The Sibling Wound

Today is my sister’s birthday.

We used to make a big deal out of it.
I always tried to make it a special day for her growing up, from the time she woke up to the time she went to sleep.

I feel like birthdays should be that way.
Each year we would fill the day with things she loved, doing as much of whatever she wanted to do as possible.
But we haven’t done any of that in a long time.

I haven’t seen or spoken to my sister in over 5 1/2 years.
She ghosted out on me all of a sudden in March of 2012 when I made a move back to The States from Canada.
I have no idea what happened or what caused it, because we had not had any conflict before.
She just up and disappeared, blocking me from all forms of contact for no reason, leaving me to forever wonder.

It wouldn't be the first time she's done that sort of thing to me.

Everyone talks about Mother Wounds and Father Wounds, but nobody is really talking about the Sibling Wound.

It’s a strong one with me.

My sister and I have never had that “sibling-friend” dynamic due to the incredible amount of responsibility thrown on me at a young age to take care of her when my mother wouldn't or was not able.

I remember being left alone to babysit her as early as the 3rd grade.
She would have been around 3 years old at the time.
I don’t really know why I was left to take care of a child when I was still a child myself.
I do not have a relationship with my mother to ask her.

Maybe it was out of necessity, her being single and working and having to be away at work in order to provide for us.
Maybe it was out of a need for some normalcy, so she could have time away without kids by her side.
I get that as a mom, myself, now.
Maybe she was selfish.  Maybe she wanted to escape from Motherhood and back into the freedom and life she had before having me and my sister.

The thing is…I never remember her leaving ME alone when I was that young.

Things were slightly different, though.

She and my father didn’t divorce until I was 2 and that third year was spent back in her hometown where she had help by my grandparents.

By age 4-5 she was remarried, so I don't think there was an opportunity to leave me alone even if my mother had wanted to.

I barely remember my mother getting married again, or pregnant, but I do remember my sister coming into my life.
It’s all kind of a blur.  I have vague memories of her as a baby, but mostly it all flashes forward to when I started to take care of her.

More of my memories revolve around when my mother wasn’t there, and me and my sister were.
I remember when she and my sister’s father got divorced.
I remember being left alone with my sister after that while my mother would go to work or do whatever she was doing.

I remember having to make sure me and my sister were fed, bathed, and in bed each evening.

I remember having to make sure my sister did her homework correctly, while still finding the time to do mine, too.

I remember a lot of ramen noodles, grilled cheese, and tv dinners.
I remember the times when my mother was at home, but she would check out on the couch instead of hang out with us.

I remember the times she would yell at us when our rooms were messy and tell us we would end up homeless on the street in a cardboard box if we didn't learn to respect what she provided for us.

I remember her losing her shit on me when my "chores" weren't done, and I didn't keep the house clean while she was away, as if that was something a child should be responsible for on top of everything else.

I remember all of the times my mom would leave and I would have no idea what time she would be home.

I remember the times she "needed to take her medicine," and she would inject herself with what I thought was insulin but now I know as an adult was probably more.

I remember the times she forgot to pick me and my sister up from school.
And I remember all of the times she would make us both feel like crap simply for existing in her life.

It’s the reason I would always make a big deal about my sister’s birthday.
I wanted her to know, no matter how our mother behaved toward her or what she said to her, my sister was still important and loved and she mattered.
I wanted her to know the day she was born was a special one, and if my mother wasn’t going to do anything about it, I would.

For some reason I had the strength to do all of that.
I still had my father in my life, but my sister didn’t.  It's like I felt bad and sorry for her, even when I was too young to understand what that kind of empathy really was.

Because of the responsibility I always had with my sister, I felt like it was my role to make sure she had that parental love in her life in the best way I knew how to give it, when my own mother wasn't capable of providing it on her own.

I moved out when I was 14, and I still continued to show up for my sister's birthday, even when we lived in separate homes.
Some years I had to sneak around behind my mother’s back and take her out to lunch during school hours.  We always found a way to celebrate, even when my mother kept her from seeing me.
It was a small town and small school system.  The teachers and staff understood.

