Had Enough -- by Pete Townshend
You want to talk about 2 sisters from the same parents who are diametrically apposed to each other? Yup, that's me and my sister. It's been so long since we've talked I feel like an only child and maybe that's a good thing.
According to my mother, the day I was born was the day my sister decided she hated me. When they brought me home from the hospital she wouldn't even look at me for weeks. My first memory of her is her yelling at me. My most vivid childhood memory involves her. She tried to kill me when I was about 8 or so. She put a pillow over my head and held it firmly while she laughed and I tried to breath. I felt myself passing out when she finally lifted the pillow. I left the room crying while she continued to laugh. To this day she denies it - but I know it;s true.
As I am writing this so many memories are filling my head - none of them happy. I just want to get them out and make peace with this. I used to hate my sister. I used to miss her terribly. Now, I feel nothing, which is a very calm yet bizarre way to feel about a sister.
Our fighting never stopped. As long as we lived in the same house we fought. It was horrible. My sister is a vicious person. She not only will rip your heart out but she will also have a need to throw it on the ground in front of you while she stomps on it over and over until she is satisfied she's hurt you enough. Have that done a few hundred times in your life and you stop caring about the person doing it - in self defense.
I was always in *protective* mode when my sister was around. I knew I was going to be humiliated, or hurt or hit by her at some point everyday. What made it worse was the fact that we were "latchkey" kids. Our parents were always working and my sister and I were alone a lot. I was her doormat, her punching bag, her scapegoat. She had free reign over me most of our teenage years and I spent a lot of those years battered and bruised by my sister. She abused me whenever she felt like it and took great pleasure in doing so. The longer it went on the more numb I became, I was just trying to survive.
My sister was the "pretty one". To this day I feel ugly in comparison to her. She was thin, blond and outgoing. I was fat, dark and depressed. It was easy to see who was the star in our family - she was. And even tho I was seriously abused by her I still wanted to be her for many. many years. She was fun - I was depressed, she was pretty - I was fat, she had talent -I was painfully shy, people loved her - I was hard to love. She did everything in her power to make me go away and she almost succeeded. I was invisible.
As adults, I hated her. I hated the way she manipulated men, my parents even her friends. When she got married it was one of the happiest days of my life. The abuse was over - I was 21. I no longer felt any family obligation to her and I never went to see her if I didn't have to, which infuriated her. I on the other hand had started my own path to recovery and I was no longer going to be her punching bag. I finally had enough.
Her first husband never really knew who she was. He only met the person she showed the outside world. I always felt sorry for him, she ruled him like a tyrant. Then after 10 years and 3 children she left him. She took up with some asshole who turned out to be a drug addict and an abuser. I figured in a very real sense she got what she deserved but her idiotic irresponsible behavior caused her first husband to jump into the bottle because he was devastated. And her second husband foisted sexual and physical abuse on her children. I'm not sure I will ever forgive her for that.
Her third husband I don't even know and I don't care. I don't believe a leopard ever changes his spots and I think this man is just another poor choice in a long series of them. We don't speak anymore and I'm OK with that. I made peace with that a long time ago. I just wish she would stop hurting my parents, but perhaps that's deserved too.
So, at 47 I still long for the sister I never had. I still wish I had family of my own but I also have made peace with the fact that I may never have that. I dream about the loving caring families others have and I wonder how that feels. I wonder what mutual respect in healthy familial relationships feel like. And I wonder - why? Just - why? It's all I can muster up as a question when I think about my family history. Why? But we all know there is no answer to that.
I sometimes think I am to jaded to really develop loving relationships with people anymore. I go into them fully expecting to be hurt at some point and so protective of myself that they usually fade away long before anything can really develop. I don't know how to change that and I understand if it's too hard for most. It's just as hard for me to even think about trying to chip away at that hard shell I built around myself.
Yes, I am lonely, more lonely than I will admit to anyone. I don't know how to fix it. I feel broken in so many ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment