As I shared yesterday, my sister has always been a wonderful role model about love and acceptance. She was always willing to meet me wherever I was, whether that was in self-denial or self-exploration. Sadly, it has only been since going through the healing process that I have reciprocated the acceptance piece.
My father (the “good” parent) raised me to believe that success = money, and my mother and conservation community raised me to believe that success = being a virgin, marrying well, and being a stay-at-home mom. I split myself inside so I could believe I was still a virgin, went to law school so I could have money (even though I hated law school), married a lawyer, and quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom when my child came along. I wanted to follow the rules so I would be safe.
My sister did not “follow the rules.” She dropped out of high school after ninth grade because our mother had started abusing her again during the night. (I had left for college.) She could not stay awake all night armed with a knife and also be successful in school during the day.
I couldn’t “see” the abuse because that would have shattered my walls of self-denial. All I saw was my intelligent sister throwing away her education. With the strong encouragement of my grandparents (father’s parents), I tried to get my sister into college to no avail. Her path was very different from mine. I eventually accepted that she was going to live her life in the way she chose and that I was powerless to change any of it.
Fast-forward to her mid-thirties – My sister made her own decision (I had given up years before) to go to college. She graduated with honors with a double degree and will graduate this year with a double master’s degree. Her college experience was much richer than mine because mine was about escaping my mother whereas hers has been an adult enriching herself.
I couldn’t see my sister for who she was until I faced down my own demons. Possibly because my sister knew this about me (whether consciously or subconsciously), she loved and accepted me through it. As I removed my walls of self-denial, I was able to see not only myself more clearly but also my sister. Her journey makes sense to me today whereas it baffled me before.
I think it is my sister’s attitude of acceptance toward me that was the glue that held us together. I think she knew it was worth putting up with ignorant comments from me as she waited for me to find my way back to myself. I am so grateful that she did because I wouldn’t trade what we have today for anything!
Photo credit: Hekatekris
OK here goes. I feel it is to good of an example of how transference works to let pass.
When I read about one of the ceremonies that Faith and had to go through it was very similar to one my sister who has never done trauma work went through. I was not consciously aware of the ceremony at the time. I actually thought that her blog and another blog were written by the same person. The person on the other blog was a transference thing with a woman who I loved that was killed. It is not really confusion. It is something different.
So Faith was in a way my sister in my head. The over achiever and I the scapegoat.
Now Faith is not my sister and is not like my sister. She will argue with me and try and understand. She does not just dismiss what ever I say just because she after all it the over achiever. To be clear my sisters over achieving is only achieving in doing what my father wanted.
Faith is like my sister in that she is always incorrect. I am kidding and my sister does not kid she is a cold fish.
So was I using Faith? Was I disappearing her and not seeing her for everything that I can. I do not think or feel this is the case. I feel on these pages her and I were working things out. It is a fine line. A kinda she knows and I know but we do not quite know what we know or at least it is not explainable.
Much of the trauma that I experienced was really transference in a different way. Others were tying to transfer their pain to me. To make me like them so what they were would be OK and what they were was OK. In away trying to make me part of their delusion. They failed and there was no healing involved.
Now that I am aware of the transference and look back on all I have written there is nothing that I need to back off from. Part of it is how far it goes. If I took it to Faith’s sister is me than that would be over any line. The effect of the transference is really that I wrote not what I wrote. I have often if not always written with passion on these pages. I have never written in anger. I often get accused of anger when I am passionate. There is a difference and it is discernible I make sure it is Trust me.
I write here for many reasons and much of it is I have a intellectual conversation deficit. Meaning I am around dumb people a lot. Smile. I do not find a intellectual deficit in Faith or others that comment on this blog. Quite the opposite.
Now the transference thru psychoanalysis with my therapist is different. I will tell her flat out she is a goody-miss two shoes and I do not like her. Why it works is we are happy to see each other every time we do and then we do the hard work and then at the end I am happy to see her again. It has been one long session for me with not time in-between sessions.
I do not really know what my therapist does. I do not let her talk much that works best. Pretty much it is all about me and not her or what other people have told her as in her training and education. He training did not teach her about me I teach me about me. Now if I can just get the world to understand it is all about me. Smile
i suspect that my therapists gift is that she does not get in the way and what ever I tell her will not hurt her. It will effect her it will not hurt her as she has learned how to heal. Note: I am not one of those that puts my therapist on a pedestal until recently she did not exist unless I was with her.
“He training did not teach her about me I teach me about me. ”
Good to remember for any of us ever trying to understand or be a help to another.
My siblings were like comrades in war. We have deep bonds that span time and miles. I have my younger sister with me now after years of being apart. We are two different people and handled things in completely different ways and still do- but we both were on the same battle ground all those years.
I think you give me WAY too much credit.
When you said “I think she knew it was worth putting up with ignorant comments from me as she waited for me to find my way back to myself.” I was not that great…the reality is I never fit anywhere and everyone I knew gave me those comments. I just figured I saw everything different and was wrong. But at a base level I didn’t feel wrong…so I stayed me. Even when I hated me and thought everyone saw the real me and I was fooling myself.
I was just too stubborn to allow myself to change to make others happy. LOL
I guess I figured one day everyone would come around to my way of thinking. HAHA
“I guess I figured one day everyone would come around to my way of thinking”
The secret to life is to surround yourself with people that have the same delusions as you. I am still looking. Smile
This is so beautiful. I am so happy that it worked out for the two of you.
I also feel sad because this is something that I had wished for for one of my younger brothers. While I did reconnect with my youngest brother ( his story actually went a bit like your sister’s) , I was not able to do the same with my other brother. and most likely never will. which has been one of the hardest things to accept so far in my life.
Denial is a power, powerful way to convince yourself you’re “okay”. You were only hurting yourself (and in this case, your sister as well) by living with a self-imposed blind fold. So many abuse victims deny because accepting that someone they love could be capable of such nasty actions is almost more heart-breaking than the abuse itself! My abuse recovery only really began once I accepted that yes, my father was hurting me and get AWAY and start healing.
God bless you!
@Bea
I completely agree. Even thought I’d been in and out of therapy for decades I feel there were two stages that actually began the healing process for me. #1 Getting a restraining order against the primary abuser (the female parent) when I was 35. #2 at age 39 finally acknowledging that the female parent did sexually abused overtly until the age of 11 and covertly until I got the restraining order. You absolutely can’t recover if you don’t acknowledge truth and reality no matter how painful.
I understand the horrible pain of mother-daughter abuse and think what you did and are doing is FANTASTIC !!
Hi, I have a sister I am very close to, but she told me that she will never “let me” talk about our childhood physical abuse from mom. So we can never be as close as I want. She doesn’t really know or want to know me, in some ways. I am sad about it, but also accept that it’s the way it is.
Has anyone else read the poem “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti? It’s kind of a fairy tale about two sisters surviving together. Here’s the final section of that poem:
“Days, weeks, months,years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat,
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town;)
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
“For there is no friend like a sister,
In calm or stormy weather,
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”
I guess it’s kind of silly, but I really like it anyway.