Article on "Selective Amnesia"

I am finding myself having a good time at this web page. It is at Luke 17:3 Ministries. I'm actually looking for something else, but this is too good not to show you.

It is the essay titled, "Selective Amnesia". Ha. You can see why I went there given recent events. Here are a few pull quotes:

When your abuser claims to have no idea what he did wrong, HE IS LYING. He knows perfectly well what he did. He will try this ploy even if you have told him point blank and in no uncertain terms exactly what he did wrong, argued with him and protested his mistreatment for years, and repeated your complaints dozens of times. And yes, even if you have written him a detailed, 10-page letter listing a few decades worth of examples, which he has no doubt read a couple of hundred times. He has seen your distress every time he hurt you. In fact, that was his reward for hurting you and the reason he continued to hurt you. Because he loved knowing he COULD....There is no way he does not know what he did. That is a lie. He only has Selective Amnesia because it serves his purposes to conveniently “forget”.

I laughed out loud at the "10-page letter" remark since that is how long my letter to sister was.

How do you list 50 years of abuse? How do you put it into words? Abusers want to know “what they did wrong” as if it was merely one or two incidents, that could be discussed and settled in a few minutes. But it’s not. It’s a LIFETIME of incidents, 20, 30, 50 or more years; hundreds, if not thousands, of times. It’s overwhelming. It’s not one or two obnoxious behaviors or hurtful episodes. It’s a PATTERN of ongoing, continuous, unrelenting evil. It just never ends, until we leave.

Touche. For me it was more like 40 years, but that is a damn long time by any measure. A lifetime of incidents. It is overwhelming.

This next part says something I have felt but haven't had the heart to say it this bluntly to my sister. I was tempted to say something along this line in my last letter, but I held back. Can you believe I still don't want to gratuitously hurt her feelings? Just in case I'm wrong about her, I still sometimes hold things back. I hadn't thought it out as well as it is articulated below. Had I gotten it this well formed in my mind I very well may have said something to this effect:

The problem with trying to explain to our abuser why we divorced her is that it’s not so much what she DID, it’s WHO SHE IS. Or rather, WHAT SHE IS. With an abuser, it is NOT any one incident. It is not just her behavior, IT IS HER. It is the kind of person she is that we don’t want to have anything to do with. Abusers are evil, wicked, demonic people. Their behavior is merely an outward sign, a manifestation of the condition of their souls and the shriveled up, dead black heart within them.

The reason we stay away is that we have finally seen this. It’s our abuser’s whole persona that keeps us away, not any one incident or behavior. It’s EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM. It’s his personality, his character, his unrighteousness, his whole evil being. It’s not just this thing or that thing or any of the things he does, it’s HIM!

It would be more accurate to list her personality traits rather than her behaviors as the reason we disowned her. Imagine telling our abuser the truth- that we refuse contact with her because she IS nasty, cunning, spiteful, manipulative, belligerent, treacherous, critical, lying, untruthful, bullying, conniving, deceitful, sneaky, trouble-making, jealous, sabotaging, envious, bitter, sadistic, malicious, selfish, narcissistic, hostile, dangerous, cruel, hateful, psychopathic, and abusive? That’s who she is. Who in their right mind would want someone like that in their life? What normal, healthy person would want to deal with this, or to expose themselves and their children to it?

Our revulsion, repulsion, and avoidance is a natural, normal, healthy reaction to exposure to evil. It is our God-given discernment setting off alarm bells in our heads and telling us to run for the hills. We left because we finally realized it was hopeless, and that changing these ingrained characteristics is impossible. Our abuser would have to change her very being, and that will never happen because she has no desire to. She left us no choice but to cut her off in order to protect ourselves and our families.

The only way we can lead healthy, happy lives is to stay away from such evil people. We don’t disown them because of one or two things they did. We disown them because they are unfit as people to have in our lives. [emphasis mine]

"Selective Amnesia"

I appreciate the affirmation of this article since it is exactly what I'm up against right now.

What to My Wondering Eyes Should Appear...

...but another email from sister dearest.

It was a shock. Shocking because she responded so quickly. I had hoped I had bought myself another extended silence. I found it at 1:00 a.m. Sunday. Reading it was not conducive to getting to bed. No sleep until 2:30 a.m. Why was I checking my email at 1:00 a.m.? Hubby and I had just finished cleaning up the kitchen after our family guests left. I always check email just before shutting down the computer.

