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Originally Posted by Queen of Hearts
This is extremely difficult. I am an identical twin. My sister began physically and emotionally abusing me when we were very young. Then my sister was actually diagnosed with mental illness before I was...by several years. By the time I began my treatment, she had ceased her treatment and was doing very similar things to what you described. She used my pain to seek attention for herself or make herself a victim. To this day, she denies the abuse she inflicted on me and claims I talk about it to ruin her reputation. I am now in a great place emotionally despite the loss of my father to Suicide a year ago. She is spiralling but not taking any advise. Now that she cannot abuse me, she has turned her anger and issues out on my oldest daughter. As soon as I realized this, I told my mom and my other sister that my communication with her would be severed until she sought treatment; I see it very much like an addict. If we don't stop enabling her then she will never see her errors. My relationship with my mom and older sister has not been affected and I am much happier and healthier emotionally.
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I think sometimes people don't understand how hard it can be to be an identical twin. Most of the time when I tell people I am one the response is usually something akin to 'oh that's so cool!! Are you two best friends?'
I'm sorry you've gone through issues with your twin too. My therapist said something similar to what you said about enabling my sister. I've kind of always felt responsible for her for some reason, which made it even harder for me to try to cut her off. When we were younger she kind of followed me around and if I didn't let her hang out with me she didn't have friends, and all of her boyfriends in high school were guys I turned down. Sometimes (and I don't mean to sound conceited) I felt sorry for her because all she seemed to get was my left overs. I guess feeling sorry for her made me feel a bit responsible for her.
It would seem this backfired on me big time because now she thrives on sympathy and being the victim. I can't change that but I also can't continue to take part in it. I don't feel responsible for her turning out this way (my parents coddled her to an extreme degree) but I'm sure I enabled it somewhat.
Thanks so much for your response, it's very helpful to hear experiences from another twin. Hugs.