Trying to cut my sister off

So I've been trying to interact with my sister (we're identical twins) less and less over the past few months. She causes me huge amounts of stress, so much so that both my therapist and my husband have said I should cut her off completely and have no communication with her at all.

I've posted before about how she's slowly been trying to take over my persona and how hard that has been to deal with. She's also been spreading the news of my BPD diagnosis and my suicide attempt despite my telling her I didn't want her to tell anyone. But even how she conducts herself on Facebook and such stresses me out. I'm kind of embarrassed she's my sister.

I've had very little communication with her for the past month and that has been excellent for me. It confirms the fact that I will do much better without her in my life. The problem though is my mom. I told her my therapist suggested I cut off contact and she freaked out and told me I couldn't do that...and that my sister is still devastated that I moved which is why she copies me (which I know for a fact is a load of BS). I think it's hard for my mom that both her daughters moved away from home. My sister moved from NC to AZ 7 years ago and I moved to Sweden two years ago... So the thought of my not wanting a relationship with my sister anymore I'm sure is hard to swallow. I don't know how to handle it. Everytime I talk to my mom she asks if I've spoken to my sister recently...and if I say no she gets upset and gives me a lecture about how my sister needs me. It stresses me out.

It's almost like I have to choose between the stress my sister causes me by keeping my relationship with her or the stress of my mom trying to keep my relationship with her in tact. I don't know what to do.

Wow, she spread your diagnosis? That is NOT okay.

You're definitely between a rock and a hard place right now.

I'm not sure what to say because you've tried handling your sister for a while now and it sounds like she's not going to change.

Have you told your sister that you want to cut her off because of her behavior? Or did you just cut her off without telling her? If it's the latter, can you tell her that she needs to decide what she wants to do? Tell her you'll give her time to think long and hard about her decision.

Yeah....she used my diagnosis and suicide attempt to get sympathy for herself. Basically she was telling people she didn't know what to do because I got diagnosed with BPD and tried to kill myself and she was just beside herself and blah blah blah. She did the exact same thing 9 years ago when my best friend died. She didn't even know him but used his death to get attention.

I have tried to tell her three different times since the beginning of this year that her behavior was causing me an undue about of stress. She basically denied doing anything I cited as reasons for my stress and ran to my mom saying I was being mean to her. It's kind of a disaster.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but what an attention wh*re!

I hate when people use others' misfortunes to gain attention and sympathy. It's annoying.

But, now that I think of it... maybe your mom has been the problem all along, not your sister? I mean, yeah... your sister copies you and stuff, but she does it because she knows your mom will yell at you if you don't let her do it. I bet she would stop copying you if she knew your mom wouldn't do anything about it.

Maybe you need to somehow have a discussion with your mom. I'm not sure what you need to say, but I think something needs to be done about your mom.

I've actually tried talking to my mom. It was a disaster. All our lives I've been considered the 'strong one' and my sister has always been the 'victim' every time something bad happens to her and has just in general needed more coddling.

Sometimes I can start to get my mom to see that the majority of the time my sister is just being an attention wh*re (perfect description btw) but then a few weeks later its like we never even had that conversation. I know my mom is in a tough place but it feels like she thinks I'm just trying to tear my sister down when I'm just trying to get her to see some truths about her.

The best example I have is when my sister got divorced she got caught cheating on her husband. Instead of just owning up to what she did she accused her ex of physically and emotionally abusing her and physically and sexually abusing her children. None of which was true. To this day my mom still believes her even though she saw proof of the cheating. My sisters ex sent me all of the emails and inappropriate photos he found on my sisters computer and I shared them with my mom because I didn't want to testify in court during her custody hearing. It still blows my mind she still believes her.

I have a really good relationship with my mom except for this thing with my sister so that makes things even harder.

