Four years older is actually a lot. I came across an old family photo and I actually was such a peanut compared to her in this photo. She was always put off by having to deal with two younger siblings. Truth is, she always had that mean and bossy aspect to her and that air of being superior. I don't think I really thought much about that because she was so much older than me. When I really sit and think about it her influence on me was more of "you can't really do anything about this or that, and a bit of you are dumb or what do you know, nothing". What I do know, is that I did not like the way that made me feel and my answer was to be different and nicer and not as controlling as she was. I didn't like the meanness I saw around me, and I wanted to love my family.

I think what my sister always wanted was to take over and dominate. I also believe she really never got over having to share my parents with two younger siblings. I think that her taking all the money she took comes from this deep need to dominate where she needed to get her revenge for whatever she feels she failed to get growing up. Things she has said really reflects her deep need to blame me and painting herself as the poor victim. She manipulated and gaslighted both my parents to think the money she had been taking from my mother was me. In the last years of my parent's lives she wanted them see me as the bad child and her as more deserving. All the while she was taking money from them and looking to profit from their slow decline.

What makes me so sad is that my parents began to fear her and would say "she is so mean and bossy". They began to question the power they gave her and she was not going to give up the power she made sure she had so she manipulated them to think the money she had been taking from my mother was me. Unfortunately, I had no idea my sister had been withdrawing money from my mother's account and my parents had no idea either.

Honestly, what I lived through is literally what happened in the movie gaslight. My sister really gaslighted and manipulated and all the while had been on the take. Even now she is actually doing that with whatever is left too. And she continues to play the same game of setting up scenarios to bait me in hopes I will react so she can say "see how OE is poor me". It wasn't even just about my parent's money either, she wanted to control everything right down to both their last breaths and after. It's been extremely toxic and sick. It's darker than just jealousy I think. It's like when a cat hunts a mouse and bats it to see if it reacts and then grabs it and bites it hard again and continues to do so until the mouse is dead.

I think about how a toxic person tends to project, wanting their victim to feel whatever they themselves feel. At times I feel shame for failing to see just how bad it really was. Yet, I simply don't think on that deep dark level she does either. I guess that is why I wondered if it begins with not wanting to feel shame that compells a person to lie. Turns out it's not a simple answer. And it's not that I was expecting it to be, but more in thinking what a lying pattern can originate from. Clearly I am not talking about simple white lies here.