I had a good conversation with my mom when she was in town recently. I knew she would be visiting and I was hoping to have the opportunity to ask her about my sister, but I wasn’t sure if she was going to be receptive to talking about it. Not that she has ever refused to talk about things, but I just didn’t want to upset her. I also wasn’t sure how she was feeling about things as a retired person with more time to reflect and think about things.
Thankfully, she brought up the subject – not specifically of my sister, but of our family while I was growing up. I shared with her my recent speculation about my sister being a sociopath. I don’t think I used the word, but I talked about how I have become convinced she has no real remorse for how she treated me when I was a child. My mom assured me that she does feel badly…and that she is still struggling to come to terms with her own childhood. My sister is in her early 40′s, has four children, and is still struggling with her issues.
I think part of that is the fact that she got married when she was young (somewhere around 20). Even though they waited a few years to have their first child, she went from her parents’ house to living with her husband. Except for a drunken semester at college, she never lived on her own. My mom did the same thing…and Harley’s wife did the same thing…the whole pregnant and married at 18 thing. The problem with that is that it’s almost a 100% guarantee that you will pass on your dysfunction to the next generation.
My mom confirmed that she and my dad were, in fact, terrible parents to her. Neither one was ready to be a parent. Neither one had the skills it took to be effective parents. And, as fate would have it, their first child, my sister, was a handful. My mom told me she was a difficult and demanding child. My mom said they hated her and she knew it.
From my perspective, the interesting takeaway from that conversation was that sometimes it’s better to be at the bottom of the hill when the shit is rolling down it. That’s where I stood in my family. All of the shit got passed down to me. I was finally able to explain to my mom that that was the reason I flipped out when I was 19. She never understood where that came from. I told her it was a lifetime of frustration, hurt, and anger that built up and exploded within me.
My mom still struggles with the guilt of her parenting mistakes. My sister is still struggling with the effects of her childhood. Maybe my mom is right and she is not a sociopath. Maybe, somewhere in her heart, she cares. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live with the knowledge that you abused another person. My mom has apologized and expressed her regret many times over the years. My sister is still too entrenched in her own pain to be able to fully take responsibility for how she treated me.
At times, I have suspected my sister is an alcoholic. I suspect she uses alcohol to drown out her pain. I think one of the main reasons alcoholics have a hard time recovering is because every time they sober up, they are confronted with their own pain as well as another, twisted kind of pain. This must a shameful pain, the pain of recognizing how badly you have treated the people closest to you.
As I told my mom how strange it is that in the end, I am the one who is free. It took me a long time to get where I am, but I am just now realizing how incredibly lucky I am to only have to deal with the pain of being hurt. I cannot imagine what its like to live with the knowledge that you have abused another person.