When I went off to college it got harder to be there for my sister.
A couple of years in, she ran away from my mother in the middle of the night and took a bus to me, my dad, and my step-family living down in Mississippi.
I was home from college for the summer.
From there, my dad and I gained joint legal custody of my sister until she turned 18.
My mom didn’t even put up a fight for it.
It wasn't en easy thing to do, but I wanted to let my sister know she mattered, and I would take care of her even if nobody else would.
So, not only did I play the mother role to my sister growing up, I actually eventually became her legal “parent”.

Thankfully, my father helped take care of my sister, too.
She lived with him and my step-family while I was away at college.
It gave me some sort of normalcy, although the legal responsibility for my sister always loomed in the background.
I couldn’t live a completely normal college life.
I had to be RESPONSIBLE.
I had to set a good example for my sister, so she would grow into her 20s responsible, too.

When she turned 18, I started to feel free again.  I felt like she could finally be an adult on her own and I could try to reclaim some of my youth again, although I was nearly 24 at the time.

The responsibility never ended, though.
Even after my sister grew into an adult there was this constant dependency on my to care for her or provide for her or stabilize her.
It’s not a healthy relationship to do that in childhood, and it certainly doesn’t help things when it continues into adulthood.

I’ve never been able to just have my sister be my “friend.”  
Heck, I don’t even know what it’s like to have a sibling.
I don’t know what it’s like to have a companion in my household, to have someone I could just play and interact with.
I don’t know what it FEELS like to simply have a sister, without any other unnecessary responsibilities.
I don’t know what it’s like to grow up and become adults together and have that bond you’ve grown over a lifetime together.
I don’t know how to not continue to parent my sister in adulthood.

I’VE LITERALLY CARED FOR MY SISTER AND ABOUT HER LIKE A DAUGHTER MY ENTIRE LIFE.

I didn’t give birth to her, and having now done so myself to my son I get that feeling of love and attachment that comes from such an experience.
I certainly don’t understand how my mother doesn’t have it.
But I do understand that when you’ve been a part of a person’s life their entire life, and you’ve been set up a responsibility to take care of and nurture that person their entire life, there’s no way you can have a “normal” relationship at all.

My Sibling Wound caused me to question becoming a Mother myself for a long time.
Nearly a decade, to be in fact.
I spent so much of my childhood having to be a tiny adult, having to Mother another tiny human because my own mother didn’t have the time.
I didn’t know if I had the capacity to take on the role fully after having lived with so much responsibility my entire life.
I didn’t know if I had room to take care of yet another individual, after already having to care for so many.

Part of me wanted to be selfish.  
To just find the pockets of time for me and live them to my accord.
I wanted to know what it was like to not be responsible for anyone else but myself, for once.

It wasn’t until I became pregnant with my son that I fully understood what that meant.

I started to reclaim my independence 9 weeks in, when my Sister Wound rose full on to the surface and I had a pregnancy hormone-induced breakdown over not wanting to worry about her anymore.
I had already gone through two pregnancy losses, was a few weeks away from finding out if this one was viable, and I realized that I had no more capacity to care for anyone else at that time but the baby inside of me and myself.

I decided I could no longer worry about my sister.
I could no longer dwell on her absence and abandonment out of my life.
I could not continue to question why she left or where she was now or how she was doing.

I had to let it all go to make space for the mother I was supposed to become.

At 6 months along, I got sentimental.
It was Christmas and the holidays had me wondering how she was doing.
I reached out to a friend of hers who I knew had contact with her.
I found out my sister was living there, and things were going ok.
I didn’t need to contact her.  I didn’t even need her to know I was checking up on her, or that I was pregnant and she had a nephew on the way.

I didn't need to reconcile.
I just wanted to know she was ok.
The confirmation that she was gave me the peace of mind to fully release our past and what no longer served so I could completely focus on becoming a Mother to my baby.

At 3 months postpartum, I received a message from my sister’s friend.
In a nutshell, I was told that the friendship between her and my sister was gone, and my sister was gone, too.

She had left in the middle of the night with no notice and no way to contact her, leaving many of her things behind and running away as if she had never existed at all.

