Lacking the financial means and having difficulty thriving can bring up early childhood fears and frustrations. It sounds like you did not experience a safe and nurturing environment as a child and that family network was not there for you when you were growing and developing. You were abandoned a lot as a child too instead of experiencing a supportive family. You tend to emphasize a distain for "enable". This can begin at a young age when a child is experiencing a sibling getting more attention and nurturing than they are getting. This can occur a lot with the oldest child. Often the oldest child is expected to be responsible and thrive while the younger children experience what appears to the oldest child as "having it easier because they are young yet".

It's not always that way, sometimes the oldest child gets more attention than the younger children. Sometimes the oldest child experiences a stronger bond with the mother/parents and the younger children never really get to experience that same bond. In listening to different members as they share their different challenges and stories here at PC, some have shared how their older sibling got more attention then they did and when they needed important things, they failed to get these things.

I have met some males that experienced an older sister getting pampered and doted on while they faced having to be tough and not getting caring nurturing. And sometimes the eldest can be a boy that gets doted on and pampered and the younger child that is a girl almost gets ignored as though her being a girl means she is worthless. Same thing can happen if the oldest is a girl and she has a younger brother that gets pampered and coddled more than she does where she grows to feel everything revolved around her younger brother. Actually, that is what my older sister did, she doted on her son more, everything revolved around him and that made her older daughter jealous.

My sister hated my older brother (I am the youngest child) from the moment my mother brought him home as a baby. She hated him so much she even tried to kill him (she is two years older than him and four years older than me).

This "thriving and crashing" you describe that may be bipolar? You even considered addiction behavior patterns? This can be something that develops in someone due to the environment they grew up in too.

This has been a struggle for you even longer than 26 years Blanche. You have a lot of anger, and I have to be honest, you have triggered me because sometimes your anger and reactions are similar to my older sister. At one point I did try to respond to you a while back and you reacted the way she reacts. My sister can be very difficult where she tends to need to have everyone see things HER way. And if you offend her she puts you on "ignore".
That is what you chose to do with me.

Now, I know you are not my older sister, yet, it's possible that you have similar grips that she has. When I saw your two recent threads, I did not know if you still had me on ignore, so for some reason I just figured I would post something quick to see if you did still have me on ignore. I think what motivated me was that I can see you are struggling, hurting, frustrated and scared. So, I just decided to reach out to you as for some strange reason Blanche, I do "empathize" and want to help if I can.

I have had to have a lot of therapy because of how my sister behaves towards me. I hate how she has treated me so badly, how she has hurt me and raged at me. Yet, I would never want to see her homeless or lose whatever she has that she cares about. Truth is, what people say about her that they don't like is "she has a bad attitude". Like with her Blanche, I feel that if I say anything you don't agree with or somehow feel offended by, I will be scorned or shut out.

I think you are "trying" though Blanche and you are very alone right now in your life. I can relate to that "alone" feeling and I can relate to the vulnerable "alone" feeling your room mate is experiencing as well. I had my own "dream of" too and like both you and your room mate one of things I wanted MOST in my life was to FEEL SAFE.

The BOTH of you need a presence that is UNDERSTANDING. That is a very hard presence to come by. I am 63 years old and my entire world was invaded and damaged when I was 49 and even though I tried so hard to handle it all, I broke down. There have been times where, like your mother and your room mate, I want everything dark, I want to withdraw and HIDE. Yet, when you talk about how you can't have that luxury and that you are a fighter, I WAS LIKE THAT TOO Blanche.

I can relate to feeling "unsafe" even in one's own home too. I can relate to both you and your room mate. I can even relate to how your room mate has bottles of antidepressants she doesn't take. Drugs often do not fix what is broken in someone. Actually, my older brother sat in the waiting room in the court house and other people were also waiting and my sister kept leaving that waiting room. My brother said "Our father was an alcoholic, he was very controlling and as a result WE ARE ALL BROKEN". He spoke the truth.

