Dear Cai Chica:

1. Jan 2018 when you were not considering ending contact with your parents, you wrote: “Since the wedding, in September, I have had a tremendously larger amount of distance from my parents. I have only seen them twice since then, and the talks we have- have been more superficial.. I just see this as some much needed space, breathing room, and focus away from them. I guess deep down inside I must feel that if it can be continued in this current way (no constant phone calls, accusations.. then I can SURVIVE. I am not foolish and I do know that this is just temporary- like waiting for the other shoe to drop. It will only a mater of time until there is another catastrophe again, and they’re back at the aggressive behavior (because that is who they are, this distance is just a phase- it is not indicative of anything)… Perhaps it is just hopeful to wish that this level of ‘distance’ can be maintained so that I man at least have some level of ‘self-healing.’ and that even if it is not full, it is better than the immense torture that was last year. I have noticed an ability to see things clearer since the wedding”-

– change the pronouns they to she (parents to sister), remove the word wedding, adjust the timeline to fit the distance in communication frequency you now have from your sister (following the frequent daily contact you had with her).. and the above quote is true in the context of your sister as it was in the context of your parents. A temporary distance is nice and will make it possible for you to see things clearer, but the fog will be back only too soon with the next catastrophe/ next renewal of communication frequency, and the torture re-experienced. When that happens, the “some level of ‘self healing'” – will be gone and you will be worse off than when you started because of added  disappointment, discouragement and hopelessness.

2. In your first Self Trust thread, Jan 2018, your sister participated there, communicating with me and with you, and so I feel comfortable to quote her words from there.

* “I need to live my own life. And sometimes.. my sister does not.. let me just live. Her response to this will be- well you need help, you have severe problems etc. She will say, ‘well I can’t just sit here when in the past this, this, and this has happened’.. she consistently gives me advice or tells me about my flaws.. I am not my mother. I am smart, strong, and kind. I will be ok.. It is hard for my sister to let people just breathe”-

– first, she made the request, give her what she asked for: let her breathe, let her live her life, do “just sit” there and let her “just live”.

Do withdraw your Super CC role completely from any and all interactions with her, make a 100% removal of that role.

How did your sister refer to that role? “crazy”: “When my sister is within contact of my mother, she regresses and essentially becomes ‘crazy’ again”.

And I agree, SCC is crazy, could stand for Super Crazy Chica.

“When my sister regresses she also hurts me.. let me just live”- let her just live, please.

All you have to do to remove Your Crazy is remove that SCC Role from your behavior with her and with anyone else. But what does she need to do to remove Her Crazy?

Let’s look at how you responded to these quotes I just gave, back in Jan 2019: “I agree completely with my sister’s recollection of my regressing… what about me and my relationship with my mother brings out these abusive qualities in me to whoever it may be, sister, husband. And how can I change that… like my sister said I will have to practice not regressing back into those behaviors. For myself and of course for my loved ones”.

Her next post following the above was: “There it is. That word- micromanage. I did not realize this is what my sister has been doing… sorry for butting in to your thread sister”-
– it was me who introduced the verb micromanage and that was what she responded to. Focusing on a new word to complain about how you are hurting her. She completely ignored the valuable things you wrote about, the insight you expressed and your intent to correct your behavior. She focused on a new word so to express what you do wrong and ignored completely all that you wrote about doing right.

Your next post following hers: “you did not butt into my thread! You gave me light! .. I now see that I micromanage as a form of control, and anxiety”- more insight, more expressed intent to correct your behavior, and  how gracious of you, to refer to her input as light. You referred to her criticism of you as light and you expressed understanding and intent to correct your behavior.

Problem/ her Crazy: she complains a whole lot about your behavior, some of it is understandable (the SCC Role) but I don’t remember ever reading from her about having done anything wrong to you, about her having to correct anything about her behavior. The finger of blame is pointing to you.

What all this means is that you can correct your Crazy but she has no understanding and no intent to correct her Crazy. But not only that, in her mind, there is no Crazy. I will explain: she is well aware of how anxious she is and she is well aware that her behavior is puzzling and .. not normal, in many contexts, so she has the suspicion that she is crazy, but it is a repressed suspicion, none that she will confront and consider and try to correct.

3. Fast forward, January 13, 2020, you wrote: “I continue to reach out to someone, my sister, with softness, and in turn I got bites. I got so many bites between my mother and her, I had no softness left.”-

– she will keep blaming you even when you eradicate the SCC Role. After all, she keeps biting even when you do give her the distance she asked for (recently, the MIA initiative).

She bites because this is what she does. No matter the circumstances, she’ll find something you will do wrong, or something that you did  not do exactly right or perfectly, or she will suspect something and she will bite you again.

Just like when you reached out to her two years ago, called her Light and validated her, and she ignored it all and chose to use my input (the micromanaging word) against you– she will continue to do the same. What happens to anyone exposed to her behavior, is that you get understandably angry, your anger expressed somehow, and she uses that against you as well. So you can never win.

Jan 2020: “My sister always says this thing: ‘well that’s on you, no one is asking for your help all the time.’ This would enrage me, I would think – yes yes you are!!! And seeing it now it is the ultimate slap in the face.  It is someone who is so unraveled and incapable of predictable stability that continues to bite the hand that feeds her.”-
– here is where you are wrong: because of the SCC Role, you think that she wants your help, that she sees you as capable and therefore she needs your help, but what you don’t see is that like your mother, she is already helping herself to you in the ways that she feels the needs to help herself.

I will explain: your mother needed you as an audience, so to act out to a captive audience. After you finally calmed her down and someone would come to visit, all her histrionics where back as she had new audience. What happened is that you didn’t help her the way you thought was helpful, and which she really needed (to calm down on an ongoing basis and stop the histrionics for good).  What happened is that she helped herself to you, had you as her audience for a while.

Your sister is helping herself to you by pointing the finger of blame at you: your fault! You are hurting me! Here, you did it again! And again! And as you understandably get angry, she has new ammunition to use against you. She is helping herself to you.

Jan 2020: “My sister and mother RELY on me for security and functionality… they are secretly jealous of that ability of mine. Neither would last half a second managing as much as I do… she NEEDS my SCC.. not only does she NEED it, she gets angry if it goes away for a mere few days!!”-
– no, neither one of them, not your mother, not your sister wanted your functionality or help so that they can function better. This is your make-believe which gave you that sense of being valued as a child (which I talked about in the previous post). It is true that the two of them need to function better, but this is not what they want. They had a more immediate need which was to satisfy their impulsive need, which in the case of your sister, it is the need to blame you.

Like you wrote this month: “It’s lies. And it’s hysteria and harassing”, exactly.

anita