Relatives of Narcissists, Psychopaths, or Sociopaths: what’s your experience?

Relatives of Narcissists, Psychopaths, or Sociopaths: what’s your experience?

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-s-most-shocking-stories-jaw-dropping-tales-from-reddit--6674996/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Relatives of narcissists, psychopaths, or sociopaths, what's your experience story one.
My sister has never been diagnosed with narcissism or a
personality disorder other than OCD, but when we were younger,
she often enjoyed telling people before I met them that
I had a difficult relationship with the truth, so that
they wouldn't want to be around me. I had the

(00:21):
reputation of being dishonest and no friends for most of
my preteen years, and she was popular in our homeschool
group until she left and went to high school. After
she left, I still didn't have friends, but neither did she,
and she blamed me for it. During her frequent temper tantrums,
she would throw things, scream, cry, and threaten me with

(00:42):
kitchen knives on a regular basis. All of a sudden,
the year that I turned seventeen and she turned twenty one,
the tantrum stopped and she got engaged. He moved in
with us. The tantrum started again, and for once I
wasn't the target. The worst fight they had happened when
she caught him looking at a photo of a bikini model,
which she considered cheating. She hit him full force with

(01:05):
an open palm, and when our mums saw, she threatened
to ask her to leave if she did it again.
They got married, moved out, and divorced within a year
of him enlisting in the army. Story two. They can
create drama out of any situation, and we'll try to
involve you even years later. Example, I am the next
to youngest. My whole family is a complete mess. But

(01:27):
when I was planning my wedding, I was still trying
to pretend I had a reasonable family. My future husband's
family was like a perfect sitcom family. So I asked
both of my sisters to be bridesmaids. I knew this
was a risk, but I hope they could behave for
a single evening. At the time, I thought they had.
About eight years later, we were in the same city

(01:47):
because one of our brothers was in the hospital due
to a bad car accident. We had one hotel room
across the street from the hospital so people could rest
when they needed to. I was in that room with
my oldest sister when she said, you know, middle s
took wine glasses from your wedding, right, I told her
I didn't care. A couple of hours later, I was
in that room with my middle sister. She said, you know,

(02:10):
older sister took glasses from your wedding right. I also
told her I didn't care. So here we were waiting
to see if our brother was going to survive, and
both of them were playing games with me, trying to
make me angry with the other one our brother recovered.
I've cut contact with all my siblings because they are
all like this. They have to start trouble no matter

(02:31):
what the situation or consequences. Story three. My brother was
diagnosed with NPD at sixteen. He's never had empathy. Children
usually learn empathy at some point, but it was like
he never reached that developmental stage. He was unconcerned when
people got hurt. He hurt and bullied others in school
to get what he wanted. Doctors, therapists, medication, nothing made

(02:53):
a difference. And it's not like there was some kind
of trauma or a reason for his behavior. It was
as if he was just born without it. When he
was ten, he started taking and dealing drugs as a runner.
For some older teens, you can't be prosecuted under fourteen
in Germany. My parents called our version of CPS for help.
He got more therapy, some impatient stays, and his own

(03:16):
social worker. He took my dad's car when he was
twelve and was picked up by the police. He got
his first charges at fourteen, drugs and assault. My parents
were at their wits end and agreed to have him
placed in a group home for troubled teens for a year.
He was removed shortly before the year was up. He
came home and seemed to recognize in a detached way

(03:38):
that he couldn't go on like this without ending up
in prison. He was about fifteen, he started being less
physically aggressive, but he had unrealistic delusions of grandeur and
needed everyone to comply with whatever he wanted. If they didn't,
he reacted with hostility. My parents still made him go
to therapy. He assaulted my dad and choked him because

(03:58):
he didn't want to go. My brother was sixteen, but
also six feet three in about one hundred and ninety pounds.
My dad passed away from a sudden aneurysm when he
was sixteen, and he spiraled completely. He got a girl
pregnant and she was asked to leave by her mom.
My mom took her in the girl was not a
bad person, just had some issues, so it wasn't surprising

(04:20):
that she'd date my brother, who could be charming if
the situation demanded it. He attacked her at our house
a couple months later, while she was still pregnant. That
was the last straw for my mom. She told my
brother to leave. We helped the girl find an apartment
for her and the baby. Not long after, my mom
let my brother move back in. He seemed to think
he was the head of the household. My parents never married,

(04:42):
so my father's modest possessions went to me and my
brother instead of my mom, and that included the car
my dad bought a year before he passed. It was
the first brand new car he ever bought, a small one,
but he was proud of it. My brother made my
mom sell it so he could get his half of
the money. It wasn't even expensive, and my mom was
devastated to lose my late dad's car. I was twenty

