Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 659417" data-attributes="member: 18958">OK. I am getting it a little bit.So here is how I understand it now: So I am just skipping through life, being who I am.  And letting my sister be who she is, what I know her to be, but staying far, far away. Because I know who she is. But as long as we are far away, and she cannot hurt me, all is okay.And then there is contact, usually when I cannot avoid it. And she does something. Something that hurts me or my son. I know she hurt me. I do not deny it.  But like you, I am shocked. Just shocked.And I do some very strange thing to deal with it. At the same I time, I both exaggerate the offense, what she did.  Like I feel horror.  And at the same time I minimize my sense or perception of it. Like this could not have happened could it? And yet I know it did.She could not be this bad, could she?  She must not have understood how that would be perceived or felt?  Like, I protect her. My image of her. I cover for her. I make excuses.I do not want to write her off, to lose her completely.  Because that is who I am. And unfortunately, I have been this way in the rest of my life, sometimes. Not so much anymore.You are right, I really never think in terms of power in my life. But others do. And I am vulnerable to them. Because many times, in the past, not so much anymore, I have worked to protect the relationship, and while being shocked, just shocked at the offense, have tried to integrate it into the fabric of things, and not foreclose the possibility of holding onto the idea of the relationship if not the fact.Like it was an accident. She is just obtuse, so stupid as to not understand that what she did was so predatory.  Trying to look at the event, and take away the motivation, the purposeful hurting of us.  Make it a shell of a thing, as to preserve the illusion of the person. Much preferring to see them as stupid, clumsy, than as predatory. Somehow try to take away their intent. Which is the big, big mistake. As I write this I always knew she had intent. I did not want to accept it.Now we deviate, Cedar. I knew for the longest time that my life was at stake. I just did not want to name it what it really was.How can one accept that every single person in their family is a predator, and they have existed only to be their prey? Or cover it not at all. Neither my mother or sister bothered to pretend at all.They just did what they wanted to do, assuming whatever I think or am doesn't matter in the least. They never saw me in this sense. Or if they did, they did not care.And now I see the full circle better. It was denial. Not power.  I just did not want to go there. To see them as complete predators. Because to go there I would have nobody at all. Really have nobody.Imagine what it was to live life all alone?  Imagine. Because my ability to trust anybody intimately was completely destroyed.As long as I didn't see them or talk to them even for years and years, I did not have to confront the fact that I had nobody and nothing. I could tell myself, I guess, that I had chosen to stay away from my family, while not facing what they were.For me, that was part of it. The bigger thing, for me, was that I would have had to be all alone in my life forever. I am feeling so, so sad now.Even having nobody there. No mother. No father. No sister. Nobody to talk to. Nobody to see. Nowhere to go for holidays. No help. Nobody, when I was destroyed, distraught and hurt by life.Even that was better than knowing, really knowing, that my entire family were predators and would destroy me in any way they could, to get anything they want.How I can even face this now, I do not know.And now we know part of why I needed to love my Mother at the end.</blockquote>

Verification