I cut off contact with my sibling and their partner a week ago as I begin writing this. And for about an hour or so, I felt lighter in the knowledge that I didn't have to have anything more to do with them (until the next family funeral, which is imminent). Then it occurred to me that there were logistics involved, so I couldn't leave it like that, not entirely.
And anyway, some part of my brain seems to be aware that I never got the opportunity to express my feelings to said sibling. And that seems to be stuck up there in that brain of mine, not allowing me to move on. I keep going over and over what I'd like to say, and will never have the opportunity to. Even though logically I know it's pointless, and it's only harming my mental health. (It'd actually be pointless to express the thoughts to sibling anyway [see paragraph below, if anyone's actually reading] -- but I think my brain feels as though it's been stonewalled, or something, in never having been afforded the opportunity to say my piece.)
If it were anyone else, I'd like to think that the very act of cutting contact would have communicated something. However, sibling has demonstrated in their behaviour that they seem to believe they're the centre of the universe and the only person of any importance. So, no doubt they've told themselves a story about why I've cut contact in which I'm the bad guy.
Things I'd've liked to have had the opportunity to express
- You've only ever been critical of everything involving me. This covers:
~ work I've done (either how I've done tasks, because I'm not you and therefore did them a different way than you would've, OR the fact that I've had the audacity to go ahead and do stuff at all, because you're a control freak and think that you're the only one in the world capable of doing anything correctly);
~ This covers things I've not done, which in your opinion I should've;
~ This covers the thing that you insisted multiple times that I do, and then you made me take the blame when it turned out that it shouldn't have been done at that time (oh, and you never admitted to your mistake when that came to light, just swept it under the carpet and moved on as though no mistake had been made at all);
~ This covers things you believed I'd failed to do (which I did in fact do, but when this was pointed out to you, you just swept the whole thing under the rug rather than admit your mistake, again, writing things like "Your point being?" in messages);
~ and this covers things you decided I must've done, even though the reality is that I didn't (like when you told the hospital ward that I'd stolen money, but later when it turned out to have been a monthly Amazon Prime subscription payment which came out of the account via a direct debit, you didn't bother to update the ward as such, and they weren't going to allow me to visit due to safeguarding concerns, and only relented after I all but begged because I'd spent 2.5 hours on public transport to get there). When your mistake was once again pointed out to you, you once again swept it under the rug. In fact -more than that- you actually messaged back indicating that you'd been the one to figure out that it was Amazon Prime, though I'd messaged that to you hours before. You never apologised, but instead took credit for being the one to figure out where the money went. But then you nevertheless allowed the hospital ward to go on believing I was a thief. That could cost me my job, ultimately. But you quite literally don't care. In fact I'm starting to think that's what you want to have happen. - In the past 6 months of me busting my gut to try and share the load of power of attorney work, you only ever thanked me twice. I distinctly remember, because I marked the occasions by having a celebratory conversation with my spouse when each of your 2 thank you messages came in. It must've really hurt you to have had to say the words thank you, because that means paying lip-service to the notion that someone else in the world might be capable of something productive besides just you.
- Your attitude. Life has been made infinitely harder by your refusal to discuss matters on the phone due to your supposed ill-health. And yet you couldn't bring yourself to even try -not even just a little bit- to compose messages that weren't curt and accusatory, all of the time, even when completely unjustified. I tolerated that for a really long time, until I couldn't any more.
- I don't think I'll EVER be able to forgive you for actively standing in the way of our relative's dying wish, even though doing so was against the law. I refrained from reporting you, because I was aware that'd put the final nail in the coffin lid of our relationship, due to your extreme paranoia. But the so-called relationship has been buried now anyway, because you're a piece of shit who doesn't ever consider anyone but themselves, and you've caused me to have to live eternally with the guilt of letting our dying relative down in their moment of most extreme need.
- When I tried to call you, for a change, to discuss logistics, you talked over me repeatedly and wouldn't listen. When I became frustrated with myself over a moment of aphasia, you yelled at me repeatedly to calm down. When I said "how about we have this conversation another time when we're both calm?", you just yelled: "No, you just need to calm down".
- Your partner posed as you multiple times in order to interfere in the medical care of our relative. I will admit that I tried to have a stop put to it, because it worried me that they were more concerned about where the fucking dining table was going to go than about the end-of-life care that my relative was or wasn't going to receive. But you both doubled down, and saw to it that I couldn't even phone the hospital ward to ask for an update as to how our relative had slept or whether they'd managed any meals, because the nurses said I needed to ask one of my siblings. There is only one fucking sibling, and they had no fucking interest in enquiring about the quality of our relative's sleep or whether they'd eaten, so that left me with no way to seek updates on the days I wasn't able to visit the ward in person.
