Snide Comments and Indirect Digs

[Serenity]

One of my sisters- the one who was really unkind when I was very low- has posted something on Facebook.

It doesn’t name me, but I just know it’s her snide way of criticising me in an underhand way. She does that a lot: uses indirect and covert methods to try to make you feel judged and like you are a lesser person.

My mum says she’s been discussing a general subject with her and mentioned something I had made a comment on. My sister is very political, and may well have taken my comment out of the context it was meant, and no doubt my mother gives her own version of things anyway, but I am done with trying to justify myself.

If she doesn’t know me by now, there’s nothing I can do. If she wants to try to make out I have different beliefs than I do, I will let her. At various times in the past, she had shown a complete lack of faith in who I am.

I think a number of people find her domineering a moralistic. I know some of her previous work colleagues had issues with her. In my youth, I used to look up to her for her confidence and assertive nature: now I can see that she is quick to judge and bossy. She doesn’t accept people being different to her.

I’m pretty much done with her. I will be civil, but I don’t want to be close to her or tell her my business. I’m sick of her trying to force the weird reality that I need to live up to her incredibly high standards. Yet she is no angel: she isn’t very kind to her husband and is controlling towards her children. Her youngest has very bad anxiety problems. He’s a lovely person, yet she doesn’t have patience for his sensitivities.

Also, although I told myself that I would forgive but not forget not she was so unkind when I was at my lowest, I’ve realised that I don’t forgive her. I think this is because she is carrying on being that harsh, prescriptive person. To this day she hasn’t apologised. I have a chronic illness which sometimes gets worse so that I need to slow down: yet she cajoles me and says I should be living life at 100 miles an hour. There is no empathy, even though she works in the medical sector. I don’t want to be like her, rushing around and not having time to listen to anyone. She is such a bad listener. All she does is boss people around, judge and try to make them do things her way.

Sorry for my rant.

[KIP.]

Hey, I don’t do social media at all and I don’t miss it. I think there is a function where you no longer see her posts but she doesn’t know that. It’s important that we cut negative people from our lives. They just bring us down and we don’t need that. I very much distance myself from negativity now. Even if it is from family. We can’t choose our family but we can choose who we let into our lives.

[SunshineRainflower]

Hi Serenity,

I was just thinking about the topic this morning, remembering how my ex and a previous sociopathic colleague years ago used to do the creepiest thing where they would tell me a story ‘about someone else’ saying how much they disliked this person due to the way they were or how they behaved. The person would always be eerily similar to me and afterwards I always felt a bit uneasy thinking it felt like a covert criticism but doubting myself thinking ‘but they are so nice and they like me so why would they be trying to put me down.’ Of course in hindsight I can see that is exactly what it was – a calculated, tailored, below the radar insult targeted directly at my self esteem on a subconscious level. It is very clever as the insult is totally deniable as apparently ‘they are talking about someone else’ but both times it was so obvious it was me they were referring to. They are smiling to your face pretending to think you’re great whilst ripping you apart and trying to bring you down, it is hard to explain to people who have never experienced it without sounding paranoid and overly dramatic.

Your sister sounds similar to my brother, who I am also struggling with. I decided to go low contact/grey rock since Christmas when he was cold, rude and mostly ignored us all hiding in my parent’s spare room for most of the day. He too has always acted like the judge and jury of the family, is mean, critical, aggressive, impatient, intolerant, unpredictable but then cycles to being warm and charming and fun to keep you off guard. Since January he has been sending me lots of seemingly warm, chatty, friendly messages asking how I am and telling me about his life, it is so confusing, like he expects me to blank out how horrible he was at Christmas and go back to being on friendly terms?

In the end we have to protect ourselves from people like this, family or not, when we notice manipulative, mean, cruel, controlling, strange behaviour. It takes up too much time and energy. My brother has always made me feel bad about myself in some way, either covert or overt and of course, this then created a toxic cycle where I desperately craved his approval and acceptance, which he never gives. Like KIP said I would do the thing on facebook where you unfollow their posts but are still ‘friends’ so that they don’t notice you’re not seeing them, then channel your spare energy into positive things, her criticisms of you are totally irrelevant. They hate it when they have no effect on us too, it is one of their power sources drying up!

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