I will be posting her email for you. All in good time. What is very clear to me is that it's time for me to shut her down hard. The first read-through of her email filled me with a sense of amazement. She was completely showing her tender underbelly. Complete with a confession about how she treated me when she was a teenager. I've never heard her admit to any of it before. It was especially interesting since just a few hours earlier my cousin "Lee" said, "I remember when I was fourteen and living with your family your sister told me she hated you for leaving her there with your mother, and she wanted to hurt you." Here is what my sister's email said about that very time:

"You asked me to own up to when I purposely tried hurting you. I remember in my teen years being very angry with you. This was a time in my life when I really was trying to hurt you. I was so resentful of you. I know I put you down and would dig at you. I think I wanted to even humiliate you. I know I wanted to punish you. I was horrible. You already felt degraded and humiliated and trapped in a life you really didn't choose for yourself and there I was trying to make you feel worse. It was evil. I apologize to you for this. I am so sorry. It was cruel and wrong. I was selfish and self righteous and I am so sorry. I know i couldn't have treated you worse because my digs were sly and subtle, probably leaving you to feel like, "did she really mean that". I can only imagine how awful I made you feel. Please forgive me."

A clean apology like I've never heard from her in my life before. As you can also read here in her own words...I have not exaggerated about her treatment of me. It was nice of her to provide confirmation for ya'll of what I've said about her.

I will say that reading her conciliatory email did have the effect of softening me. I may come off like a hard-ass but I really am in possession of a very soft heart. At the same time she softened my feelings, I also realized it is time to forbid her from further communication. I can still see her working the situation to her advantage. She is now approaching me like she is going to be my savior. I find it repugnant.

I will elaborate more on what I see in her email when I get around to posting it. I think that many of you will see me as being a heartless bitch for dismissing her when she finally gets around to a real apology. I don't relish laying myself out there for the knives to be drawn and to see people feeling sorry for my sister. But I started it...in all fairness you deserve to see how she responded.

Before I close this post I will respond to a question posed in the comments to me from "Poe".

But I have one question. I have read all your posts and there is one thing I can't understand. Your sister is not stupid. Doesn't she know that you have this blog? That her emails will be publically exposed and scrutinized?

She isn't stupid, but she also isn't terribly smart. The thought has not even crossed her mind that I have a blog let alone a blog where I have talked about her at length. That thought would require her to think bigger than herself. She isn't very good at that as you might have noticed. Since the earliest days of my blogging I have kept an eye out for her through Sitemeter and Statcounter. I know beyond all shadow of doubt that she has not found my blog. Keep in mind, too, that she is proud of her letters. She thinks she is right and has expressed herself in a way that no one can see her game or object to her words. She does not possess the ability to know how she is perceived by me. She can't get out of herself enough to get it. She sorta seems to get it in her latest email, but it is too little too late. Anyway, it hasn't occurred to her and I doubt it ever will. Writing under a pseudonym makes the chances of her finding what I've written vanishingly small.

As I've said before, I don't care if she finds what I've said here about her. I don't care if she finds herself publicly exposed and scrutinized. She deserves whatever she gets if she should find me here. In any case, she still has her anonymity. She isn't "publicly exposed" in the truest sense.

My Email to Sister

Here's how I'm going to do this. My email-to-sister post is going under an old date so as to keep it off the front page. This is how I'm dealing with its length. Since Blogger doesn't have the "below the fold" feature that would allow me to truncate the post, this is how I'm doing it. The five most recent posts are what show up on the front page of my blog. Because new people are coming here all the time I don't want to overwhelm them with a huge post that they have no context for and therefore would likely just move on.

After I eventually get at least five new posts up on the blog I will move my email to sister post into its proper order in the archives. I hope this doesn't seem complicated. It really isn't.

My email can be read here.

May 15, 2008 Email Response to My Sister

This was sent to my sister last night, May 15, 2008 @ 17:20 her time.

Those of you who have read many to most of my old posts will recognize I took some (small) pieces of three posts and put them in this email to my sister. I borrowed a concept from my "The Last Straw" post. I also took a paragraph from near the end of my dissection of sister's non-apology letter of April 2006. A dissection she never got to see. I re-iterated a concept I recently blogged on where I make reference to the importance of memory in order to keep from getting burned by a hot stove. This is what engineers refer to as "economy of design".

My sister's words are in black. Mine are in purple.

******************************************

"I do so wish you would tell me..."

and

"Please let me know what I have done..."

Keep in mind throughout your reading of my response...this email is in your inbox because you solicited it. Do me the courtesy of paying attention to what you specifically requested.

That being said...

Dxxxx Lxxxxx wrote:

It has been heavy on my heart all these years that I have offended you. The thought of you hurting because of something I have done is a terrible thing. There is no doubt in my mind that I did something which caused this, but time has not helped me bring about a revelation of the event. I do so wish you would tell me so I could offer you a specific apology directed to the specific pain I have caused you. I would also like to know if there is anything I can do to make up for this offense.

I reject the opening premise of your email. You come to me with this pretense that I did not tell you what you did to earn exile. I see this as you playing a game. You come to me acting like you are clueless about what could have possibly provoked me to walk away which tells me you have utterly justified yourself and therefore won't even look at what I've told you was my real problem with your behavior.

