I don't want him to think I am abandoning him. I want him to understand that his choice to give my sister all the power and none to me has gradually led to her abusing that power and she has made it a point to look at his finances and make judgments about what he and my mother did to help me out that was THEIR choice and is none of her business and she doesn't have the right to say things to me in order to encourage me to feel guilt and shame. She has also said things to them to encourage them to think I used them and took advantage and that I "owe them a lot of money" too. I have tried to get him to understand that she is abusing the power he gave her and because he did not give me any power to question and have my own opinion, when I do question her she tries to convince both my mother and father that I only care about their money.

What my sister refuses to recognize is the money my parents spent on Her, Her two children, and Her grand children compared to Me, and my one child and no grand children. Both her children got cars out of my parents, my sister's daughter basically lived off of my father for a lot of years where he often payed her health insurance and a weekly salary when often she only actually worked maybe one day. This was when my father was in his 70's and early 80's when he needed to be putting more away for his retirement and many of his customers were dying off too. Then my sister's son worked for my father under the understanding that he was supposed to study and get his security license and go into that line of work. He never passed the test and at times he would sit in there and play games on the computer too. So my father was paying both her children and they both slacked off. My mother would talk often about the strain that put on my father who was making very little at the time because he was so much older and did not really go out and accumulate new clients like he used to.

My sister made a big deal out of hiring my husband to put a new roof on her house and he actually gave her a deal and he made very little, not what he would normally earn doing a regular roof job on the same kind of house for someone else. Yet, what my sister kept secret is that my mother was paying for her to get her roof done. My sister made a big deal out of her cottage she rented on the beach every year for a while, yet she failed to mention that the person who actually paid the $3,500 a week for two weeks is my father. Now, I don't care about the money my parents gave to my sister, it was their choice, it was their money. There have been several times when my sister has done things for my parents but she always got PAID for her effort. Actually, even now she will get PAID and if there is any money left after they pass she gets a third. However, one thing she has done when she has been challenged is she works my parents up about the money and has even written up a threat of disinheritance if either me or my brother challenge her and she got my parents to sign it and sent it certified mail. When I asked my father about it, he did not remember signing a threat like that.

Early on I said that considering how our parents are aging that we should have a family meeting with my parents and their lawyer so that we can all ask questions and understand how he wrote up directions for how things will proceed while him and my mother are still living and that is part of their will. That is what a "functional" family should do so everyone understands and there is no feelings of confusion or fear of manipulation etc. I sat with both my parents and suggested this, I even suggested this to my older sister and SHE WOULD NOT HAVE IT. Instead she would create DRAMA and get my parents all upset and confused and tired and not wanting to deal with it at all.

This is when I would visit my parents at their home and they expressed frustration and anxiety and refer to my older sister as "she is so bossy and mean".

Unfortunately, all of this began taking place while I was struggling with PTSD and dealing with so much debt from all the vet bills addressing all the damage to my horses and ponies. I had reached out for help and unfortunately the help I got did not help me, but instead confused me and made me worse. All the expenses went on credit cards and because I needed some of these animals in my business that were lost/damaged, I struggled to be able to do the business I needed to do to cover expenses PLUS all this new debt that I could not make the payments on. I literally could not afford to drive to my parents and be more involved. Also, things were so bad that my husband could no longer afford to pay for health insurance. He got very ANGRY and MEAN, and when he came to pick me up from the psych ward, he was ANGRY. I was more exhausted and traumatized then when I went to that psych ward because all that stay did was traumatize me more and I did NOT get any sleep and true rest because every night they would come into my room every 10 to fifteen minutes and I would wake up all startled. What I have learned is that I had needed real rest and not be in a place that literally kept triggering me into hypervigilance, even when I tried to sleep. That I needed to be able to take a shower without someone standing there watching over me even when I tried to dry my hair and put on my make up and BE myself. I only took one shower because of that. Also, the whole time I was there no one told me that there was a time limit so I began to get frightened about having to stay locked up in this place for a really long time. I had not idea they typically have a limit of 10 days and I could see an end, but instead day after day I had no idea of an end and I was abandoned and my sister would not let my parents come and visit me. I sat there on Thanksgiving alone with some extremely disturbed stangers, no calls, no visit from any of my family either.

