Dear caroline1234:

You are welcome! I hope seeing a therapist next Tuesday will bring about a positive change for you!

Regarding your older sister having been chronically ill and the center of attention, it is perhaps possible for you to further understand how it affected you without blaming your parents… or yourself, or your sister. Some things just happen and no one in the family is guilty for it, such as your sister’s chronic illness. Your parents, understandably paid her more attention than to the daughter who was not sick. And understandably, you felt unattended to, or less attended to, hurt and maybe angry.

As a result, you used to lie so to get the attention you craved (“I was a compulsive liar during my entire youth I think.. I used to make up boyfriends and dramatic stories to make my life seem more interesting and to (get) attention“, original post).

There is a website, kids health. org, whose aim is “to give families the tools and confidence to make the best health choices”. Under the title Caring for a Seriously Ill Child and the sub-title Dealing With Siblings, it reads:  “Family dynamics can be severely tested when a child is sick. Clinic visits, surgical procedures, and frequent checkups can throw big kinks into everyone’s schedules and take an emotional toll on the entire family…

“It’s common for siblings of a chronically ill child to become angry, sullen, resentful, fearful, or withdrawn. They may pick fights or fall behind in schoolwork. In all cases, parents should pay close attention, so that their other kids don’t feel pushed aside by the demands of their sick brother or sister…”-

– there is lots of advice given to parents by medical health professionals in this website, on a variety of issues. I imagine it could have helped your parents a bit, if they had access to it.

I think that it will help you to explore further, in therapy, how you felt growing up without the attention that you needed, how you developed therefore a kind of craving for attention and that craving led you to lie. Somewhere along the way of exploring this, you will forgive yourself for having lied in the past, removing your shame and guilt from those memories.

I hope to read from you again, anytime you want to post, and I would  like to read how the Tuesday meeting with the therapist goes.

anita