Tell you what, I'll play your game with you for a few moments by giving you a clue or two. I'll just pretend you're dealing with a mental impairment and therefore you need an extra bit of help. Here we go...please pay attention:

Your Apr. 1st, 2006 email was grossly manipulative, you were bullying, you completely rejected my right to hold a differing opinion, it contained at least two whoppers, and you pretended I said I never wanted to meet K [sister's bio daughter] when I said yes, just not now and not in the way you wanted me to meet her (i.e. with you there). I did not even try to hold you accountable for the lies you told because history long ago taught me that you don't own up to your lies. I'm mentioning the lies now because, what the hell, why not? I'm done with helping make the path to reconciliation smoother because you've not taken even one serious step in that direction.

Your first email was bad enough. You were only teetering on the edge at this point. I warned you that if you came back at me with anything other than a sincere apology for these above offenses there would be negative consequences. You had some idea how negative those consequences might be because I referred to how I have dealt with our mother for her behavior. So you had some idea of the precariousness of your position. I even gave you the option of silence which you unwisely didn't take.

Two weeks later I receive what is known as "adding insult to injury". You sent me what could be used as the quintessential textbook example of a non-apology. Mixed in freely with your non-apology was a smelly dose of self-pity, self-justification, more lies, more manipulation and continued discounting of my feelings about how you had treated me. Oh, you pretended you cared. But everything was couched in qualifiers. You gave with one hand only to take with the other.

After the insult of your non-apology, I was done with you. You compounded the original problem ten fold with your non-apology letter. You proved you were uninterested in dealing with things honestly and being fair with my feelings and my right to have a differing opinion without having to put up with your shaming and bull crap. You refused to admit to what you had done in your first email. There was no point in my demanding you also apologize for your second email, so I didn't bother to point out all that I saw in your non-apology letter. You had already proven by your non-apology you were not in the mood to reconcile on any terms but your own.

My main complaints were all put in writing to you. If you have the IQ of at least a pencil eraser you could read the email exchange from beginning to end and see that I explained what I was upset about. (You probably threw all the letters away, right?) I don't think you're stupid. I think you're stubborn, selfish and self-righteous. It looks like you're hoping that by coming to me two years later and pretending I gave you the boot without ever telling you what you did could somehow result in a net gain for you. Maybe I can be convinced I didn't play fairly. Maybe I'll take your olive branch and you can waltz back into my life without ever having to really own your poop. Well, it ain't a gonna happen like that.

By the way, it has been two years, one month. "All these years" is a bit melodramatic. We're not there yet, but, at this rate, I think we'll be getting there.

I know it has been a lifelong struggle for you to love and understand me. We have such varied perspectives on life.

You have benefited from years of me loving and understanding you. As usual you make it all about poor little you and what you don't get from me. What was called for in April 2006, and what is called for now, is that you spend some effort understanding me. And understanding me based on the words I have taken considerable effort to express myself with, not with your dismissal of my words in favor of your addled assumptions about my state of mind. I see you've not put forth your efforts in the direction of understanding me and therefore your words to me here do not assuage my concerns. Frankly, I don't believe you are capable of understanding me because you do not demonstrate the ability to get outside of yourself at all.

The "profound" truths you claim I revealed to you were side issues. The truly profound revelations have gone unexplored by you to this day. I do not struggle to understand you. I understand you very well. Understanding doesn't mean I agree with you, or must capitulate to you, or accept the unacceptable. Love doesn't mean I have to have a relationship with you. You continue to make incorrect assumptions about my state of mind and feelings. You assume you are owed what you consider to be "love" and "understanding". Which, in D-speak, means getting what you want. This email and your April 2006 emails all show that you think I simply don't love or understand you enough. That is not true. And it is not the issue. More on the real issue later.

I know I have always stepped unaware on your sensitive spots and caused you much pain. I am so sorry for that. I hope you can believe that most of the pain I have caused you has been unintentional.

Blah, blah, blah. My sensitive spots. Gee whiz. Yeah. I'm sensitive to being treated like my opinions are not mine by right to hold. I'm sensitive to being lied to. I am really sensitive to when people try to manipulate and shame me into submission. You call it sensitive because it pathologizes me rather than put on the onus on you to behave better. I am a sentient and feeling human being who is sensitive to being treated like doggie doo-doo. So. There ya have it. Own it.

Oh, and saying you were unaware of when you "caused me pain" is no commendation for a future relationship with you. It only reveals your lack of empathy and your refusal to look at any perspective other than you own. Excuse me if I don't want to re enlist with such an inconsiderate and self-involved person. It is no fun hanging out with someone who repeatedly and heartlessly inflicts pain, and then who never will truly admit to what they did. And if I dare to point out what you did I get stone-walling, blame-shifting, shaming, excuses, etc. ad nauseum. Yeah, getting stepped on by you is not fun. If I'm "lucky", you give a generalized apology and that is supposed to suffice. When I do demand a specific apology, I am treated to all the reasons I'm misunderstanding you and not loving you enough and how pure your intentions are. This cycle has been repeated too often. Now you have given this new spin where you pretend I never got specific so you can't be blamed for not specifically apologizing. I still need a truck to deal with all the crap you dish my direction.

