My sister and I have had a rough go of it throughout our childhoods, and so she has always been kind of codependent with me in an unreciprocated way. I’m home from college for the summer and I just feel like our relationship has escalated out of control.
For one, she does not allow me any personal time. My sister has always been strangely hateful to my friends/ and starts fights whenever I leave the house. Everyday she forces me to hang out with her for hours. I cannot be alone in my room for 30 minutes before she barges in and demands that we watch a show together. If I have plans she will start a fight with me and get irrationally jealous. I’ve tried to communicate with her several times that she is not my friend. She’s my sister. Of course I love to spend time with her when she’s not being psycho, but the way she clings is offputting and seriously draining as an introvert that seriously needs her space.
She is also very touchy. I hate to be touched and she knows this and does it anyway. I also hate to have my picture taken and be recorded. A big issue for us has been the pictures she takes of me. She calls them ‘candids’ but I think it’s seriously creepy. She will take pictures of me that are very unflattering in a stealthy way and keep them on her phone. I’ve communicated a hard boundary on this and took her phone and deleted several pictures she took of me, and in retaliation she deleted hundreds of my own pictures from my camera roll. Which for one is a major escalation. Also fucking crazy behavior. I can’t emphasize how many of these weird secret pictures she has of me. Hundreds and maybe thousands. And I look fugly in all of them. When I try to reason with her about this she says stuff like ‘it’s my fault that you push your insecurities on other people’. and that she likes it so she won’t stop, point blank.
As well, I know she has violent thoughts about me (maybe OCD?). When we talk sometimes she will say stuff that really concerns me i.e. she’s gonna shoot me with a gun, stab me, strangle me, etc. I know (because she’s told me) that she had violent thoughts about me that she can’t control. Maybe that’s not her fault, but it makes me uncomfortable around her. She’s like a bomb about to go off every moment.
In general she doesn’t respect my boundaries. It will be 2AM and she comes in my room and sits on my bed and won’t let me sleep because she wants me to entertain her. Then she will stay in my room and not leave and fall asleep in my bed even though I’ve told her she has to go and then she’ll spend the night with me. This just grosses me out. Every waking moment she has to be with me, and if I’m not with her she will take it out on me later.
The big problem with this is my short temper. Any time I try to communicate my distress with her actions she somehow manages to turn it around so that I’m the mean one and she’s innocent. Every time. I don’t know how she is so manipulative so well, but you know that feeling when someone is manipulating you so that you get angry and they stay calm and can turn the tables on you, and you know that they’re doing it, but you can’t help your reaction? It makes me stupid and makes all my counter arguments seem hypocritical and she always gets the upper hand. This natural and innate manipulation feels almost… abusive? Am I crazy? She makes me feel crazy. Like the other day I fell asleep accidentally so we couldn’t watch a show together. She called me 20 times and yelled at me for almost half an hour, and then when I snapped she turned it around and said I was overly sensitive and the most dramatic person she’d ever met. She told me that I ‘don’t even deserve to be a part of this family’ all because I took a nap. How the hell does that make.. any sense?! But she really loves me (too much?) She went through this phase where she called me ‘mom’ up until like a year ago because I take care of her but she’s always infantilizing me, acts like I don’t know how to drive/do laundry/ take care of myself.
I think I’m just at my wits end and unsure of how to proceed. If I leave her unchecked will she become a full on psycho? I am genuinely convinced she could be a narcissist or a sociopath. My mom always tells me it’s just because of her ‘hormones’ but I never acted like this and also my Mom has been saying this since I was 8 so you would think she would change, right ?
TLDR: My sister is unhealthy attached to me and shows a lot of red flags but I don’t know how to set boundaries she won’t break while we still live together. Am I being overdramatic and should I grin and bear it, or is there a way to change our dynamic that won’t upset her?
Comments
Draw a hard boundary, move out, and don’t let them know where you live. Because yes, your sister will find out. Her behavior is scary but also sounds like it is escalating.
Your parents are enabling this toxic behavior by not getting her help or stopping it.
She honestly sounds like a danger to herself and others. You may need to talk to her school counselor or something. She clearly needs help.
Leave leave leave LEAVE LEAVE move out move out move out
Get your important papers, call a friend you trust, take everything you don’t want destroyed and couch surf until you can get back to school, then get a part time job and find an off-campus apartment with college bros. Do not go back.
I just want to emphasize also that she is not a bad person, and she can be very sweet and very loving and I do love her and does love me, but I don’t want our relationship to explode and us to never be close, I just want her to be more… normal. And not freaky. Even if she is kind of crazy she’s still my sister and always will be.
Can’t you leave? That way she won’t randomly come into your room.
Sounds like your mom enabled it by being lazy and saying she’ll grow out of it instead of addressing the issue.
If you take on fixing the issue yourself it’ll drain you way more before it gets better.
Tell your mom her daughter is her responsibility and leave.