(05:05):
then my brother was seventeen. He was verbally abusive and
constantly tormented my mom emotionally. He threatened to hurt me
on a daily basis whenever I didn't do something or
give him something. He wanted. He also threatened me with
worse things. A couple of times. On a particularly bad day,
he told my mom that he could easily get people
to cause her harm when she went out. When the

(05:27):
threats lost impact, he would physically attack me. Every couple
of weeks, there was one particular instance where I was
actually afraid he was going to seriously harm me. He
did his usual routine of using me as a verbal
punching bag. Because he had a bad day and I
was just burnt out, I didn't even react anymore. He
hit me a couple of times and choked me. No

(05:47):
idea how, but I fought him off, grabbed my phone,
and ran to the bathroom, where I locked myself in
before he could get to me again. He was trying
to force the door while I called the police. They
did nothing, told me he lived there, so we'd have
to get along, and since we both said opposing things,
nothing would come of it. I insisted they take my statement.

(06:07):
My mom wasn't home at the time, but she was
a wreck anyway and couldn't cope anymore. A couple of
days later, my aunt came to visit for a few days.
My brother was his charming, manipulative self for her. My
aunt tried to pressure me into not pressing charges, since
apparently I had given myself the dozens of bruises and
contusions I had. As my brother told her, I was

(06:29):
severely depressed at that point and gave my mom an
ultimatum me or him. She told him to leave again.
He came back a year later, and I moved out
for college immediately. I don't blame my mom much anymore.
Rock and a hard Place and all that, but she
never could understand that her love for her son was misplaced.

(06:50):
He didn't have the qualities that make someone truly human.
He had no empathy, He was not capable of love.
He was just an empty shell going through life trying
to get whatever he wanted by whatever means necessary. I
haven't spoken to or seen him in about seven years,
but my mom's still in contact with him. He went
to Spain when the mother of his daughter tried to

(07:10):
get child support. Sometimes my mom still talks about the
things he's done. A couple examples. For some reason, his
ex girlfriend started letting him see his daughter, and she
flew to Spain with my mom once or twice a
year or used to anyway. He locked the girl in
the basement with food she couldn't finish because she was full.
She was about four years old. She doesn't want to

(07:32):
visit him anymore. He withheld rent from his Spanish landlord
for about six months. The landlord had terminal cancer, and
my brother saw it as a waste to give money
to a dying man. He married a woman in Spain
and had another child, and he now works as a realtor.
From what I've heard, he still thinks he's exceptional. I
don't think i'd even attend his funeral if he passed.

(07:54):
Story four. She called the police in CPS multiple times,
repeatedly accusing our stepdad of child abuse. It usually happened
when she had rules and consequences to follow. She didn't
like that my parents had researched how to raise someone
with severe behavioral issues without them becoming dangerous, because suddenly
they knew all her tactics. I sometimes think about how

(08:16):
sad it must be to be physically incapable of feeling
human emotions, but clearly it would only have held her
back edit her diagnosis was emerging antisocial personality disorder. Because
they said they couldn't diagnose someone under twenty five with
the full condition. Dad acts very similar, so I assume
whatever she has, he has it too. To add more,

(08:38):
now that I'm more awake, I lost almost all of
my friends. My extended family besides my immediate one, totally
ignores me because my mom and I protected my stepdad
by saying my sister was lying about the abuse. Just
to be clear, we were investigated multiple times and CPS
said they were doing a phenomenal job raising so many

(08:59):
kids with complex mental health issues so well. They recorded
the first two times as false claims, and after that
they said, we just have to investigate to be sure,
just do the interviews and get it done. We have
to do it every time, which I do appreciate for
the sake of children who are really being abused. But
we had notes from therapists and counselors saying has a

(09:21):
history of lying and tells lies to get what she wants.
Yet my entire family still thinks we were protecting someone dangerous.
The real kicker is that our biological father is also
diagnosed with severe personality issues and was actually abusive. Guess
who she moved in with when my aunts refused to
let her go back to my mom's. If you guessed

(09:42):
our truly abusive dad, who was basically giving her training
just by being around him, you'd be right. All our family,
who united in a so called justice mission about child abuse,
are now close with a man who used to threaten
me and hurt me when I was seven or younger.
I'm sure it makes my mom feel great too, knowing
all her sisters took her abuser's side after a long,

(10:05):
draining divorce battle that left her emotionally and financially exhausted
for years. I could write a book about how much
they've all hurt me, either by being this way themselves
or by enabling it. I'm pretty certain that at least
some of my aunts have narcissistic traits. Last week, my
grandma went on a tirade about me not forgiving, but
no one has ever apologized or even acknowledged that they

(10:27):
did anything wrong. I won't cover up something that still
hurts me regularly, and apparently that makes me the problem again.
Story five. My little brother has severe narcissistic, anti social,
and manipulative traits. I come from a culture where family
bonds are considered unbreakable, and no matter how bad, your
family is, you're expected to forgive, protect and take care

