More Contact
The Sister This Time
On April 20, 2006, I told my sister that I was gone. In my final letter to her I said "...the only sister you get to keep is the sister you don't abuse." *SLAM* The door was shut very firmly in her face. In the course of one letter, I told her eight times that I was out of her life. Since then my husband, daughter and I moved to a whole new state. Neither my parents nor my sister were told we were moving. I have kept the email account of mine that they have. What they still don't know is that the email account is the only way they have to contact me. They have no mailing address or phone numbers. We put in a temporary postal forwarding for six months which means the post office doesn't do address correction. At this point, they don't yet know how out of contact with me they are. The only mutual relatives that know where we live moved with us to our new location...and they are also out of contact with my parents and sister. So, no news of myself ever reaches them anymore. It's a nice feeling.
Last April, my sister had pulled one of her manipulative, lying, and nasty stunts on me. I called her on it. She eventually responded with a non-apology. It was a masterpiece of con artistry. I didn't fall for it. Told her she had pulled this kind of stunt for the last time with me. So, that means we parted ways with my sister needing to apologize for real for something she did.
So, the day after Christmas I check my email to find two separate notifications from Amazon that I had received an e-card and gift certificate from my sister. One for me, one for my daughter. My sister hasn't had my daughter's email address for years since she never made any real attempt to cultivate a relationship with her niece long before I cut off communication between myself and my sister. It was rather a shocker that D.... would send Christmas gifts in light of the above mentioned history. It was also inappropriate.
I recognize the "gifts" as a Trojan horse. She is trying to ride those gifts right back into my life. She sent an e-card with the gift certificate to me that was a picture of a snowy mountain scene personalized to say, "I hope you have snow. Merry Christmas. Love, D....." Um, yeah. Okay, forty dollars and that insipid note are supposed to buy her some goodwill? Sorry, I can't be bought that easily. I told her the price for admission, but apparently she is unwilling to pay the price I demand, which was a complete apology where she acknowledges what she did. She would try to stipulate the terms of her release with this post-Christmas Christmas gift.
So what to do with this overture by my narcissistic sister? Ignore it. It is the only safe thing to do when one has gone into "no contact" with family narcissists. They are famous for using the holidays to try to worm their way back into contact. I read the stories over and over at the ACON e-group. My terms of reconciliation were made clear. I was unambiguous. Narcissists don't want to play by any rules other than the ones they make up. For me to acknowledge sister's gifts in any way would open a door that I firmly shut. I know how the Amazon gift certificate thing works...as soon as I opened the notification they sent me, Amazon sent sister a notification that I received her gift. That is all the acknowledgement she will get. Hopefully, the lack of reward for her $80 will be a disincentive for her to send gifts next year.
This was the Christmas season for bringing out the narcissistic relates. I'm getting the distinct impression that they are having a hard time dealing with the fact that I'm no longer around for them. I am glad that my absence has created their unrest. That was part of the purpose of it. I knew that they would be more forced to deal with who they are and how they treat people with me out of the picture than with me in it. You force narcissists to have to deal more with reality by being out of their lives. Which works out nicely for you. You can go on to live happily and peacefully without the narcissist while they stew in their juices out of sight and mind. Remember, you can't change the narcissist, but if there is any hope for change it will happen in your absence, not in your presence. You may never know about the change, if any should miraculously occur. That is called a consequence. There are consequences for bad behavior. Sometimes that means the people you've abused leave your life, or don't believe you've changed when you really have. Sorry. We're not required to hang around to see if our abusers have stopped being abusive. We have the right to self-defense and the right to not have a relationship with bad people. Even if those bad people call themselves Mom, Dad and Sister.
On April 20, 2006, I told my sister that I was gone. In my final letter to her I said "...the only sister you get to keep is the sister you don't abuse." *SLAM* The door was shut very firmly in her face. In the course of one letter, I told her eight times that I was out of her life. Since then my husband, daughter and I moved to a whole new state. Neither my parents nor my sister were told we were moving. I have kept the email account of mine that they have. What they still don't know is that the email account is the only way they have to contact me. They have no mailing address or phone numbers. We put in a temporary postal forwarding for six months which means the post office doesn't do address correction. At this point, they don't yet know how out of contact with me they are. The only mutual relatives that know where we live moved with us to our new location...and they are also out of contact with my parents and sister. So, no news of myself ever reaches them anymore. It's a nice feeling.
Last April, my sister had pulled one of her manipulative, lying, and nasty stunts on me. I called her on it. She eventually responded with a non-apology. It was a masterpiece of con artistry. I didn't fall for it. Told her she had pulled this kind of stunt for the last time with me. So, that means we parted ways with my sister needing to apologize for real for something she did.
So, the day after Christmas I check my email to find two separate notifications from Amazon that I had received an e-card and gift certificate from my sister. One for me, one for my daughter. My sister hasn't had my daughter's email address for years since she never made any real attempt to cultivate a relationship with her niece long before I cut off communication between myself and my sister. It was rather a shocker that D.... would send Christmas gifts in light of the above mentioned history. It was also inappropriate.
I recognize the "gifts" as a Trojan horse. She is trying to ride those gifts right back into my life. She sent an e-card with the gift certificate to me that was a picture of a snowy mountain scene personalized to say, "I hope you have snow. Merry Christmas. Love, D....." Um, yeah. Okay, forty dollars and that insipid note are supposed to buy her some goodwill? Sorry, I can't be bought that easily. I told her the price for admission, but apparently she is unwilling to pay the price I demand, which was a complete apology where she acknowledges what she did. She would try to stipulate the terms of her release with this post-Christmas Christmas gift.
So what to do with this overture by my narcissistic sister? Ignore it. It is the only safe thing to do when one has gone into "no contact" with family narcissists. They are famous for using the holidays to try to worm their way back into contact. I read the stories over and over at the ACON e-group. My terms of reconciliation were made clear. I was unambiguous. Narcissists don't want to play by any rules other than the ones they make up. For me to acknowledge sister's gifts in any way would open a door that I firmly shut. I know how the Amazon gift certificate thing works...as soon as I opened the notification they sent me, Amazon sent sister a notification that I received her gift. That is all the acknowledgement she will get. Hopefully, the lack of reward for her $80 will be a disincentive for her to send gifts next year.
This was the Christmas season for bringing out the narcissistic relates. I'm getting the distinct impression that they are having a hard time dealing with the fact that I'm no longer around for them. I am glad that my absence has created their unrest. That was part of the purpose of it. I knew that they would be more forced to deal with who they are and how they treat people with me out of the picture than with me in it. You force narcissists to have to deal more with reality by being out of their lives. Which works out nicely for you. You can go on to live happily and peacefully without the narcissist while they stew in their juices out of sight and mind. Remember, you can't change the narcissist, but if there is any hope for change it will happen in your absence, not in your presence. You may never know about the change, if any should miraculously occur. That is called a consequence. There are consequences for bad behavior. Sometimes that means the people you've abused leave your life, or don't believe you've changed when you really have. Sorry. We're not required to hang around to see if our abusers have stopped being abusive. We have the right to self-defense and the right to not have a relationship with bad people. Even if those bad people call themselves Mom, Dad and Sister.
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