Appealing to your 'virtuous' motives is not going to save you. We are not judged by our motives. We are judged by what we do. "By their fruits you will know them." Fruits=behavior. This is because what we do is a true revelation of our strongest motives. In the end, we do what we want to do. To consistently do...and then say it's not what you wanted to do...is just a lie.

You give yourself too much credit when you say you've caused me "much pain". I have not given you that much power over me to cause me "much pain". I have kept you at emotional arms length for decades so you couldn't continue to hurt me with your repeated violations of trust and unkindnesses. Yeah, you've gotten some jabs in here and there. I just took them as reminders that you were not a safe person to open up to.

"Most of the pain I have caused you has been unintentional." [emphasis mine]

Ah, a small confession. "Most of the pain...was unintentional" means that some of the pain you caused was intentional, yet you don't elaborate on when those times were. You only seem willing to openly confess whatever it is I am presently demanding accountability for. You are aware of times you intentionally tried to hurt me...yet, where is your confession of those deeds? Only this general statement that is supposed to suffice for a sincere statement of regret. If you actually came clean on something I wasn't demanding you come clean on, then I could feel like we're getting somewhere. But you won't even come clean on what I am demanding accountability for so I can't begin to imagine you coming clean on something your feet weren't being held to the fire for. Instead, once again, all I get is some non-specific quasi apology. That boat don't float for me.

There were a few things you said to me that I have spent much time thinking about. I saw there was truth in it and I wanted to really give it my complete attention. You talked about my need for you to respond in a certain way for me to really feel validated. This made you feel contrived and manipulated. I can see that. I am so sorry that I did this to you. Not only you, but others close to me in my life.

Okay, glad you got the point. But it certainly is no where near the main issue. Which is probably why you're focusing on it.

I struggled with this reveal of my character for many months before I realized it was a matter of surrender to God. What you identified was real and needed uprooting but no amount of my own effort was going to be able to remove it from my life. It was a spiritual matter that only God could address for any lasting success.

You are saying you realize "it needed uprooting" but there is no indication that has actually been accomplished. Oh, well. Work of a life time, I guess. It really is a tangential issue in my estimation. If you never uprooted this aspect of your character it wouldn't matter to me. It is not what keeps me away from you.

Pull outside YOU for two minutes and see that I was trying to reveal something about me. I was telling you why I negatively reacted to your demands for a more emotional reaction from me. I was explaining my reaction to your behavior so you could know that your behavior was irritating, but nevertheless, it didn't alter my behavior. I was telling you that no matter the pressure you applied, you were only going to get honest reactions from me. That was my point. You've made a much bigger deal of this than you should and you have focused on the least relevant aspect of it. You have been concentrating your efforts beside the point and now pretend it is big so that you can try to convince me you've made big changes. Not working. Even while you are acting like you're granting me a point...I see no apology for it.

I'm going to use the opportunity of your point above to show you something. We are up to your second non-apology for this behavior. In your Apr. 14, 2006 letter you non-apologized for this behavior of yours by saying:

I know that when I am excited I want everyone to get excited too. What I didn’t know is how it made you feel when I do that. I am so sorry.

Here is how I had described this behavior:

"Thank you for pointing out what a failure I have been as a sister because I didn't "enter your joy". Never mind that it would have been disingenuous for me to pretend to feel something I didn't feel. Frankly, I'm just about never enthusiastic enough for your tastes. Here is a newsflash about me: I am honest in my reactions. I fake nothing. I would not be able to count the times when I have expressed honest enthusiasm or praise about something and you keep poking me and prodding me to ramp it up. I always get the message: I'm not emotional enough for your tastes. I don't "validate" you the way you think I should. Why can't I be myself and be allowed to think that it okay for me to be me? Why is it always about you and what you want and need? Why are your needs always top billing, yet when I, in a rare moment, express my need for some respect for my feelings and I get slapped around? Why are you fighting?"

In your response you completely re-framed the description of your behavior. You didn't acknowledge its manipulative, coercive aspect which was my complaint. You put your behavior in terms that would almost make it kinda adorable. It's just you being excited. Oh, okay. How cute. You are doing nothing worse than wanting to have everyone join your Happy Parade. You follow that re-description of your behavior by apologizing for my feelings about you doing it. Either that, or you were apologizing for only trying to get me to join your harmless Happy Parade. Whichever you were apologizing for did not address what I took issue with. It was not an apology for the behavior I had described. You re-describe the behavior and then apologize. Uhh, uh. Not gonna let you get away with that. In this latest email you still aren't apologizing for doing it. Just so ya know. Like I've already said, this point is beside the point of what you are being held to account for by me. I'm just using it to show you what is obvious to me when I read your words. You are a virtuoso at giving non-apologies, but I can't be baffled with your bull anymore.

