Hello - I'm new here and trying to stay as undetectable as possible. Hope you don't mind me getting straight into it without an intro.
I am a twin. I am also a mother and wife and we are a multi-disability family. This means we all care for each other and in our little unit this works well.
However my twin is posing some serious problems. As she suddenly (a few years ago now) found herself as a single mother to a of a lot of children, she is not coping. She has had mental health issues (undiagnosed) for many years. Her partner used to care for the kids pretty much single handed with our help. This was difficult even back then as she has always stirred for drama and attention and portrayed herself as a victim in anything she can. This makes her sound awful but she really is underneath all this a lovely if very fickle and immature woman.
Many years ago in a rough patch with her ex, she did some things that landed her in the hospital when people fell out with her. This was described by doctors to myself as attention seeking behaviour typical of personality disorders. She has never received a formal diagnosis of anything as she sees everything as happening *to* her and everyone else's fault. While it has been a very long time since she did any of that, this has had a profound effect on my decisions surrounding our relationship since. I've been terrified to pull her up for anything especially now she is the only parent in her kids' lives.
This all has led to a cycle of us trying to support, support being refused, and now a whole new personality on Facebook of all places, where she repeatedly rewrites history to make herself a victim and makes passive aggressive posts for sympathy, including ones saying she gets no help from her family. She seems to derive some sense of power from knowing I will not respond. Sadly much as they are unaware that they are exacerbating the issue, she has plenty of strangers as friends who are willing to pat her on the back and call her super mom etc, they will often say how disgusting it is that we specifically aren't doing anything to help.
There is also an issue of dependency. She will say the most purposefully horrible things about us online then 2 minutes later, knowing I daren't confront her, she will send me messages asking why I haven't answered within a minute, have I died, etc. She will even ring friends and family and ask them if I've had an accident and that is why I haven't replied in say 10 minutes. If I can't meet with her at the drop of a hat every day then I am apparently avoiding her and hate her. Last week for example I was really unwell and when I said I couldn't even get clothes on to come and meet her and could she come here instead, I got "I feel like you're never there for ME any more, you always let me down. I guess you're too ill to be bothered with me." It's like having a petulant 7 year old sibling not a peer.
And finally but most importantly she is not doing enough for her children. This is super frustrating because she absolutely will not allow us to help or even take our advice and yet she moans to us about them non stop. She has a partner of 3 years which is exaggerating his input - he doesn't want her kids at all and sees her maybe once a month, but she portrays him online as their stepdad and sends me photos of wedding dresses and venues she has picked (this man has said he wants no commitment at all). To us she seems to be desperate in her need to find a new dad to take over all the hard work she can't be bothered with. The kids are all older now but we (when we have been allowed to have them) have had to deal with them being in smelly unironed clothes or sent for a day out without a coat or in football studded shoes because they simply don't have what they need. She even senthough them to my elderly parents for a weekend with no clean clothes and bags of washing. We have bought coats, shampoo, shoes, deodorants and even foot sprays and yet they never get seen again, or she uses them herself. Her house is in dirty disarray but it's apparently not bad enough for social services to go in. We have offered, very carefully, to take and raise the children that remain at home. We have offered to have them temporarily. We are lucky if she will let us have them for a day once every couple of months and yet she moans to anyone that will listen that she never gets any help.
I have no doubt in my mind that she has some sort of personality disorder. I am scared to seek help as it's all so final in that she will see it as the ultimate betrayal. I think I am stuck in the vain hope that I will get my twinny back but in all reality I haven't ever met her (she was perhaps that person as a young child but hasn't been her since her teens). I am gutted, really physically and emotionally gutted, when I realise there's very little chance of saving 'us' as a relationship and that every time she pokes and prods and uses passive aggression, it's another nail in the coffin of our relationship. Being a twin isn't like having a sibling - it's like a part of you lives in another home. But I have to put her kids first if she won't. This all has had a massive effect on my own disability (stress makes it far worse) and as such has a vicious circle effect on her when I can't drop everything and be at her beck and call every time she wants me to be.
I don't really know what I'm here to ask. I know I can go to her GP or social services. I know all the right advice. I guess I just want to moan to someone (I'm not a moaner typically) who isn't my husband as he has to hear what she's done again and again and how hurt and worried I am. There's no real point in me sharing this with him any more if I haven't got the balls to make a change for the better. You get what I mean?