- You never shut up about your supposed ill-health. And I wouldn't mind that, if you'd at least accept the notion that other people can have ill-health too. But it's always one-upmanship with you. Anytime I've expressed that I share a particular symptom to a degree, you've literally said phrases like: "No, but in my case I genuinely can't see the moving vehicles/regulate my own body temperature/get out of bed..." or whatever it is. And that sucks to have to go through that (if it's true), but it doesn't give you the right to deny the experiences of other people, who could conceivably be having similar symptoms perhaps -in some cases- to an even more severe degree than you (yes, that's a thing that is possible, but you don't accept that, do you? Because once again you're the only person in the world who matters.).
- You don't know how conversation is meant to work, and that other people are allowed to have opinions different to your own. I recall the one family meal during which you shouted at me because you believed the company I work for should've purchased a particular bit of software. And when I tried to point out that I've no authority or even influence over IT or purchasing, as that's not my role, you just shouted some more. And that is just one example of many. Other examples include you routinely telling people how they should live their lives -- not offering advice, or even your opinion, but stating it as though it's a fact. Because you just can't countenance the thought that your way might not be the only one, or the right one.
- Your partner has only ever treated me horribly, and played it off as 'teasing'; for decades. It's not fucking funny any more. Actually, it never was, but I lived with it so as not to rock the fucking boat. But it's no wonder I've gone beyond the end of my tether now.
- About a month ago there was a conversation between me and your partner in which I expressed concern for your mental health and the exacerbating effect it was likely to have on your physical health. Latterly, all of a sudden when it was convenient to elicit additional sympathy, they claimed that you've been having psychological help for months and had to stop it because you don't have time anymore with the power of attorney work. How very convenient that all is. (Yes, I believe they're lying in order to paint your situation as worse than mine, because -once again- you're the centre of the universe and no-one else matters in either of your opinions.
- Your partner used to call me up to rant at me for 45 minutes at a time about your ill-health, even after our relative was diagnosed with late stage cancer. And they'd tell me the same things over and over and over again. But -again- whenever I'd mention that I too suffer with ill-health they'd either ignore it completely, or insist that yours is worse. How do they know whose is worse, they've never lived with me and seen what my daily experience is like, and there's no question of me ever being afforded the opportunity to even talk about my experience (but they wouldn't believe me even if I did try to explain, because sibling is the only person in the world entitled to be ill.)?
- When I've had to move my medical appointments -which has been extremely frequently in recent months, what with everything- your partner has indicated that they don't even believe me that I had any appointments needing moved in the first place. I saved the evidence in the form of text messages and emails on my phone for weeks & weeks in order to show you and prove I wasn't making stuff up. Or maybe it's not that they don't believe me, but just that they don't give a shit because it's not their appointments needing to get moved. And it doesn't conveniently fit your narrative that you're the only ones being inconvenienced by the family circumstances.
- Your partner bitched and moaned repeatedly about having to do a 20 minute to half hour drive once or twice a week, when I've been spending 2.5 hours each way on public transport every other day for months. (And I've kept going overdrawn in the middle of the month due to the extra expense of all the trains and buses, but no doubt neither of you gives a shit about that either.)
- Even at the hospital bedside the other day, your partner had to rub my face in their opinion that their "immune system is open to everything". Do they think mine isn't? I'm at the lowest point in my entire fucking life, with an insane amount of pressure to do these 5 hour journeys every other day, and a grief made worse by all this hostility -- it's my relative who's dying, but their fucking immune system is open to every fucking thing? Once again, no-one else in the fucking world matters at all apart from the 2 of you, do they?
- You shout and swear into the faces of our elderly parents. And then you blame them for it. You literally said that they'd downloaded viruses onto a tablet computer on purpose, presumably -in your mind- in order to piss you off or make your life difficult or something. Not because -in reality- they're elderly and it took them a really long time to even comprehend how a tablet works, and they can't really be expected to comprehend what viruses are and the ways in which their online activity makes vulnerable to same (especially with what's believed -by you long before me- to be the onset of dementia). No, everything's about you, isn't it, so of course it was done deliberately for some nefarious reason, wasn't it.
All I can say is that when your partner claimed all your friends abandoned you when you became chronically ill, I don't believe it was the illness that caused them to abandon you. I think it was likely the fact that you both treat everyone else in the world like shit and your former friends had had enough. And I don't blame them one little bit. I'd say that I hope you come to realise the error of your ways, but I know that's impossible because you -and especially your partner- always blame everything on everyone else. So enjoy your isolation in one another's echo chambers, won't you. You've truly earned it.
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