Which leads me to the most profound truth you shared with me.

[yawn]

You grew tired of me talking about my damages from childhood and asked me if I had so much knowledge...why was I so stuck ( D's paraphrase).

You're doing it again. Your paraphrase sucks. Then you take your suck-y paraphrase and fashion your case for revelation and reformation around it. Let's go back to what I actually said:

"I will have a relationship with you someday.....someday when you grow up and are willing to take responsibility for who you are and what you do and the decisions you make. I'm am weary to the bone of hearing you give yourself a pass on everything by blaming your childhood. It is looking ridiculous for a 40+ year old woman to be blaming anyone but herself for what she does and who she is. When do you start to take full responsibility for these things? I'm beginning to think never."

I did not say anything about you having "so much knowledge" about your past. Neither did I say you were talking too much about your childhood. Your paraphrase neatly dispenses with the nut of what I said. What I pointed out is how you use your proclaimed childhood damage to excuse your bad behavior. That was the revelation. That was the point. You skirted it in April 2006. You are still skirting it.

Good question and one I could not in all integrity ignore. So again I asked God what was up. I learned from Him that going back to the places of pain, the roots of weak character, is only the beginning. It is the starting point, not the completion of the work which needs to be completed. Knowing these roots is essential for surrendering them to God who is the only one who can heal and restore my character. He was showing me these things not so they could be my "truth", but so I could give them to Him for healing. Needless to say, this has been a process. But thanks be to God, "He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it."

Now, here is the center of your attempt at diversion. You re-framed my words, then used the re-framing to simply give another plug for your favorite brand of Christianized navel-gazing. I've heard all this from you before. This is no new revelation you are presenting. You are recycling in a different context and slightly different wording the exact same concepts you've been hawking for years now. This falls flat. You have gotten no where in convincing me you've had any kind of "profound truth" revealed to you. You've simply done a clumsy repackaging of your favorite flavor of Christianized psychobabble.

So your two "proofs" of change only serve to prove you've not changed in any way that I can see. Nothing that would make me think you are safe for resumed interaction. This is a real pity. I would have hoped two years would have given you time for some real introspection. But all I see is that you've waited and hoped that time would minimize my memory and determination. You have thought you could devise a way to pretend to grant me some points even while you get to hang onto your self-righteous belief you really didn't do anything worth having me walk away from you for.

Here's what I think. I think you think that anything short of a cataclysmic event would not justify my ending our relationship.

You look around and don't see anything you think amounts to a cataclysm, therefore you don't think I'm justified in my decision. In your opinion you didn't do anything you'd consider a big deal as shown by how you have minimized all my primary complaints to nothingness. You don't see anything reaching to the level of deserving to have your sister walk away from you. I believe this thinking is what allows you to come to me with your false premise that you are dying to apologize if you only knew what you did.

What happened two years ago is what I call a "last straw" event. It was not the hugeness of the event. It was the sameness. More of the same piled higher and deeper. The weight of the last straw was enough to break the proverbial camel's back. It is not because the straw is heavy or HUGE. No, it is because of its sameness piled onto all the other straws just like it. There is a limit to how many straws anyone can carry on their back. April 2006 was my limit. That is what happened. It wasn't cataclysmic for you, but it was for me. It was the event that shocked me into seeing that nothing was different. The past was fully operational in the present.

I can also liken April 2006 as the end of the "Chinese" water torture that has been my life with you. One, two, three drops of water on someone's forehead causes no damage. Many drops can drive a person insane. Interestingly, what causes this torture method to work is when there is no predictable timing to the drops. The unpredictability...the inability for the victim to anticipate the timing of the next drop...is what drives a person to the brink of insanity or beyond. My life with you and Mom has been like a Chinese water torture. Drip, drip, drip. Never knowing when the next drip would hit. You look at April 2006 and think, "For Pete's sake, it was only one drop of water!" In the context of my history with you, for me it was the end of a long series of tortuously unpredictable drips. It was the last repetition of the same type of thing I was willing to endure.

I have left crazy-town.

I did explain this concept in different words and more briefly at the end of my last letter to you. Maybe the explanations above will help you understand the point a little better.

Because I have a working memory that tells me that someone is crapping on my head yet again, I am justified in removing myself from the situation which made it easy for me to be shat upon. History tells me that it will happen again because intelligent people know that history repeats itself. At the very least, history rhymes. There is no law in heaven or on earth that tells me I have to sit still for someone who likes to occasionally take a dump on me. I've left the outhouse pit hole. I'd say it was about time. You benefited for over forty years from my patience. You have no right or claim upon further patience from me.

So I thank you for helping me to see that how I was perceiving life and how I was living was not good enough. I thank God that there is victory in Jesus and a life short of that is no life at all.