It was all too familiar.

I could sense the same anger and hurt and frustration in my sister’s friend that I had felt.
I had known what it was like to take on caring for someone, only to be burned and left in the dust.
I expressed my empathy and how I could relate.
I thanked the friend for keeping me in the loop.
I told her I was a mom now to a beautiful baby boy, and although I will always hold my sister in my heart, I could no longer take up my time and energy trying to create a relationship with her.
If she didn’t want to be found, she got it.
I barely had the energy to be a mom.  I didn’t have the time to go looking for her anymore.
It was a closed chapter in my book, in the best way it could be.

I still think about my sister on a regular basis.
I wonder where she is or what she’s doing now or how she’s doing.
I still worry, even when I try not to.
I worry about her mental health, and wonder if she’s stable.
I worry about her security, and wonder if she’s homeless or has somewhere safe to sleep.
I worry about her physical health, and wonder if she’s gotten a hold on it all.
I worry about her vulnerability, and wonder if others will take advantage of her or if she stands strong.
I wonder if she plays the victim, and worry about others who she may burn, too.

The worry goes both ways.

This past Christmas, a year after I had checked on her the first time, I messaged the friend whose bridge between my sister had been burned.
The holidays had me sentimental again, and I was curious if this ex-friend still had any contact or knew my sister’s whereabouts.
She messaged me back a few months later, still full of anger, and confirmed she had no idea where my sister was and didn’t truly give a fuck.

I get that.

So this is where I’m at now.
I have a sister.  I took care of her most of my life as if she was my daughter.
Things got weird when we got older.
As I started to grow, she stayed the same.
The relationship stayed the same, too, and it became stagnant.
It wasn’t the proper relationship to begin with.
And as I worked to try to morph it into something else, it severed along the way.

I have no idea where my sister is now.
I do not necessarily need to know anymore, for I have let a good portion of it all go.
I would like to know she’s ok, though, even if we never spoke again.
I guess that’s the peace of mind I’m really looking for these days.

I worry about her showing back up into my life.
While I would love for our relationship to repair and regrow into something more appropriate and beautiful between us, I fear the past will never allow that to be.
We are all creatures of habit, and I worry my that my sister will show up in my life only with more dependency on me to continue to need to take care of her.

I can’t do that.  Not now that I have a child of my own.
Becoming a Mother made me realize I just don’t have the capacity for it.

Mostly, this transition made me realize I shouldn’t waste my energy on anyone who doesn’t want to receive it.
To only hold space for those who are authentic, honest, and true.
It doesn’t mean I don’t care about my sister, because I do, but sometimes you have to let family wounds lie where they are, heal them the best you can, and move on.

I’ll always be here wondering about my sister, especially on her birthday.
I’ll always hope one day we’ll have that sisterhood that I desired our relationship to be.
I’ll always hope one day we’ll put all of this history and trauma that we’ve experienced together behind us.  That we’ll laugh about it and grow a stronger bond together because of it.
I’ll always hope one day the way it is doesn’t have to be anymore.

But, until then, if it ever happens at all, I don’t hold my breath anymore.
I breathe for my son, my husband, my friends, my clients, and the family members that still want to be a part of my life.
I hold space for peace and ease and only responsibilities meant for me.

It’s not an easy process, especially for someone who’s been programmed to care for others instead most of their life.

It was always a habit for me to put others first unnecessarily, but that pattern is no longer inside of me.
It left with my Maidenhood and the shift of my priorities.

I think the work will always be a bit of a work in progress, but I now have the power over how it all controls me.
The more I let go, the more I reclaim my sovereignty.

If you have a strained relationship with your siblings, I want you to know you are not alone.

It's not something really talked about, but the Sibling Wound does exist, and it's important to address in your adulthood if you have one.

I hope you find ways to shift the dynamics between your sisters and brothers, if you were set up on the wrong side of things growing up.

If you no longer have a relationship with your sibling, I hope you find peace around that, too.

When you shift the way you respond to it all, you can make great change in how your past impacts you.

Know that I am working on all of this, too.

I understand how hard it is to self-heal these family wounds.

I am working on it with you, too.