Dear Cali Chica:

“she constantly throws back how I used to be”- when person A throws back at person B how person B used to be, especially if done repeatedly, and often, the relationship between A and B cannot heal, and it is person B who is being.. what you called a  B****.

You wrote about you and your sister: “We are both from the same mother and have had similar trauma”, and you compared you and your mother: “Unlike my mother.. I do have the ability to look back and be very ashamed..”-

– your trauma and your sister’s trauma are not more similar than your trauma and millions of others out there. It happens to be the same woman who  bore you, but the similarities between your and your sister’s responses to the trauma are not more similar than your responses and a stranger’s with a different mother, different father, different part of the world.

Better you stop comparing you and your sister, you and your mother because it gets you nowhere, it is like sinking in sand and there is no sense to doing that. Even though you, your sister, your mother, spent so much time in the same home and other locations, the inner experience for each person was very different. Often siblings take opposite roles within a troubled home and that makes them more different from each other than from strangers.

“In fact, in the last two months Anita, I have realized that I am actually a wonderful loving person just like I thought I was”- I agree, you are a wonderful loving person.

“when she consistently brings me back as a ball and chain, by throwing old ways at me such as ‘you used to do this too'”-

– she is invested in doing what she is doing, she doesn’t want to do something different, healthier. She is telling you: you did this too, so stop telling me to do something different.

When she tells you: “you always blame me for all your problems”, she points the finger of blame at.. you, blaming you.. for blaming her. That causes you to withdraw from whatever it was that you had in your mind to make things better with her.

“she truly does not have value for all that we are doing for her and always would do for her. It’s never that we want anything in return, but respect is something that it’s not too much to ask for”-

– No, it is not. “I don’t have to endure such behavior”- you shouldn’t endure such behavior. “I don’t have to be dragged backwards”- you owe it to yourself and to your husband to not be dragged backwards.

Changes need to be made. A practical plan to be made in regard to how to deal with your sister. Your life will be so much easier after such a plan is drafted. The plan has to be detailed and cover all possibilities, predict future circumstances and decide how to respond to those possible future circumstances. It is time to stop Craziness from running the show.

From my extensive communication with your sister, and then, my more extensive communication with you, I have no doubt that Craziness resides in your sister.

Now, how crazy is it to.. let her run the show???

anita