I thank God for the victory He provides too. I also thank Him that He doesn't need me in your life to accomplish any good work He wants to do. Even though I don't see any evidence that you've experienced some kind of transformation that doesn't mean you haven't. It just means I can't see it. I can't see it because you didn't provide actual proof of it in this email.

In light of our differences of both personality and experiences, I know we will always have things we cannot agree on.

Yes, I am well aware that we have always had things we can not agree on. Thing is...when you disagree with me on something you decide that you deserve and desperately want, you get nasty. That is the issue. No two people in the universe agree on everything. Because I know that fact, I don't look for relationships with people who agree with me on everything. Just the important things. Shared core values. You and I do not share the same core values. Which is what led to the conflict in April 2006 and you showed how you are still a bitch when I disagree with you. You are the one who can't be decent when someone disagrees with one of your fundamental and pet ideas or stands in the way of something you think you're owed.

But please do not use it as an excuse to stop loving me.

Oh, please, stop making it all about you. Whether or not I love you is not the issue. The issue is whether or not I have to take your garbage when you decide to dish it out. I don't. You are still refusing my right to kick the people out of my life who like to occasionally take a dump on me. Just because you were squeezed out of the same birth canal I was doesn't give you special rights to my life or special claims on my affections.

Please let me know what I have done because I want no offenses to be between us any longer.

Once again you threw at me your false premise in this short email of yours. Your false premise makes me the bad guy. I don't appreciate you coming to me two years after the fact and setting up the basic premise of your email by covertly attempting to convince me I'm the bad guy. You are a master of blame-shifting. You reveal by this email and your two emails of April 2006 that you are highly practiced at your game. That fact, as much as anything else, convinced me you are an unsafe person to deal with. You lie by omission and commission in nearly every sentence. This tells me that, when you want your way, the truth is no obstacle to you. I choose to not deal with practiced liars.

I do not hold any illusions that we will go back to being close.

See, this is one of life's sad little realities. I don't remember ever feeling close to you. I could never trust you enough to feel close. Too many times I would feel you tear at my flesh with your cruel words and sneaky deeds. You have never truly come clean on even one thing you have done against me. Ever. The very few times I tried to get some confession from you for what I had absolute evidence that you did you would sneer and rage at me. I can still see your haughty bearing as you utterly trampled my right for justice and mocked my inability to get it. I learned it was worse than fruitless to confront you with your misdeeds. You would compound whatever you did with very cruel words and abuses. And you would absolutely refuse to admit to anything. It is still true to this day. You've learned to use subtler tools than rage and overt verbal abuse, but the end result is the same. You refuse to take responsibility for what you do.

In our young adult hood and beyond, I quietly moved on. I would give you as much of myself as I was willing to give even though you often subtly indicated I was falling short of your expectations of me. What I gave you was far more than you deserved. The thing you never give me credit for is how I didn't hold the past against you. I didn't live in pain or anger. I didn't keep seeking justice and accountability from you. I kept trying to believe you were a better person. I didn't hold resentments. And, yes, there were times I genuinely enjoyed your company.

But what I couldn't do was trust you.

With distressing regularity you would violate the little bit of trust I had managed to rebuild toward you...setting me back to square one over and over. You have been the beneficiary of so much patience that I almost make myself sick with what a kind sap I was toward you. All those unconfessed wrongs of yours kept piling up and directly negating trust. Yet, somehow, the onus has always been on me to make our relationship work even though you were the one persistently violating trust. You get to behave any old way you want to, and I'm the one who is supposed to just cut you slack because that is how I was expected to show that I love and understand you. Perverted and immoral.

Because you have never been willing to own your crap I have never been able to let my guard down with you. So your saying "going back to being close" is another revelation of how little you have perceived things from my perspective. You never look at things from my eyes. Just your own. You have felt close. Great. I can see why. I've been a decent and kind person and have let you get away with all kinds of crap. On my end of the relationship toward you I was having to always step carefully to avoid your wrath and/or cruelty. Can you see why it is easier for me to give it up? What am I really giving up? Only your selfish version of a relationship. Sorry. It doesn't feel like a loss.

I suspect you have many times seen me as being a selfish sister. Since your mid-20s you have been making noises about how much you love me and, oh, how you wish I loved you back. I'm sure I have many times failed to perform the way you thought I should as your sister. But this view of my behavior ignored why I felt I had to keep you at arm's length. Then we have the events of April 2006 which did not happen in a vacuum. There is a long and checkered history you've chosen to ignore or recreate that informs my reaction and my decision concerning you.

Let's look at some non-revisionist history. You frequently used and abused me during our growing up years. Then you ignored me for the most part after I left home. Especially as you reached your late teens. Then, on a dime, I was supposed to start pretending we had always been close. This paradigm shift occurred during your pregnancy.

Suddenly, cut off from the ego-stroking of peers and the workplace you turned your attentions on me. Sequestered in your hiding place you started playing the new role of adoring sister. Since I had left home at seventeen I had been the recipient of your disdain, your superiority complex, your self-righteous "I'll never do what you did" attitude. Abruptly, while you were in your confinement, Mom starts coming to me with statements like this:

"Your sister loves and respects you so much. It is really too bad you don't feel the same way about her. You really need to learn to love your sister."

