I am beyond Jealous of my perfect sister
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Yes I have made comments and told people that they have hurt my feeling when they make these comments and have bluntly asked them to stop. For instance with my grandma, one time I straight asked her to stop comparing me to my sister and she said “well do better and I will. I’m not trying to compare you but inspire you to do more with your life.” (I wanted to side note that my grandma is who my sister looks like. My grandma is in her early 60s and has always been very thin and pretty and used to model back in the day. Even now she is still very beautiful and is always focused on looks).
When I have told my parents their comments and comparison have hurt or I wish they wouldn’t say those things, its usually followed up with “Oh I was just joking”, “oh stop being so sensitive and a baby about it” or “well it is the truth. I am not going to sugar coat reality for you.” The only time they have ever really stood up for me was the instance with the teacher and I think that was because to them, that was overtly inappropriate and they could do something about it
They have said things to my grandma (who I no longer talk to) but nothing really came of that. My parents are more subtle when they compare us. Like for instance when I was away at college for a year my mom called and we were chit chatting and she said something along the lines of I should be glad my sister got a full ride otherwise they would not be able to help me with school. When I told her that kind of hurt my feelings because it made it seem like she was saying if my sister was not so smart and had her school paid for, they would not be able to help me because I was not as smart and didn’t get as many scholarships as her and my mom’s response along the lines of “Well that is just reality. It is what it is. I’m not sure what you expect me to say? Do you want me to undermine your sister’s achievements so you can feel better?” (This was NOT what I was asking her to do).
One time I wrote in a journal all the things family has said to me that hurt me over the course of the year and gifted it to my parents for Christmas. Both just laughed it off and told me I was oversensitive and dramatic and needed to “toughen up.” Even my sister told me that it made her uncomfortable because it was not her fault our family said these type of things to me. And it’s not.As far as myself, I actually do like a lot about myself. I try to go out of my way to help others. I do take good care of myself. I volunteer at various organizations. I get my hair done regularly, get my nails done, I dress nice everyday, I workout at least 3-4 days a week, I do my makeup everyday and always get compliments on it, I have always done well in school (As and Bs). I do not think I am ugly by any means. I am just taking general classes now since I do not know what I want to do.
You definitely should be pointing out every single time someone says something offensive to you, especially if it’s your own family.
I hope you find a new therapist soon and personally stop comparing yourself to her. The only comparisons you should be making are between you and old you. If you’ve grown and learned, you’re progressing. Life isn’t a competition.
Save up, and move away. That’s the only way you can go about life without everyone from high school commenting on your life forever. I grew up in a town of 5,000 and briefly moved back after college. Briefly.
Wow, writing everything hurtful and gifting it to them for Christmas? Yikes.
Save up. Move out. New therapist.
Stop spending time with people you hate.
You can’t make your family see your value or appreciate you the way you want to. I’m sorry. A good therapist would be thes best thing right now.
Oh yeah, that Christmas gift just played into their narrative that you’re oversensitive.
Keep working with a therapist and start planning for all of the next milestones. How are you going to react/manage when you or your sister get married and your family showers your sister in gifts and money and not you? When (not if) your grandmother and parents favor her children over yours?
Part of me thinks you should just dig in and own your place in your family. Clearly you’re just a lazy girl otherwise you would have gotten better grades, so stop helping them around the house. You’re also clearly unintelligent so start answering all random calls made to the house landline and offer sales people appointments with your parents or $10. Get them on alllll the lists.
But seriously – you have got to put distance between you and your family.
Yeah, you had me until the Christmas gift thing. Not sure what you were thinking with that except either you wanted some attention you weren’t getting or you wanted to hurt them. Yikes is right.
Look, if you want to move, you can. You can look out of town for a person advertising for a roommate, and you can get an entry-level job/flip burgers/whatever to get started, and you can start fresh with people who don’t know your sister. You can and should get a new therapist, which you already know.
Out of curiosity, could your sister have said anything at all that would have been okay, aside from “yes, that must have been awful for you?” Could she do anything at all to help? I think people know it’s awful for you and have just handled it with varying degrees of failure.
I’m sorry, LW. It feels really bad when you tell someone they’ve hurt you and they brush it off, take no accountability, and tell you you’re the problem. Agreed that distance would be great for you. And therapy.
I put distance between myself and my parents (for different reasons) and even though I knew it was for a good reason, I was surprised at the amount of grief that came with enforcing boundaries with them. Therapy really helped.
ETA: This thread compelled me to look up women our society deems the most beautiful (ended up Googling Gisele and J Lo) to see if they have sisters, and both do. Gisele has five!
To be fair with the journal of hurtful things my family said to me I was 14. I actually kept that journal(after I found it in the trash) and dug it out last night and here’s some of the things I wrote
“We went school clothes shopping today. And when we went to hollister for jeans, mom you said ‘I wish you and your sister and you had the same length of legs so I could save some money with clothes’ then when we went to the on jeans and the size you got me was too small you said ‘well I guess it wouldn’t matter about the leg length now because your two pants sizes bigger than last year”
“Today me and *Chloe* went with grandma to lunch and we stopped at the gas station before and it had a scale you out a quarter in. Grandma ran out to the car, got a quarter and made me stand on the scale. I was 150.1 pounds. She said “I weighed that 7 months pregnant with your dad and I’m 5’10”. Then at lunch a bigger lady walked by and grandma said “god if I weighed over 160 pounds I would kill myself”. When I told dad about it he said “oh honey you know your grandma, she meant no harm.” I asked what do you think she meant by making me stand on a scale, making the comment of how she weighed as much as me pregnant, and the comment if she weighed almost what I do she would kill herself? Dad you said “oh stop it” and walked off.
All I’m all there’s 140 entries I made. In hindsight and now that I’m older, I wouldn’t have done it but I was a 14 year old hurt kid. I think everyone is right. There’s nothing I can do about them. I have a chunk saved now and can hopefully move out by New Years
I don’t think you need to feel THAT bad for the journal IMO. I also had the “yikes” reaction, but you were young and also I think sometimes when people do kinda desperate stuff it’s because they feel desperate to be heard/seen and other methods of communicating haven’t worked. On my “yikes” scale, the journal doesn’t carry the same weight as the repeated horrible comments from your loved ones. Just my two cents.
OMFG your grandma is an asshole. That is a truly horrible story. I’m glad you cut contact.
A lot of old people are fat phobic, but what you’re describing is not normal and extremely harmful behavior around kids. Actually abusive.