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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Dear AnxiousValkyrie, I broke off completely with my sister. I posted this on another thread -- not sure which one, but here it is. I don't have the same issue with a parent/s as you, because our parents died of old age. I do have one brother I love, and his wife who is a shrew. So I don't have much family left.
Dear marmaduke and ValentinaVVV, I just found your responses. Thank you very much. I don't know how to subscribe to a thread. Anyway, here's the update about my sister. I agree with you, marmaduke that she's selfish and does not care about how she affects others. Valentina, I do not know if she has a MI. I know she has no dx, but she has taken antidepressants from time to time. I wrote, " I honestly don't know how to handle this." Well, I figured out how to handle it, and did. The disagreements and blaming/denying had taken place on the phone for decades. She'd say something and then say she didn't say it. She say I said something that I didn't say, but since this was on the phone it was impossible to verify/prove what we said. Then for a month or two, our email correspondence started to increase instead of phone calling. Ha! Gotcha! I now had proof, in writing, what had been going on over the phone. Around that same time, she did something to a male friend of hers that was absolutely inexcusable. That did it for me!!! I dropped her. I told her I didn't want to communicate with her ever again. A couple of months later, she emailed me happy birthday, and I wrote back saying, okay thanks, but "it still won't work." About 6 weeks later she wrote something regarding a cousin of ours. He asked her if I wanted a DVD of the funeral of his wife!!!!!! So, here she is, playing Go Between between my cousin and me. She and I discussed -- and followed -- zillions of years ago not to be go betweens for anyone. So I wrote briefly that I did not want the DVD. She wrote "What if he wants to know why you don't want it? Shall I just tell him it's too painful for you to watch?" I said No, because that is not true. Please tell him something true, like that you and I are no longer on speaking terms." Then my big mistake - the next day, I thought of something that she might want to tell him, if she didn't want to "fess up" about her and me (which I'm sure she is trying to keep secret from other members of the family). That opened the flood gates, and she sent me a long, long email, which I did not read -- not again!!!! So I wrote back, "Don't contact me again, for any reason whatsoever. I won't answer anyway." Period. She's gone. I changed my will. And she is no longer listed as my emergency contact or personal representative of any sort. Since she has been alienating her two sons from me since they were teenagers (now in their 40s), and since she never includes me in her visits and various fun things she and my grand niece (her granddaughter) do, I think I'm out of their lives, too. I would like to stay in touch with my grand niece, but unfortunately the only reliable mailing address the teen has is at my sisters. She "lives" at various places, including her mother’s, her dad's (my nephew), and each of her grandmother's. The parents are irresponsible and would not give her the card I'd send. So I'm at a loss how to communicate with my niece. She has lost a Lot of people she loved, mostly the various boyfriends of my sister who come and go. One time when my sister broke up with a long term b/f she lived with, my niece said, "I thought I'd never see him again."

3 years ago, I cut my brother off. It was horribly difficult for me. My brother has been physically and verbally abusive to me since childhood. I tried to mend fences with him, but I had to give a mile, and he wouldn't even give an inch so it failed. I mourn the loss of the brother I wish I had, but do not miss the actual treatment I received from him.

Ending a relationship with a family member is a huge deal. Most therapists discourage it if at all possible. If your therapist is encouraging this, there is good reason.

Regarding your sisters issues (and it sounds like there are many) she might and probably has something diagnosable. That doesn't excuse her behavior. I would be direct with her on why you are ending contact. Maybe it will make her think about her behavior. It might take years, but your honesty with her could provide her with insight to become a better person in the future.

If your life would be more stable without her in it, you have all the reason in the world to cut contact. I would do all you can to preserve the relationship if its salvageable, but if she brings you misery, you are better off freeing yourself from those dynamics.

Best of luck and hugs!

Dear ElsaMars. Very sorry that you had to end your relationship with your brother. Yes, it's really hard to cut a family member out of one's life. You wrote: " I mourn the loss of the brother I wish I had, but do not miss the actual treatment I received from him." I totally relate. I think I imagined what a sister "was like" or what it "was like" to have a sister, and a real relationship with a sister. My whole family on my Dad's side -- extended and all of them -- are very private and secretive about their lives and our family history. They try to make the whole history of our family seem like roses. "We" (as a family) look great on the outside, but on the inside, it's a mystery to EVERYONE, perhaps even including themselves. Three people, with no prompting from me, including my therapist, said the same words, before I dropped my sister: "Seems like you are on again/off again with your sister." Or maybe they said, "up again/down again." But that, too, was a wakeup call. I was joyous and happy for 2-3 days when we seemed like we were getting along, then bottoming out, angry, resentful, etc the next time we had a conversation (phone or email). One time my therapist asked: "What benefits you in your relationship with your sister?" I blurted out "NOTHING!" Pow -- it just came out. Then we talked a little more and he said, "Well, you get family unity." I said "It's not worth it to me." It was shortly after that, that I dropped her. I don't remember if I explained to her why I was dropping her. But I DO know that I told her the bottom line is that she does not want to work on our relationship. I don't know if you saw what I wrote somewhere at this Forum, that over 15 years ago, my sister and I acknowledged that we were having communication problems. So I suggested then, that the two of us go together to her therapist, then my therapist (didn't care which came first) and work on our communication problems. Her response? "I don't want to spend my time that way." I wrote her at the time I dropped her, about that conversation and her decision. I told her that her response was burned into my brain. That I was shocked and very sad. Bummed out. I said, that was the bottom line for me.

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.

I think she probably does have something diagnosable. My therapist thinks so too. My mom has tried to get her to go to therapy for years and years after her supposed abusive ex husband but she refuses. One of her kids has ADHD and Oppositional defiant disorder and she won't get him help either. He's 12 and has already been kicked out of two schools and sent his little brother to the hospital several times with serious injuries. But that's a whole other issue.

I've been trying to salvage the relationship for a while now, and I keep going back because like you said it's a huge deal to severe a relationship with a family member. But my life really is so much better when I'm not talking to her or dealing with her drama.

I have been in a very similar situation with my sister.
She seemed to always go behind my back and tell everyone things that I begged
her to stay between the two of us. This has gone on all our lives.
I finally cut her out of my life for good about two years ago.
It was not an easy decision to make and it broke my heart because I have very little
family left anymore. It did turn out to be the right decision, it cut a very toxic and
triggering person out of my life and I learned that the positives out weighed the negatives.
That is my experience and I hope my story helps you in some way.