Blam.

I'm abruptly re-cast in a new role. You couldn't have cared less about me for years. You ignored me almost completely as you flitted about gathering admirers and accolades. This worked for me. I didn't mind being ignored by you because it minimized the times you would make me feel like crap on your shoe. Now, in a twinkling of an eye, I'm suddenly in the role of reluctant and unloving sister. This paradigm has continued to exist up to this day. It is an outgrowth of the narcissistic world view of both Mom and you.

One more time. The issue isn't that I don't love you or understand you. The issue is that I can't trust you enough to let you close. All friendships are based on trust. Without it...friendship can not exist. You have never been a true friend to me.

I know too much time has been allowed for festering of pain and old wounds do not heal easily.

You are projecting here. I am not sitting around with "festering of pain and old wounds" that "do not heal easily". I have moved on. I am not festering. I am not angry. I give you nary a thought. Without you in my life you can not continue to re-offend. Therefore, all wounds just close up and make a nice, neat little scar. People can easily live with scars if the scars are not too extensive. Scars just prove a wound once existed. Scars actually aid functionality because they are what is left after a healed wound. Wounds impair function, scars allow function to return. Scars can remind us of a past event, but they don't impede going forward into a good life. I have minimized the damage by cutting contact. You can't create more wounds so I function very well, thank you very much.

This line of my thinking is one of many places where you and I differ. While I don't condemn looking at the past, and I don't think looking at the past is necessarily a sign of staying in bitterness and anger, I do condemn using the past to justify mistreatment of others. I do not do that. You do that. As the saying goes, those who refuse to look at the past are condemned to repeat it. I have finally learned from the past with you and Mom so I can have a better future. It is working out very well for me. I am all for looking at the past in order to learn from it and move on. Which is why I'm not sitting here, as you presume, wallowing in "festering pain" and "old wounds". Far from it.

Sidebar:

You could choose to believe that I am mistreating you now. I suspect you feel very sorry for yourself over what I have said (2 years ago) and am presently saying to you. This is not mistreatment. You are experiencing at long, long last the natural consequences of your persistent behaviors. You're finally reaping what you have sown. You are finally having to deal with some truth where I'm concerned. Truth you pretended you were looking for. Well, I'm sure you weren't asking for as much as I'm giving you. Like trial attorneys say, "never ask a question you don't know the answer to." I have carried this load of truth all by myself for decades. It is rightfully yours to carry. It is high time to have your conscience loaded with its rightful due. I'm being kind by assuming you have a conscience. Even after you've read all this letter please know I have greatly spared you. I could say ever so much more truth. I am taking pity on you. So, if you come at me again with more silly games just keep in mind that my barrel is still loaded. I have taken mercy on you at every step. You would do well to recognize this fact rather than accuse me of being unnecessarily cruel. You are still not even close to carrying the full weight of your guilt. I am not anxious to force it on you which is why I hold back. Act wisely and I will spare you. Silence is likely the smartest way for you to proceed. I am far from demanding full accountability from you. Don't push me.

End Sidebar.

A working memory is important in order to avoid repeating past mistakes. Memory enables me to know that the stove is hot so I can avoid burning myself repeatedly. I am simply avoiding getting burned. That is sensible and right. No one has the right to demand I keep near the hot stove and occasionally touch it so it can burn me. You have no right of ownership on my life. No right to demand any little thing of me that you expect I owe you. . I have a working memory and I'm not afraid to use it. Sorry it is to your detriment.No right to expect I keep you close so that I get repeatedly burned

I am simply requesting an opportunity to make amends to my sister

That opportunity was afforded you two years ago. You are simply refusing to take it. It is not my fault you refuse to do so.

whom I dearly love.

What you call love is simply hunger. You know nothing of love for you have relegated it entirely to the realm of emotion. To you, love is a hunger, and a warm feeling of satisfaction when fed. One way this is revealed by you is when you described your relationship to me as being like a child to a mother...as you did in many conversations in the two years prior to our estrangement and then repeated in one of your April 2006 letters to me. I found it curious when this theme of yours started popping up in conversation. It was a new theme. It began in 2003. Time eventually revealed the purpose of this new refrain of yours.

While I'm sure I was supposed to be flattered to be described as a nurturing mother all it does is underline the completely out of kilter relationship we've had all our lives. I was assigned to do the nurturing and loving. You got to decide when I needed to give you whatever nurturing or validation you felt you had the right to expect from me. Your description actually reveals the utterly selfish way you have interacted with me. This relationship structure ignores my person hood.

