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Goodbye Sister
My sister is about to cut contact with me forever. She has chosen to leave my life for good. I am waiting for her final email to me after years of silence. I asked her recently to be part of my life, and I asked if we could drop the bs, open the doors, take down the barbed wire and heal. Her response was cold and calculated.
I told her I loved her, she told me "thanks for sending how you feel". The last part of my heart just got ripped out. Its over. She's gone and my whole family treats me like it's my fault I was assaulted as a child. I am a gang rape survivor. My family shunned me after because of religion. I was poison, I was tainted. My sister and I have been fighting for a relationship for 30 years. The last two years she stopped talking to me, only sending a two sentence text message on my birthday. The emotional abuse is heavy in my family. They enjoy withholding love and affection if you are not doing what they want.
My complex ptsd got horribly bad during the lockdowns. I tried to reach out to my sister, desperate for connection, trying to understand why there was so much chaos in the world and in my head. She ignored me, told me I was pushing her away when I was unable to commit to a visit because my symptoms were so bad. I wasn't getting out of bed, the disassociation was daily and I was having flashbacks and nightmares every night. Sometimes it gets so bad that I feel like I cannot breathe being inside. But outside doesn't feel safe. So I hyperventilate and end up on the floor screaming into the ground and when it's really bad...I start punching myself in the head.
I didn't want my sister to see that, I don't want to experience it. So, yes, I was distant for a time, but with reason. The hardest part of this all is that my sister is a childhood counselor. So she has skills to "handle" being around me, but she chooses to remain out of reach. Some people might say she is just trying to "stay safe" and "create boundaries" but when she fails to communicate those boundaries, it feels more like emotional abuse. Like I'm being punished for not being good enough. She told me in her cold text message that she would email me a response when she had time. I already know she is going to say Goodbye.
My mother is an incredibly abusive person and my sister still talks to her. I cut contact with my mother 3 years ago. I believe in part that by doing so, I gave my mother complete control over my sister's opinion of me. Between that and our lack of communication over the last few years, I know that my sister is gone. I was emotional and vulnerable in my message to her. I told my sister that I love her, I miss her and I wanted her in my life or I wanted us to cut ties. That I could not take another year of false "happy birthday" messages with no context or connection behind it. I told her that the ptsd has been horrible and the last 4 years of my life have been the worse ever, and that is saying a lot after my childhood. I told her all the things, and her response was cold.
So, I woke up at 214AM and my chest was hurting, because I knew she was gone. She cut the cord. She 86 me. I feel completely empty. A reminder that I am not good enough to be in her life, or any of my family's lives. I am not worthy of her love anymore. I am broken. That is how this feels. I will be lucky if I sleep in the next two days. I will be lucky if I eat something in the next three days. I will be lucky if I stay present for 15 minutes out of the day. I am on my own, and because of that the ideation is back. I have had to remove some things from my house to ensure I don't do anything rash.
I am the only person keeping myself here. No one is on my side and for the first time in my life, I do not have a single family member that I can truly call family. And forget about friends. Haven't seen that in over a decade. Self isolation is my world. No one seems to be able to hold space with me for long. I don't know if I will be here tomorrow. All I know is that I feel alone and typing on this website is the closest thing I have to connection with other people. I really feel like I should just end it. But what about my cats? The only family I have left is relying on me to keep it together. How do I look at them and say "mom won't be here tomorrow?" I can't. I might not be loveable to my human family but I do love my cats. And they love me. Human connection is fleeting in my life. Cats are forever.
Goodbye Sister.
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