Your room mate is hurt and hiding out, she doesn't feed that cat, she is disconnected from her own son and her husband. Her family is at a loss too and your room mate IS A BROKEN PERSON. She may have been nice, may have "played well" with others too. Yet, she missed something and that missing something reared it's ugly head and SHE BROKE.

When someone breaks it can really feel like everyone or a large portion of other people are "narcissists". Also, I noticed how a broken person, someone who suffers from ptsd for example like me, can be so sensitive and emotional that they can be mistaken for a narcissist too. You watched your mother give up. Your mother did not fight for her job, and she was lost without her husband and that can happen even if the husband isn't "all that" either. Was your mother a narcissist? Did her inexperience and lack of knowledge mean she did not "care"? It's not that simple and it's easy to label anyone who fails to "care" somehow as a narcissist.

What I can say about my sister is that she has manipulated and lied and she wanted to punish me. It was my good nature that she always hated because as my mother said to me when it was too late for me to change anything that has turned out to repeatedly traumatize me, "OE, your sister has always been jealous of you since you were very little". I was devastated when she said that. She explained it as "You were always so sweet and caring and kind and your sister could not be that way". Well, I may have been sweet and kind and nice, but, what I have learned about myself is that "I never really felt SAFE". Yet, I think that my sister thought I got what she failed to get. My sister did not really KNOW how hard it really was for me growing up. In fact, my sister has clearly shown me she doesn't even CARE to "understand".

My sister never really knew how to play well with others, she always had to have all the control and that never changed. My sister was four years older than me and she ALWAYS had to be THE BOSS. What she doesn't even realize is that because I did not like that about her, I tried not to play with others like she played. I knew how it felt, so I tended to try not to do that with others. I could play with others who were like her because I did want someone to play with and my sister was a very creative person and I always loved that about her. Yet, I always knew that SHE had to be the boss and that never changed about her. That is exactly how my father was too. In order to play with my father HE had to have all the control. Everything had to be HIS way, and she is just like that, but worse in that she gaslights and manipulates and will even lie if she has to because she doesn't do well unless SHE has the control.

I think a lot of people try to "fix" whatever was missing for them when they were just a child. I think the root of that challenge has a lot to do with wanting to be safe and of course to achieve that person's "dream of".

I was a very creative person, always loved the arts. I brought a painting I did so many years ago that hung on my parents wall until I finally took it down, into therapy. This particular painting was of a seascape and my therapist really liked it and he explained how he likes art that has movement in it which is what my painting had a lot of. This painting was one I did as I was actually learning how to do seascapes. What is special about this painting is that I did not paint it to capture any real seascape, it was completely out of my own mind. I did take private lessons for a while where a woman came to my home. She kept saying how gifted I was, she was emphatic about it and told my parents to make sure to support my art. What I did not realize until I took that painting down and showed it to my therapist was that what she called "gifted" was because of what I could create from my own mind. I remember her giving me homework and how I would forget and end up rushing to do something not long before she came. Most of the time when that happened, I would just come up with something out of my own mind. I had not realized that meant I was gifted.

I used to write poetry, and songs and I was able to create a lot out of my own mind. I never realized that meant I was gifted. I am 63 and I honestly never realized until I explained to my therpist how what he was looking at was completely out of my own mind that that is what this art teacher was trying to point out to me. However, I also remember how my older sister tended to say "you are not very good at this or that". Or how my father would constantly correct me. Also, how when I was learning too, because of all the stress I faced growing up, I feared excelling because I knew it would be too hard to maintain it with all the bad things I kept witnessing.

Blanche, you are certainly not stupid, yet I think one of your biggest problems has been experiencing an "understanding and safe" presence that helped you to really feel safe to "grow and develop where you could create that dream of".

I have met so many different people during my time here at PC and I have seen a lot of people who have talents but they never had that "safe" environment where they could cultivate their special talents.