally lost if she had to actually "direct the horse in what to do in the showring"". But, she is star and all she cares about is that "star moment" that was bought and paid for by mommy and daddy who never even go to a show to watch.

"Friends who backstabb, and family that "backstabbs" are all people that just don't like it when "they are not the "fairest of all". And it has nothing to do with "your worthyness of being loved at all Rose", children that are "raised to only adore" to make any gains, struggle with the ability to "have their own sense of self worth".
And children that are raised like that also "need to be adored like that too". And that is what you are seeing in your brother and sister.

You don't play that game Rose, so you are threat to your mother in her world of being "adored". No, you can't swim in that water of "ignorance". And the truth is, there really is no "love to breath in" in that kind of environnment. All of that must be showered on your "mother". You cannot have that, she showed you that as soon as you were getting love from that baby she had.

I can relate to you in that I have an older sister who also "needs" to have all the control and "adoration". It took me a long time to realize that my sister "needed" to be the one in charge of all the family gatherings. She "needed" to be like "Martha Stewart" and "everything was just so too". I thought that her and I were "close" but it wasn't that way at all. My sister needed me "to adore her and follow "her" and I was not supposed to rise above her or "challenge" her". As soon as I did challenge her, it was over and she started to need to "call me crazy" somehow.

I grew up truely feeling like I could not "be good enough". I was told that in many ways Rose, yet I did "sneak in my own things". And that is how I always felt inside.
I "wanted to do my own thing" but I always had to find a way to "sneak it in" under the watchful eyes of others. Yes, I would go to the holidays at my sister's but, I always could sit and chat with everyone, I genuinely listened, even to my sister's mother in law whom my sister "hated". I didn't see the 'evil woman" my sister discribed at all. I just saw a woman that was a nice person really, but wanted to have celebrations at her home too, and that was not acceptable to my sister. My sister "had to have things her way "always".

Even now, with my mother being old and my father as well, my sister "demands" control over them and their health care. And because I chose to make a change when I moved my mother into a private room so she could get quiet while she was recovering. That was when I knew I had crossed a very forbidden line. As I mentioned, my sister "talks at and orders my mother around like a child". I don't do that, my mother and I talk and that is what my sister "always hated".

Well, my dad got sick and ofcourse my sister had to be the drama queen etc. I didn't play the concerned audience to her game and boy did she hate that. Well, she took my father to have a driving test to see if he could still drive. And this was a private man who tested older people, he was not MVD employee. But my father was put in a small car that he did not have experience driving, he was asked to drive in a construction zone on a busy road he did not know. And my sister and the man testing my father were talking all about "realestate" which is what "my sister does". And with all the distractions, my father failed the test. And ofcourse that give my sister even "more control".

Well, I talked to my father and at first he didn't want to talk about it because he was so upset. But, he finally decided to get a second opinion from a different tester. He didn't want anyone to know. Well, last night I told him "Dad, I am impressed with you, I totally agree that you should do this test on "your own". And if you let me know when, I will drive you to this tester without my sister even knowing so that you can see for yourself "without her". And my father really like that idea.

Rose, I can "SO RELATE" to how you feel about "not being part of family functions".
I have the same thing because "my sister" controls that whole part of my family, "she has had to be "in charge of that all the time". She has to have the celebrations at "her Martha Stewart, Country Living Home" and she plans it so that I cannot do anything with my parents on the holidays. Even Christmas she has my parents stay Christmas Eve and until late Christmas Day. So if I don't "give in and go to her family celebration, I don't get any "family celebration". And my parents?, they just follow because my sister 'does all so perfectly" and so they just follow and really don't see the "whole picture". Although, my mother has told me, "OE, your sister has always been jealous of you, you have always been so warm and friendly to everyone, and she doesn't know how to do that like you, so she has always felt threatened by you". Rose, I honestly never realized it, I just didn't see it for what it really was. But now I do and I simply cannot even be around my sister without getting really triggered.

I have also watched my sister make some big mistakes too. She gets so full of herself and can be blinded by her sense of "all knowingness" that misdiagnoses happen too. I watched it happen with my parents and even myself.

When I am with my attorney, I can definitely see that "he is the same way" and he "is" making mistakes and just like my sister is "so dam full of himself that he is not seeing that he is actually "damaging" my case". And "just like my sister" when I point out the mistakes, he gets very angry and "puts the blame on me". I know the opposing attorney "hates him" and I cant blame her. I was "so embarassed" in my depositon by my attorney and his big need to "talk about himself including having to say he was not a bad "jew" and "his reunion at his prestigeous law school". It was awful, and completely inappropriate. It was all about "him" being on stage and not even asking the opposing attorney about where she went to lawschool, it was all about "his self importantance" and saying "I am a big successful guy to I am going to win this case etc." Ugh...it was awful and made me sick with shame and embarassment.

Last year was "horrible for me", between my sister and all her controlling to where I was cast out on every holiday and my sister even pushing my daughter into thinking the worst about me, as well as my attorney messing up so much, forgetting so many depositions and grand standing. Ugh, I could bearly function.

Even PC, I genuinely reach out to everyone and I care and see how others struggle.
And I was triggered here too because someone took that wrong, and thought "I needed to be some kind of popular". And they even used the words "competition" and that never was even in "my" mind. And that experience brought forward some flashbacks about my sister, and I had not even talked about that in therapy yet.
I was too busy getting help from T to deal with what my attorney was doing wrong and how that was damaging me and really "aggrivating" the PTSD.

However, as hard as it was, that person did me a favor because I brought that experience into my T who explained to me what it meant. And I finally began to see what it was about me that was "misunderstood" and even considered "threatening".
Well, I see it so much better now, but I still don't know how to get past it. And this is also where you are too Rose. And guess what, we are not "alone" in that challenge.

When someone grows up with a parent or sibling that "needs the control over being adored somehow" that someone can become very confused about how to truely feel they "can" attain a "high position" somehow. There is always some hidden fear of "if one shines somehow" that "shining fullfillment" becomes a target and if it isn't "hidden" somehow, it could be taken away by someone else's mistake that can be "blamed on the one who dares to shine".

The "foundation" needed for every child's nurturing is for a parent to teach that "child" that they already "shine" and that they have the right to pursue whatever makes them happy, but they already have "unconditional love". It is not about "shining" because someone "has something", it is about "shining" because someone already "is something" and is loved for "just that". That is how I raised my own daughter and that is how every child needs to be raised. I made sure that I always told my child and still do to this day, that I don't care what she does for a living, she could be up to her knees in pig dung, and what I will look for and be happy with is the genuine "smile" she wears on her face.

It sounds easy doesn't it? But this "simple message" is something that is constantly missed by so many parents. A child is not an "accessory" that exists just to give "praise and adoration" to a parent. No matter where a child is raised, "privilage" or not, unless that child is given the right to be "loved and appreciated" just by their own existance "first", then they grow up never really understanding how to have "self esteem". Self esteem cannot be bought and it is not in a picture of someone that has a "fararee".

Rose, here is what you say to your brother about his "picture". You say to your brother, "Dear, I love the picture of "YOU", and I love "YOUR SMILE" and that is the most valuable thing about your picture to me. If you were standing next to a pile of garbage with that smile, the picture would be just as nice because "you" with a "smile" is enough for me. "love always, Rose".

(((Hugs)))
Open Eyes