Other family members need reminders too

As the youngest in my family, I have an older sister and a twin sister.  They are wonderful and I’m lucky to have them. I know that they love me and are proud of the woman I’ve become. However, a part of me feels like they’re ashamed of me because they have a handicapped sister. I know in my heart that they’re always there for me, but the feeling remains.

Charmaine, the oldest, is two and half years older than I am. When we were growing up, she always included me in her plans. I cannot begin to say how much this meant to me. It was great to be included in her circle of friends. She is naturally a nurturing soul and I am honoured to be an aunt to her two wonderful little girls. I loved being a bridesmaid in her wedding.  It made me feel like I was one of the girls and the dress was actually pretty!   I felt like I was a significant part of an important moment in her life.

After the reception (during the pictures), everybody was drinking wine and becoming a little tipsy.  One of the bridesmaids spilt wine all down her dress. I helped her get it out in the bathroom and everyone was saying, “Who cares? It’s over, they're married already." My view was a bit different and it was important that I continued to be actively involved, so I was very focused on doing a good job with the stain removal.  It is funny how we take things for granted when we are used to having things around all the time.  I don’t take being included and being valued for granted and I know how important it is in our lives.

On the flip side, my relationship with my twin sister, Susan, has been very hard to figure out. When we were growing up, I always wanted to be around her and be her best friend.  In my mind, she already was because I never had a really close friend outside of the family; my two sisters were my closest friends. I have always admired her even when it felt like she was keeping me at an arm's length. In my teenage years, Susan acted like a typical bitch and I let her be like that to me because I didn’t want to give her reasons not to like me.  Every time my parents would get mad at her, I always took her side because I always placed her on a pedestal.  She could do not wrong… or so I needed to believe.  But, I felt that she was ashamed of me and resented me.  She never came out and said it but I believed in my heart that it was true.  She wasn't warm or caring towards me and she disliked that I needed extra attention.  I was her handicapped twin sister.

I know that it was hard for her too.  If she had been able to accept the emotions and admit it to me, then we would have had a good starting point. But I can understand that she probably didn't want to admit it to herself.  I think it must have been very confusing to have such conflicting emotions about one of your close family members.

We never went to family therapy but looking back, I wish we did.  A therapist would have created a safe environment for us to express our unspoken feelings. We never tried having those discussions at home.  I wrote Susan a letter about how I felt but we never talked about it.  Therapy would have given us a place to bring these topics up and ensure that we could all offer our opinions without it becoming too heated.  Our family would try to discuss our relationship but she wanted out of it.

It was hard on my mother because she loves all her girls but it was difficult to handle when Susan put me down and wouldn't talk.  My mom never wanted us to fight or miss out on a relationship. Thankfully, Susan did go talk to a friend of the family about her feelings towards me when she was in her early 20’s.  It’s really hard for her to open up to anyone and I’m really happy that she talked to someone about her feelings.  I think it helped because now we are closer to each other. Now, if I need either of my sisters, they’re there for me.