(10:50):
of them. For twenty five years, we lived through absolute
chaos because of him. It really pained me, but I
gave up on him years ago. My mother, however, being
a Turkish mom, forgave him countless times, but he only
got worse. I knew something was wrong when we were
still kids, but I still tried to be the good
brother and role model. I would always protect him and

(11:13):
at the same time get blamed for his mistakes. When
my mother was in the hospital giving birth to my
oldest sister, we were home alone and he asked me
if he could play outside in the park in front
of our home. I agreed. An hour or two later,
his friend came back to tell me that my eleven
year old brother I was about thirteen, had been arrested
for theft. We were a well off family. He never

(11:35):
needed to steal. He did it for attention. Upset that
our new sister might take his place, I had to
pick him up, crying from shame, while he smiled like
nothing was wrong. The police brought us both home, where
my parents had returned from the hospital with the new baby.
The house was full of friends and acquaintances, and I
felt deep embarrassment, apologizing to my mom and feeling responsible.

(11:58):
As the years went by, it only got worse. We
lived in a constant state of anxiety because of him.
I'm too embarrassed to share most of the other stories.
We finally cut him out of our lives after twenty
five years. Imagine hiding all your belongings because your home
was never safe. Imagine never being able to ask for
anything as a team because if I asked for five,

(12:20):
he would have to get fifty. Imagine fearing that if
you left, he might threaten our mother or take her possessions.
For a while, he had a girlfriend, and my mom
hoped it would help him change. Instead, he treated her
like property. One time he was yelling at her, threatening
her and dragging her down the stairs. I intervened, told
him if I ever heard him behave like that again,

(12:42):
I'd stop him, and she ran off. He later explained
that he was angry because she talked back and wouldn't
lend him money. He was spending huge amounts and clubs
at the time. When she finally left him, he called
her father to insult her and sent him inappropriate personal
items of hers. He then became incredibly depressed, not because

(13:03):
he cared for her, but because she had left his property.
Soon after, he took my parents' new car and crashed
it into a wall, just enough to total it without
injuring himself. He had his own car, but claimed it
had no fuel, which I later found full. He used
this incident to emotionally manipulate my mom, claiming he was
sue us and blaming us for not supporting him enough.

(13:26):
The only person he actually feared was me, so I
felt a constant burden to keep him in check. I
couldn't leave my mom alone with him, fearing for her safety.
I couldn't move out. No amount of talking worked. He
made endless promises and excuses, sometimes blaming me for things
I had done to protect others years earlier. I had

(13:46):
defended him countless times as a kid when he picked fights.
It took years to finally cut all contact. My mom
often excused his threats and theft, even though he could
have simply asked for what he wanted. He liked taking
things without permission. I couldn't even go to the bathroom
without locking my door. But now we have no contact
and the burden is gone. I no longer have to

(14:07):
worry about him threatening, stealing from, or manipulating my mom.
The anxiety and constant tension he caused ruined decades of
our lives. He broke down my mother, who was the
strongest woman I knew. I will never forgive him. I
no longer consider him my brother, family, or even an acquaintance.
This is why I believe some people are born harmful.

(14:29):
He had a loving and supportive family that gave him everything,
but it was never enough. No one else seemed real
to him. Only his own needs mattered. He treated friends, partners,
and family the same way. His social charm only made
it worse, fooling people until he eventually turned on them,
took from them, and spread lies. He would never forgive

(14:50):
anything and would go to extremes for revenge, even when
he was at fault. When my mother once refused to
give him money because he had taken a large sum
from her, he destroyed her clothes and shoes, smeared condiments
all over her belongings, and then years later still used
it as proof she was a bad mother because she
gave pocket money to our little sister. My mom even

(15:13):
apologized to him at times just to keep the peace,
which only encouraged him further. Thankfully, she now realizes it
was a mistake. Thinking about all this still upsets me,
but the truth is we are all happier than ever
now that he is out of our lives. Story six.
Growing up, she had total control over my life. She
criticized what I wore, listened to eight everything. If I

(15:38):
was different, I was weird. If I liked what she liked,
then I was copying her. She tried to scare me
multiple times with weapons, claiming she would never actually hurt me,
but she would hold a samurai sword to my throat
and tell me if I moved, I would regret it. Eventually,
she had a child when she was nineteen and I
was sixteen, and for a year she was a good mother.

