Other How Do You Deal With Bullying Adult Siblings?

[Springbok]

This is one of my stressers. She was the super hero child who tried to fix our family through her perfection. I was the invisible child usually. When I spoke up, I would get blamed with the violence between my parents.

My sister was a bully to me as a kid. As an adult, she is a bit more passive aggressive, but can still be aggressive. I try to not talk around here. It's impossible to have a conversation. But I have to acknowledge her every now and then to keep her off my case. I just say yeah and uh huh.

 

[Deleted member 487]

I washed my hands of my sister. We rarely talk now.

 

[Nam]

Yeah and uh-uh sounds like you are responding the way I would. Keep it real shallow.

 

[Recovery4Me]

If you no longer live in the same home and are independent, you can elect to not have conversations. You do not owe her your time, it is yours to give to whom you choose.

Consider a boundary book to assist in solid concepts and hold your own with comfort.
:hug:'s if you accept

 

[Deleted member 487]

You can elect to live your own life your way. To hell with your sister. You're still a human.

 

[Springbok]

Consider a boundary book to assist in solid concepts and hold your own with comfort.
:hug:'s if you accept

Can you please describe the boundary book? I'm not familiar with this. Thank you

 

[Recovery4Me]

Great question for clarification!
My wording was meant to offer you personally- possibly considering researching for a book on boundaries that would fit you insofar as spirituality, ect. or your need set.

Everyone has a different need set, so I do not always offer my take on choice of healing by authors. Example: I am Christian so years ago, my T offered me...

Boundaries: When to say Yes and When to say no ~ by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend
also they have video advice:
http://www.cloudtownsend.com/video-advice/
but then it may not be a lot of people's cup of tea.

Then I went to Codependency Anonymous, a 12 step program because of wanting to own my own life and not be a doormat anymore. It is a Higher Power (nondenominational) program. Through going there I found out about & read a lot of Melodie Bettie Books.
http://melodybeattie.com/

She is nondenominational and has helped a lot of people with her meditations, books, ect. Probably you could find some of her books free in the library if you were interested.

Amazon.com has quite a few e-books to choose from as well. Just type in Boundaries in the search and off to the races you go.

:hug:'s if you accept.

 

[Santana]

This is one of my stressers. She was the super hero child who tried to fix our family through her per...

I have a similar sister, except she is continually jealous of me. When we were kids, she was not as good at sports, school, music, any area. When we were younger, she'd do all she could to Salvatore any friendships I had, and go as far as hit on my boyfriends.
As an adult with a husband and a family, I thought she'd finally get over this. She hasn't. As an adult I don't have to react to her but choose to take action. But, treating her with patience, love, and tolerance isn't always easy.

 

[Deleted member 33880]

It sounds like you still live with your sister. Which makes it much harder. Not allowing engagement will help. I do not live with my sister. About 13 years ago I told a very wise friend a little about my bullying sister. He told me to keep away from her. He said that when I go near her, she can't help bullying me and so I was best to keep totally away. I have. She is now passive annoying me by sending me cards but not revealing where she lives so I can't send a birthday or Christmas card back. She knows I don't know her address and am finding this annoying. Silly woman.

 

[NoWhereKnowWhere]

It wasn't until I made a commitment to self care that I realised how horribly I would alow my brother to treat me.

I've tried a few things but the only thing that's allowed me some peace is cutting him out of until life. It wasn't a snap decision I took about 6months to think it over and be certain that I'm doing the right thing. It's a very difficult and sometimes isolating thing to do but I believe there was no other option. If I'm committed to self care I can't allow people to treat me like shit.

I'm the mean time I found the chapter in a cbt book on conflict (feeling good a new mood journal by Dr David burns) to be very helpful to disarm him.

 

[Freedomfighter]

This is one of my stressers. She was the super hero child who tried to fix our family through her per...

I had an aggressive cousin once, she tormented me as a kid, and laughed about it and if her sister would not have stopped her she would most likely have hurt me physically too.
She later got a boy friend and they had a beautiful baby boy. The child had some problems and could only consume small amounts of food, had to stay in the hospital. The mother was upset that she had to do all that "work" to take care of the boy. She was offended by the fact that this child needed extra help, very disgusting. Her boyfriend was not any better. They took the child home with instructions to never feed the baby large amounts of food.
I can only assume they wanted to "shut up" the child, since when a child gets only small amounts of food at a time he may wake more often during the night. So they stuffed the child literally, gave him copious amounts of food. The baby boy was dead within weeks. Neither one of the parents displayed any type of emotion.

Family member or not, someone that hurts you should not have the privileges anymore to be in your private life. That is what I did with my abusive father too. Can not allow that anymore.

 

[Rosa]

I also have an abusive older sister. I spent over 40 adult years being "friends" with her while she mostly pretended to want a good relationship. But in the background, she was manipulating others to be hurtful towards me. She made nasty comments all the time, thrown in the middle of otherwise normal situations, just to get her negative feelings across. She undermined me with my kids. She was continually jealous and never could offer encouragement or praise for a job well done. Any talents I have were minimized. Finally she lost total control of her negativism when our mother died and wow, did the gloves come off! She made false accusations about me to our entire family and recruited my two adult kids into the act. I was hurt so badly I am now estranged from them all.

A book I found extremely helpful in recognizing this sort of hurtfulness (I joke it should be our family bible but of course I am the only member that's read it) is "Nasty People, How to Deal with them Without becoming One of Them" by Jay somebody.... It is a very small book with a powerful message about "invalidation" and how this practice is like an infection that passes from one person and/or generation to the next. It helps you stop the cycle and recognize your own role in it. It's relatively inexpensive for a book too and I highly recommend it.