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Originally Posted by rukspc
All my life I’ve had trouble saying what I feel partly because I am fearful that what I say will either hurt the other person or their comments and remarks will seem more valid than mine.
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That's about inadequate, negligent parenting which FAILED to help you feel competant and wanted in their family. It often happens to the 2nd child when the parents cannot be bothered to treat you with the respect and dignity that they gave their 1st and most precious child so you end up with damaged self esteem and terrible insecurities.
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To be specific, I am speaking of my older sister. We have a ten-year age gap between us. I live with her and her family right now and have stayed there for the past three years.
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Typically, when the parents FAIL to mentally/emotionally prepare the older kid to happily and lovingly accept a younger one, the oldest becomes resentful that the newbie (you) is stealing all the love and attention the oldest had always enjoyed and see the newbie as a menacing, unwelcome, threatening invader - esecially when the parents temporariy abandon the older kid to give lots of attention to the new baby. Once the older kid decides that the new kid is their enemy, the oldest begins a campaign of attacking and punishing the offending newbie from then on while conveniently forgetting ( DENIAL) that their own parents caused all the trouble in the first place by abandoning the oldest in favor of the newbie and by FAILING to help the oldest LOVINGLY accept the new baby from day one.
I wrote about this here: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/i...4131948AAmrKma
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She and I have different personalities. I am more passive and quiet and she is more assertive, matter-of-fact and direct. While I don’t wish to change her, I want to change how we communicate. However, this is really difficult for me because I’ve always – childhood until now – had difficulty starting the conversation or even bringing something up for fear of crying in front of her, saying something that I didn’t mean or offending her.
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Those are all typical sibling patterns that are the direct consequence of inadequate parental traning which FAILED to let both of you be EQUALS in the family and set up a situation where you are INFERIOR to your SUPERIOR sister.
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I am starting to think that my lack of speaking up means that I feel threatened, insecure and unsure of myself.
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Yes, due to negligent parenting which FAILED to help you be confident and OK in your own family and have as good and important a place in the family as your older, superior sister.
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I feel very scared and bottle up my emotions to the point of exhaustion and then I completely forget about it when I see that she is in a good mood. Additionally, I feel that because I could never stand up for myself in certain situations, it affected the way my relationship with my now ex-bf (I could be wrong). Also, I feel that it has affected how I live my life such as wanting to move out (to the city).
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All of that is the sad consequences of very negligent and faulty parenting which completely FAILED to allow you to develop a strong, self respecting and SECURE sense of your own being so you had to play passive 2nd fiddle to your older sister from day one. The very same thing happened in my family when our pathetic parents failed to train my 1 yr older brother to accept me and set me up to be his insecure "little" brother.
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When my sister is stressed, it affects me, especially when she lashes out on me. I try not to take things personally but I can’t hold anything inside anymore.
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You were trained, from day one, to be her subordinate and worry about her attitudes and behaviors lest she punish you even more just for being born and wrecking her perfect life - all thanks to very inadequate parenting which should have trained both of you to be EQUAL, happy, respectful and loving FRIENDS all along. You are BOTH victims of faulty parenting but neither of you can remember how it all started when you were a baby.
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I know she cares about me and I am truly grateful for her help but maybe it is time for a change.
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Yes, you need to get out from under your sister's DOMINATION and become the person life wants you to be.
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For those of you who’ve dealt with a similar situation or have siblings, where do I begin? How should I approach her?
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I'd begin by seriously deciding what you really want in life and then make some plans to GET IT! You don't have to approach her on this because she doesn't have a problem so she won't see a need to do anything about it other than to go on bossing and controlling you as her parents taught her to do since you were born. It's your problem now and you need to take the bull by the horns and FIND a solution to the mess your parents unwittingly put both of you in from day one with their negligent and BAD parenting. You will have to get away from your repressive family and go live your own life - ASAP.
That's what I did!
good luck becoming your own person,
jim
