I am the one with the biggest reason to be angry at my mother and I let it go a long time ago. RELATED: 6 Signs You Were Raised In A Dysfunctional Family I don’t believe in holding a grudge. I honestly believe that grudges cause spiritual and even physical harm to a person. Anger is the worst emotion and letting it fester in constant resentment is not helpful to anyone. I don’t know how to get this across to my sister. I am the only person in my immediate family that my sister talks to other than my 22-year-old niece. She doesn’t date, she has few friends and has recently been diagnosed with diabetes. She pretty much blames my mom for her situation. What’s dumb is that she has gotten more love and support from my mother than I ever did. My mom never really connected with me and when I was little, she started to date someone who ended up molesting me for 6 years of my early childhood. After I told her about it at 14, she denied my reality, but when I told my siblings and the rest of my family, he was barred from coming to our family home. My mother continued to see him “in secret” for another twenty or so years until he died last December. My sister brings up what our mom’s boyfriend did to me constantly as if somehow I’m not aware of my own childhood. What’s funny is that when I tell her I’ve let it go and that I prefer to accept and love my mom, she says I have a healthy attitude and that she’s proud of the steps I’ve taken in my life to be positive. And yet, she lives in the opposite place and makes no acknowledgment of how unhealthy that is. RELATED: 7 Dysfunctional Family Dynamics That Really Mess With Your Relationships Whenever I bring up the idea of her coming to a family gathering she’s a brick wall. My mother is a nurse and is concerned about my sister and how she is managing her diabetes since her recent diagnosis and for the first time since their standoff happened 5 years ago, has asked me to request that my sister meet her for lunch. I haven’t even asked yet because I know what the answer will be. I’m frustrated because it feels like I’m gonna be in the middle of this forever because I won’t cut either of them out of my life. It’s like I’m a child of divorce — and to add icing to the already giant cake of stupidity, the only reason my sister and I even have a relationship is that I forgave her for also being abusive to me as a child. RELATED: The 5 Ways Growing Up In A Dysfunctional Family Changes You And How To Break The Cycle My sister was my primary babysitter as a kid and she terrorized me and my brother. She called me ugly and stupid every day, to the point that I’m still violently insecure about my appearance and my intelligence at nearly 40 years old. If I wanted to hate her forever I could absolutely justify it if I wanted to. But I don’t. I don’t want to hate anybody. Hate is exhausting, draining, and detrimental to joy. I pray that before my mother dies (hopefully not for another 20 years or more) that my sister will have Christmas dinner with our family. I miss my family being whole. That would be a miracle: forgiveness and peace for my entire messed-up family. Dawn Fullerton is a writer for Medium. Follow her there. This article was originally published at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the author.