Thanks
kcrps
I am a twin. I am also a mother and wife and we are a multi-disability family. This means we all care for each other and in our little unit this works well.
However my twin is posing some serious problems. As she suddenly (a few years ago now) found herself as a single mother to a of a lot of children, she is not coping. She has had mental health issues (undiagnosed) for many years. Her partner used to care for the kids pretty much single handed with our help. This was difficult even back then as she has always stirred for drama and attention and portrayed herself as a victim in anything she can. This makes her sound awful but she really is underneath all this a lovely if very fickle and immature woman.
Many years ago in a rough patch with her ex, she did some things that landed her in the hospital when people fell out with her. This was described by doctors to myself as attention seeking behaviour typical of personality disorders. She has never received a formal diagnosis of anything as she sees everything as happening *to* her and everyone else's fault. While it has been a very long time since she did any of that, this has had a profound effect on my decisions surrounding our relationship since. I've been terrified to pull her up for anything especially now she is the only parent in her kids' lives.
This all has led to a cycle of us trying to support, support being refused, and now a whole new personality on Facebook of all places, where she repeatedly rewrites history to make herself a victim and makes passive aggressive posts for sympathy, including ones saying she gets no help from her family. She seems to derive some sense of power from knowing I will not respond. Sadly much as they are unaware that they are exacerbating the issue, she has plenty of strangers as friends who are willing to pat her on the back and call her super mom etc, they will often say how disgusting it is that we specifically aren't doing anything to help.
There is also an issue of dependency. She will say the most purposefully horrible things about us online then 2 minutes later, knowing I daren't confront her, she will send me messages asking why I haven't answered within a minute, have I died, etc. She will even ring friends and family and ask them if I've had an accident and that is why I haven't replied in say 10 minutes. If I can't meet with her at the drop of a hat every day then I am apparently avoiding her and hate her. Last week for example I was really unwell and when I said I couldn't even get clothes on to come and meet her and could she come here instead, I got "I feel like you're never there for ME any more, you always let me down. I guess you're too ill to be bothered with me." It's like having a petulant 7 year old sibling not a peer.
And finally but most importantly she is not doing enough for her children. This is super frustrating because she absolutely will not allow us to help or even take our advice and yet she moans to us about them non stop. She has a partner of 3 years which is exaggerating his input - he doesn't want her kids at all and sees her maybe once a month, but she portrays him online as their stepdad and sends me photos of wedding dresses and venues she has picked (this man has said he wants no commitment at all). To us she seems to be desperate in her need to find a new dad to take over all the hard work she can't be bothered with. The kids are all older now but we (when we have been allowed to have them) have had to deal with them being in smelly unironed clothes or sent for a day out without a coat or in football studded shoes because they simply don't have what they need. She even senthough them to my elderly parents for a weekend with no clean clothes and bags of washing. We have bought coats, shampoo, shoes, deodorants and even foot sprays and yet they never get seen again, or she uses them herself. Her house is in dirty disarray but it's apparently not bad enough for social services to go in. We have offered, very carefully, to take and raise the children that remain at home. We have offered to have them temporarily. We are lucky if she will let us have them for a day once every couple of months and yet she moans to anyone that will listen that she never gets any help.
I have no doubt in my mind that she has some sort of personality disorder. I am scared to seek help as it's all so final in that she will see it as the ultimate betrayal. I think I am stuck in the vain hope that I will get my twinny back but in all reality I haven't ever met her (she was perhaps that person as a young child but hasn't been her since her teens). I am gutted, really physically and emotionally gutted, when I realise there's very little chance of saving 'us' as a relationship and that every time she pokes and prods and uses passive aggression, it's another nail in the coffin of our relationship. Being a twin isn't like having a sibling - it's like a part of you lives in another home. But I have to put her kids first if she won't. This all has had a massive effect on my own disability (stress makes it far worse) and as such has a vicious circle effect on her when I can't drop everything and be at her beck and call every time she wants me to be.
I don't really know what I'm here to ask. I know I can go to her GP or social services. I know all the right advice. I guess I just want to moan to someone (I'm not a moaner typically) who isn't my husband as he has to hear what she's done again and again and how hurt and worried I am. There's no real point in me sharing this with him any more if I haven't got the balls to make a change for the better. You get what I mean?
Thanks
kcrps