It's been a huge struggle to establish healthy boundaries with my younger sister, stinky, bc we’re just now beginning to develop a relationship with each other that isn’t antagonistic/abusive.
she’s been in a really rough spot these past two years and I feel wrestle with feelings of guilt and helplessness at not being able to support her in person (like being able to cook her dinner after a long day).
tonight we were on the phone and Lil Leo was in the background, whining because stinky wouldn’t let him hold the phone. The whining quickly escalated to actual crying as my sister told him to shut up or she was going to spank him.
I’ve spoken with her before about how it makes me uncomfortable when she yells at Leo, but this is the first time she’s mentioned spanking him. And my stomach went cold, as I flashed back to our childhood and the physical violence that went on. I literally froze as a flashback of one of my beatings played out in my mind.
I told her calmly that I didn’t like the way she was talking to Leo, and that we should talk at a later time so she could take care of him and calm him down.
I stared at the phone for a good minute, wondering what was happening 3,000 miles away in a little Florida town.
I still feel unsettled/guilty about having to cut our talk short, esp because she sounded sad as i hung up. I know that if I had stayed on the line, I would have gotten really upset and probably acted out some of my frustration and hurt at my/our fucked up childhood on her.
I’l follow up in a few days and articulate a little more clearly what I was feeling, why I said what I said. In the meantime though, I’m going to work on getting my head back into the present.
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