Potpourri Part II: My Sister

Part I here.

(This is where my diatribe starts. If you’re not in the mood to “hear” me rant, stop reading now.)

My younger sister, Julie, is a selfish, immature, self-centered bitch.

Over the last two years, she tricked my parents into paying for her divorce, ruined the house my parents bought for her and her daughter (carpet had to be replaced, the walls patched and repainted, and three months worth of rotting garbage had to be removed from her back porch), and defaulted on two loans my parents co-signed for. She also stole a month’s worth of pain medication that my dad needed – and couldn’t get refilled for 30 days because the meds were narcotics. She refused to come home for the family Thanksgiving or Christmas.

My sister is incapable of lasting friendships. She’ll have a close group of friends for about two years, then they’ll start to catch on to her lies and the friendship ends. It’s strange how fast my sister moves on – she’ll dump everything about the friends and move onto another group. For example, when she moved near my parents, met a group of nice church-going women and Julie became very religious. After about 18 months, the churchy women began to question some of the stories she told them about her life and her past. Instead of coming clean on her lies, she suddenly stopped going to church, quit her job (she worked for one of the church ladies), and moved.

My sister has created her own reality, her own world. She’ll tell stories about her/our childhood which simply aren’t true. She’ll confuse things I did as a kid but swear it was really her. She’s told people that my parents were abusive and that she was denied basic necessities as a child. She’s made up stories about being bulimic (she’s not). She’s told these lies so many times that I think she honestly believes them. She seems to get a thrill out of the sympathy these stories garner from others who don’t know our family or my sister.

My sister has a daughter who’s almost 13 years old. The stories she’s heard about me and my dad have affected the relationship we have with the girl. My niece has asked me about the abuse my sister suffered as a child. It hurts to hear her think that my parents were abusive, when in fact, my sister and I had a beautiful and very privileged childhood.

When Pumpkin was born, I told G that I didn’t trust my sister to be left alone with him. I told him that my sister lived in a warped reality, that she’s probably in need of counseling, and she’s confused about what’s real and what’s not. He didn’t believe me, until he spent several hours with her right after she moved near my parents. One night, and he agreed that Pumpkin shouldn’t be around her. Honestly, I truly feel she would hurt him.

At this point, my relationship with my sister is effectively over. I called tonight to ask if she could help my parents this week since I’m traveling for work (not to mention that I live three states away from them and she’s a mere 10 minutes from the hospital that my mom’s in) and she doesn’t work Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. Her response: “What do you mean by help? I’m busy.”

UPDATE: This post was originally written on Wednesday, when I learned about my dad’s ankle. Since then, Julie did pick my mom up at the hospital. Mom’s staying at Julie’s apartment tonight, and tomorrow my dad will be discharged from the hospital. Julie’s too busy to take them home or makes sure they have everything they need tomorrow, so G, Pumpkin and I will be getting up super early tomorrow to drive the five hours to my parents’ house.