How do you deal with emotionally abusive siblings as a grown up?

12 comments

1. No Contact or minimal contact at least. You always have the option to remove toxic people from your life if they’re family or not. Sometimes it just has to be done.

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3. Removed them from my life. Don’t ask about them. Gray rock your other family members talking about them.

4. If someone is emotionally abusive, there’s a reason for it (childhood issues you may not be aware of). But that’s not your problem. It really depends on how much you want her in your life.

   If you want to have a relationship with your sister, you cannot deal with her, until you are mentally strong yourself. So strong that your sister’s words sound like that of a barking dog….you can ignore it since you know it cannot hurt you. That mental strength comes from improving self esteem, self actualisation and knowing yourself.

   Once you are mentally strong, you can not just deal with your sister, but practically everyone nasty. Words hurt if you see a grain of truth in it. And if you want to improve relationship with your sister, once you are mentally strong, you should let her sister know exactly how hurtful she is. She may or may not improve, but letting her know how hurtful she is maybe the first step towards changing status quo.

   Good luck!

5. Assuming you can’t/don’t want to cut her off completely, you can still set boundaries. Say things like, “Sheila, I will not engage with you when you speak to me like that,” and if she doesn’t stop you walk away or hang up the phone. BIFF (brief, informative, friendly, firm) is a helpful way to communicate the things you need to without engaging in back-and-forth.

6. Minimal contact.

   I don’t want to go no contact because it would hurt my parents too much. And saying hi on the phone every few weeks is okay for me.

7. I have a toxic older sister that is in her 40’s and I’m in my 30’s.. for years I wondered how I could get away or get her out of my life. My brother was getting married and she was disrespectful to him and his wife to be. My brother cut her off and I followed suit. That was almost 3 years ago. I forget what I did on Instagram but I blocked her on Facebook recently and it feels so good. She’s local to me so I’m always keeping an eye out for her. A few major things have happened and I refuse to speak to her. I ignore the guilt trips and questions. Our family dynamic is far from “normal” so I don’t get a lot of pushback and a few people luckily know how she is.
   Do what you need to do for your mental peace and sanity.
   For what it’s worth I ghosted her. I blocked her one day from calling and texting and then went on to the socials.
   Some people you can’t talk to. Some people will manipulate you and try to make you do what they want.
   My advice would be to ghost. I know it’s not nice but toxic people aren’t nice and I feel like it’s always more “dangerous” (so to speak) to try to talk to them. Get away and don’t look back

   For what it’s worth when I do acknowledge the questions my response is “I put up with her toxicity until I couldn’t take the poison anymore. Now I have a gremlin free life and I’m much happier”

8. I went no contact with my sister 3 or 4 years ago. I’m in my 40s. She’s in her 50s. And she definitely isn’t getting kinder with age. I wish I had done it 20 years ago to be honest. It would have spared me a lot of pain of being her emotional punching bag. She sucks. And my life is definitely better without that nightmare in it.

9. I can only tell you about an abusive parent but cut the strings. Burn all bridges. Get as far away from them as you can and don’t look back. It will feel like a mistake in that very moment, but the truth is, you will never miss them. And make sure to realise even though they might have had power over you you can get it back and you don’t need their allowance for that.

10. I’ve gone NC with my middle brother and have no regrets.

11. You set up whatever boundaries you need. For some it’s shorter phone calls and just listening to whatever the sibling wants to say and not sharing anything about their own life. For other’s it’s going no contact. Everyone has their own limitations, and it’s important to respect what your own needs are, and make changes accordingly. If family/friends try to get you to continue as it was to keep the peace, then continue doing what you need to do for you and let them figure things out for themselves.

12. Ignore their phonecalls and texts. Avoid meeting by any means.
    He blocked me on social media and complains to my parents that I’m the toxic one. (7 years older than me btw)

    Learn to put yourself first because you just can’t win with a professional victim player.
    I’m moving 5000miles away just so I dont have to deal with that shitshow anymore.
    Blood doesn’t make you family.