I remember that drive home with my husband and how angry he was. I remember thinking about how even though I was even more exhausted that I had to find a way to dig very deep and go right back into that tornado of addressing all that damage. I hand walked the injured animals to the point where I developed severe planter's facetious in both my feet. It was horrible because with what I do, I am always on my feet. I had to get injections in my feet and I had to have special orthotics made and special sneakers adjusted by a foot specialist so I could walk. If my mother helped me with that does that mean I should be ASHAMED?

Then my husband broke, he went to bed and did not get up to work. I did not push him, I gave him what I had needed myself. I managed to sell one horse that I spent a lot of money on to get him sound enough to sell, and I should have paid down all that I had to charge on my credit card, but while I did pay "some" I kept some and that is what I used to pay all our bills while my husband crashed and slept and slept and did not work or pay our bills for two months. During all that, with what I have learned, I was pretty much stuck in hyper vigilant mode and that only made the post traumatic stress breakdown develop into the full blown disorder.

My sister consistently brings up late 2010 and 2011 where my parents tried to help me and that is VERY triggering because I did not have a therapist, could not find one I could afford, was looking for a support group, only found this site. I began experiencing dangerous suicidal impulses. I finally found a trauma specialist that treated me on a sliding scale because he could see that I was really bad at this point. A true specialist has the ability to see ALL THE RED FLAGS. And this therapist also slowly explained to me that YES all the treatment I had gotten WAS WRONG too. I was in really bad shape, and I had to find a way to do what I needed FOR MYSELF.

I did not abandon my parents and I was not a BAD WOMAN even though my family reacted to me that way WAY TOO MUCH. I do not deserve to be SHAMED for any help my parents did when they sent me money so I could GET HELP. The PTSD got worse and developed into complex PTSD where I began having flashbacks from my childhood too. I had no idea my sister's behaviors were triggering these flashbacks, however, it did get so I could not talk to her, hear her voice even without ending up a literal ball in my bed. All that did was make her mad at me and suspicious too.

I have a hard time when someone shouts at me or personally attacks me. I have a hard time even sharing a need for myself too. I have realized this is because of how badly I have been treated when I REALLY SERIOUSLY HAD A NEED.

My mother had to have back surgery and she did not handle the anesthesia well at all. She woke up delusional and confused and physically and mentally traumatized. When she was moved to a rehabilitation facility my sister took over control of that and her choices were not good. She put my mother in a room with a hispanic woman and my laid there shivering and confused with the blanket up over her face with only her eyes peeking out. My sister said, "This will stimulate her", when that is THE LAST THING SHE NEEDED. I stayed with my mother and after my sister and father left, this hispanic woman had a lot of family members visit her and they were loud and speaking spanish and I could see it was really upsetting my mother and she was in NO CONDITION for that. I knew that because I know first hand what trauma after a major surgery feels like and how the affects of the anesthesia can disorient someone, be I experienced that myself. So I paced the halls and noticed some vacant private rooms and walked up to the desk and asked if I could have my mother put in one. I did the paperwork and gave them my credit card because even though I could not afford it, at that point my mother needed me. It was the best feeling to be able to move her into that private room and sit with her and help her FEEL SAFE.

But that would be the last time I would be able to have that power. My sister was LIVID that I did that and did not ask HER PERMISSION. Then the surgeon told my sister NOT to have my mother seen by any psychiatrist/psychologist because she will be misdiagnosed and put on meds and she just needs time to slowly get over the affects of the anesthesia. My sister would not listen to him and went and did that anyway and my mother was put on Rameron. They had tried to give that to me in the psych ward and it made me so sick to my stomach. I was on my knees in front of the toilet and the nurse came in and yelled at me for missing group. Well, I watched my poor mother not want to eat, complain about feeling nauseous and my sister REFUSED to listen and kept her on it and that was the beginning of my sister taking steps to make sure I was not allowed to talk to ANY doctor or even know what medications my mother was on. My sister led my father in the wrong direction.

