My older sister hates being by herself, but her husband has to travel pretty regularly for work. So when he travels, she always asks me (one or two days before, it never fails) to sleep over at her house. She knows that I hate staying over at her house, but she still asks because she knows I won’t say no. In her eyes and in my family’s eyes, I have no logical reason to not stay with her because I don’t have a husband/boyfriend, or a job and I do school online. So why is it a big deal? My sister and I never really got along as kids as siblings do. But my sister has said a lot of things over the years that really hurt and have stuck with me for my entire life. She’s called me ugly, undesirable, and has said countless things about my height and weight that just made me feel like a huge troll all throughout my teenage years. But that stuff I let go because idk I love my sister and felt like it wasn’t that big of a deal. I doubt she even remembers saying any of those things. But the thing that really hurt was that she has told me several times about how much better her life was before I was born. She tells me in detail about how happy her childhood was and then how her life was flipped upside down when she had to move houses and leave everything behind when I was born. I became “the favorite” and she hated me for it. She never even says anything like this just to hurt me either, she says it calmly. She tells me like it’s the truth. She tells me I ruined her life like it’s the fucking truth because to her, it is. She used to rant like this a lot around two years ago. Around that time, I got into my own head really bad and every single day I woke up wishing that I was never born and most nights I cried myself to sleep because I felt like I ruined everyone’s life. It was a constant battle to get out of bed every morning. This was easily the lowest point in my life. I never told anyone, but I thought every day about how much better everyone’s life would be if I killed myself. I don’t think I would have killed myself; I was terrified of dying, but I can’t say that I didn’t think about how much happier everyone would be. The moment that it clicked that I needed to stay alive was when I thought about how my little cousin would have felt if I died. I felt terrible for even considering ever making her feel that way, so I decided to work on myself for her. Pretty much all of last year I tried my hardest to work on my self-confidence and just overall be the best version of myself. I ended up losing a lot of weight and I feel the best I’ve ever felt about myself. But every time I’m around my sister, she says those small things that make those feelings stick in my head again. Every time she asks me to sleep over, I just feel like a giant weight is placed on my shoulders. I’m so afraid of feeling that way again and I don’t want to tell her that she made me feel that way because I don’t want her to go through what I went through. I just stay over and get it over with because that’s easier than causing a scene and hurting her feelings. My friends don’t understand why I hate staying with her so much, but it’s because they don’t know that she reminds me of what it feels like to want to die. Anyways, I’ll probably just continue to suck it up for now. I just really wanted to get some of this weight off.
TL;DR: My friends and family don’t know that I hate being around my sister because she reminds me of when I wanted to die.
Comments
She’s down right mean.
I hope you find the courage to speak up and at least find somebody to talk to.
Next time she asks you can try
“No, I don’t want to spend the night, you’re mean to me and I’m over it”
Do y’all hate paragraphs or something?
Your sister sounds like a bitch
If you can, I would recommend finding a therapist to help you process this. If not, please find a trusted friend to tell about the manipulation and emotional abuse you’ve experienced at the hands of your sister. But please set some boundaries for yourself & stop doing favors for your sister, she doesn’t deserve your consideration. Say no. She might freak out, because when people who are used to getting their way are suddenly met with resistance, they don’t handle it well. That’s okay. Let her be mad. You may get some pushback from your parents too – it’s none of their business, btw – that’s okay too. If they’re so worried, they can sleep over, but I bet they won’t. I can’t stress this enough: Being your sister’s emotional support person when she’s going to be alone is NOT YOUR JOB. Especially when she’s mean to you, or treats you with contempt and disrespect. Hope this helps.
You don’t need to have her in your life at all. You may be better off with little to no contact with her. She sounds cruel and vindictive. Please see a therapist. You deserve better.
Say no. Make plans to be elsewhere. Say you have an exam. Get mysteriously sick with something contagious. You’re not her safety blanket.
Why are you putting your horrible sister’s feelings ahead of your mental wellbeing? Where is your self worth? You don’t owe her anything. You did nothing wrong. She’s a bad person that gets pleasure on treating you like crap and expects everyone to cater to her no matter what she does. Stop rewarding her.