It ignores who I really am. It ignores the fact that by virtue of birth order alone I was always the one held ultimately responsible for you. When you decided to shirk your responsibilities as a kid (which you did frequently), I was the one held to highest account by our witch of a mother. So I was always picking up your slack just to keep the harridan off my case. Not because I was "mothering" you. My punishment was worse than yours when we caught flack for your irresponsibility. It was worse if for no other reason than it was supremely unjust.

My presence in the home was a very large shelter for you. You have freely admitted this time and again. Yes, I protected you. Much of that protection was because of Mom's unjust system described above. Some of it was because I hated seeing you get clobbered so I wanted to help you learn how to stay out of trouble. I was a shelter for the first 14 years of your life. A shelter I was never afforded. You felt the full brunt of Mom's wrath after I left home because she could no longer deny what a slacker you were and how much your ass had been covered by your over-worked and over-used elder sister. Yeah, that hurt, I'm sure. But a certain amount of the flak you took was yours to take.

My life as the eldest child was very difficult. You will never know how difficult. You only got a taste of it because you never had a selfish, lazy little sister to deal with. My life at home was difficult enough simply because of the selfish, abusive mother we had. But my burdens were greatly added to because of you taking advantage of Mom's unfair system of government. You took advantage of me and my position of responsibility for you that far exceeded what should have been demanded of me. You totally exploited this system. You have always liked this unfair system and used it to your own ends. I know this because you've perpetuated this system long after we left our childhood home.

Whatever abuses you suffered after I left home pale in comparison with what I endured from my earliest moments. The rejection and anger which Mom focused on you at age 14 were endured by me from before I even talk. As a teenager you were abused. It is a sad and even tragic thing, and I've always felt great empathy toward you for that. Nevertheless, you never really have tried to conceptualize that I endured Mom's rages and cruelties and rejections as a barely sentient human being. I was utterly defenseless. Yet, I survived. And I didn't ever use my tragic early beginnings to justify mistreating you. I was a good sister to you. Which is not something you can rightly claim is true of you toward me.

With this history in the back of my mind I would have to listen to you talk at length time and again about your "childhood damage". You would always talk about your "damage" like you alone had suffered it. You would not include me in your rehearsals of our mother's abuses. It was weird. It felt weird because you would talk to me like you were telling the story to someone who didn't live through it themselves and worse.

It was a telling manifestation of your ultra self-centeredness. You revealed in this that you relish your childhood damage. I don't. Which is why you could so readily act like I didn't go through much worse than you did. I wasn't bending your ear about it. I had moved on. You like being stuck in your childhood damages because it is a one-way ticket out of taking responsibility for who you are. That truth is revealed by how you consistently behave.

So, as adults, you expected that I would join your revamped version of reality that you are the one who had such a hard childhood that you still wanted and needed a mommy figure in your elder sister as you reached middle age. We were supposed to base our adult relationship on this version of reality that pretends your childhood was harder than mine. It was sick. It was twisted. And it only served you. Who the hell was nurturing me all those years as a child? It sure wasn't Mom. It sure as hell wasn't you. How long do I have to be used by you to fulfill your insatiable emotional appetites? Well, if you had your way...forever. But you're no longer getting your way. We're doing this my way.

I have forever resigned from your assigned role for me. I'm not your mother. I never felt like your mother. I was your sister and I treated you decently. I didn't use and abuse you. That just means I was a good person; it didn't mean I was signing up for a lifetime role of servant and mother to you with no feelings of my own that you ever needed to take into account. Mom was the one who long ago set up the unfair system that made you think from your most formative years that I owed you whatever you demanded. I'm sorry as hell she did that. I am even sorrier that you never saw the unfairness of her system and rejected it. You have done all you can to perpetuate this perverted system right up to when I walked away.

It is obvious that to you love is not defined by doing. In fact, in order to perceive your love I have to ignore, discount or explain away the doing. Love is not entirely defined by an action, but neither can it be substantiated by words alone. And if a person’s words and actions contradict each other, a wise person must believe the actions over the words. You insist I must believe the existence of your love based on your words alone. But because these words are often demonstrably lies and manipulations, because the words don't line up with your actions, then I can find no assurance whatsoever in the words.

I will close this here as I'm sure you've had enough. I'm sorry I am not open to re-establishing a relationship with you based on your words in this latest email. I do not expect a reconciliation between us. You are not willing to come clean; I'm not willing to accept less. And now, with you continuing your baloney two years after the fact, I'm scratching my head wondering what would ever induce me to trust you enough to let you back into my life.

I am sincerely hopeful your life is going well. I also hope that you will expend your energies on treating others more unselfishly than you've treated me. You can prove to God you're changed by treating others well.

Sincerely,
Anna

This is My Happy Face

Click here for pic of me. I am posting it today because it captures my present mood. I'm hiding this in the archives cuz I don't want it showing up on the front page. I won't be able to handle the shock of seeing myself in living color when I go to my blog. Feel free to not comment.

I promised some weeks ago I'd put up a picture of myself at some point. I'm a woman of my word.



[Icon credit]