It was SO triggering to watch my mother complain and my sister pushing her to eat anyway. I would get so badly triggered that I would experience debilitating PTSD cycles only I did not understand that.

People ask, why did you not do this or that, but it's important to understand how much I was struggling at the time myself and that the way my sister was reacting only crippled me even more. When my mother finally got home and I visited her, she was hunched over and struggling. Then, when my sister and my father left, and I was alone with her?
I watched my mother completely change before my eyes to her old self and she dropped her cane and literally bounced around to go get something to show me. That actually traumatized me because I could see that she felt able to TRUST me, but, around my sister and my father, she wanted them to not push her around and force her to do anything, which they were pushing her and she was learning how to fight back by acting weaker than she was.

My mother did not want to go back to cooking for my father three times a day or cleaning a house that was too big for her to keep up with. That is what they were pushing for too. It's important to understand that it takes months to recover from anesthesia, and with my mother it was worse than it was for me. Plus, she was pushed to take a medication that DID NOT HELP HER, and actually, it's dangerous when it comes to giving the elderly antidepressants. There is a risk of stroke too. And she did have a stroke in front of me one day, and as I have mentioned when I got her to the ER, my sister came into the ER and came RIGHT AT ME IN A RAGE and insisted I CAUSED MY MOTHER TO HAVE A STROKE.

My mother would call me CRYING and telling me, "Your sister is so MEAN to me and I feel like a little child sitting here on the floor crying". I KNOW WHAT SHE IS FEELING.
And experiencing this only TRAUMATIZED me even more when that is the LAST THING I needed. I would see my mother one way with me and how she was with both my sister and my father and to even try to sit and talk to them about how she is with me would actually betray my mother and could have made things even worse.

All of this DYSFUNCTION is what triggered things from my childhood to come forward in confusing and crippling flashbacks. Because TELLING the truth would ONLY MAKE IT EVEN MORE TOXIC. I have lived it ALL MY LIFE, and I know first and how that is not imagined but a reality. What one has to think about is who will end up getting hurt and what I have learned is "the one who least deserves it".

I guess the one thing I want my parents to know is all they did with that will, or living will is GIVE MY SISTER ALL THE POWER, and me NONE. I am not abandoning them, I have been trying, but when my sister is threatened she creates SO MUCH DRAMA that she gets my parents ALL UPSET.

I have gotten to a point myself where my sister can trigger me so badly that I often struggle to function for days.

I am not abandoning them, I am not taking advantage of them either but their choice has made it extremely hard for me. This old fashioned idea of "the oldest is supposed to have the power" is WRONG.

One time I drove down to my parents and took them both out to dinner. Then I took them to a big store to walk around to get them out. I watched them looking over their shoulder like my sister was right there telling them to hurry up and pushing them. I had to stop them and literally tell BOTH OF THEM, she is not here, there is NO RUSH at all and you are really free to walk around and look around and RELAX. I really cannot tell how they REALLY ARE until I can see them ALONE. I do not have that now.

The guilt I feel is how I was struggling so much myself that did not have the strength to fight back. I did try but I often would get triggered and struggle for days and struggled to run my farm and manage to do my business because I had SO MUCH DEBT along with a lawyer who was declining into dementia. I got so I had to let go and concentrate on therapy and slowly gaining an understanding of what PTSD was, I did not even know what "trigger" meant. I did not understand "hypervigilance" either. I was completely confused when I experienced flashbacks. I would have them in front of my therapist and THANK GOD he knew and would help talk me through them. Before that I was yelled at when I would experience a flashback.

I don't know, I want my parents to know how much I love them and that I am not abandoning them. But I don't want them to get so they don't feel safe because they are too fragile for that and too dependent on my sister now.

I am actually glad my mother fell and broke her wrist and ended up in that rehabilitation facility, because at least I found a way to visit her and be ALONE with her. I was so glad that I could actually call her on the phone where SHE could pick up instead of my sister picking up. What broke my heart and triggered me is that when I was alone with her and hugged her, she said, I miss you my friend and it's been hard not seeing you all these months. I felt complete remorse about that because I would have preferred that maybe her dementia was at a point where she was not able to realize how long it has been since we had time alone together and she could be HERSELF and feel safe.