(16:00):
Then she decided she didn't want to be a mom anymore.
I've seen her ruin countless people's lives, from stringing them
along to draining their bank accounts, to contributing to them
ending up in legal trouble. She's still waiting for trial
on her charge. I despise her, and she is not
family to me. I had so many issues growing up
that stem from things she did to me. And I

(16:21):
don't want to see my niece grow up like that.
My parents are doing a wonderful job of raising her,
but she doesn't understand why her mom isn't there, and
it breaks my heart. Story seven. My brother was given
special treatment as a child because he was gifted at basketball.
He had no consequences growing up and could do whatever
he wanted. He treated me and our parents badly, and

(16:42):
they still gave him special treatment while I would be
punished for the most minor things. His life is a
mess now. He has no sense of self worth and
just gets handouts from my parents. He is in his
late thirties and my parents are still giving him money
for rent and food. He wants every I wanted to
feel sorry for him and expects everything to be handed

(17:03):
to him. He can't do anything on his own and
manipulates my parents into doing whatever he needs or just
giving him extra money. He has no incentive to change,
and his content playing video games all day while my
parents enable his lifestyle. During holidays, he talks down to
me and tries to make me feel bad about how
difficult his life is. I have no desire to talk

(17:25):
to him until he makes serious changes in his lifestyle
and choices. Story eight. He never got a diagnosis, but
he's very good at deceiving. He always tried to get
all the attention and would cry to get me punished
so he could spend more time playing with my game
console that I had saved up for myself. I ended
up being the black sheep, with my mom constantly threatening

(17:46):
to call child protective Services. If I had understood things
better back then, I might have preferred that he was
always sick and always the victim. It got so bad
that they once forgot me at home when they went
to my grandparents and didn't realize it until they heard
me crying alone at night behind a couch. There's a
lot I'm not including, but it wasn't just emotional harm.

(18:07):
He used the family dynamics to turn us against each other.
I confronted him many times, and years later he seems
to be trying to be himself rather than always playing
the victim. Still, I don't want to be around anyone here.
It's uncomfortable even to be near them, but it's still
better than being in that situation and having to deal
with it. Story nine. My dad is as much of

(18:28):
a narcissist as it gets. I didn't realize it was
abnormal until I moved out of the house and out
of state. When I came back, I remember him calling
me one day to ask me to give him ten
dollars because he said he needed to get something to eat. Sorry,
but I don't have ten dollars to give you. You
don't have ten dollars to give your dad. Come on,
I'll pay you right back. I just need it to

(18:50):
go down to the store so I can eat. I
don't have it, so you'll have to handle it yourself. Well,
I was going to ask your sister, but I don't
want to ask her because she's my daughter, you know.
I hung up after that. A few minutes later, he
called me again and said, hey, your sister just sent
me the ten dollars. See, it wasn't that hard. A
couple of months later I heard that he was still

(19:10):
asking my sister for money. On her anniversary with my
brother in law, he called and upset her to the
point of tears when she said no. Then he told her, so,
you're just gonna let your dad freeze to death outside tonight.
My brother in law told him never to call them again,
and I haven't heard from him, since he honestly thinks
he is popular and a good person, but he isn't.

(19:33):
I blocked his number and want nothing to do with
him anymore. It's strange because you either grow to be
just like them or completely the opposite. I've had to
grow up on my own without a father figure to
teach me how to make good decisions or lead a household.
These are things many people take for granted without realizing
how valuable they are. I always envy people who can

(19:54):
still live with their parents into their twenties. I moved
out at eighteen, and now at all mys p thirty.
I wish every day that I could have stayed at
home without worrying about rent, utilities, car payments, insurance, gas, phone, internet,
and all the rest Stoortin two year divorce and custody battle,

(20:16):
I was a faithful, happy and devoted husband and father.
I gave up my music and my small business to
stay home with our child at her request. She had
shown severe emotional and mental instability before our child's birth.
Was prescribed medication, which helped greatly, but stopped taking it
when our child was conceived and never resumed. My goal

(20:38):
was to protect him as much as possible. She got
worse again. She started a relationship and affair with another
coworker she had hired and devised a plan to destroy me.
She had me arrested, removed from our home, left me
without money, a job, a vehicle, or a place to live,
and told the court I was abusive, neglectful, and alcoholic

(20:59):
and financially irresponsible. Without court involvement, she blocked my access
to our child's education and medical care. I have access now.
Our son developed asthma and she hid it. He was
prescribed two inhalers and she only gave me one. When
I tried to contact his school and doctors, she claimed
I was harassing them. I endured four months of supervised

(21:20):
visitation for one hour a week, two CPS investigations. No
case was ever opened. I now have my son overnight
on a regular schedule. She still refuses to settle in
one's sole custody. She took out a one hundred and
twenty thousand dollars loan on our apartment a year ago
without my approval or the court's knowledge. I brought in
a forensic psychologist who tested us. My results were labeled

(21:44):
too well adjusted, which they suggested meant I was in denial.
Her results indicated a tendency toward persecutory behavior and dramatization.
I've done nothing but comply, extend olive branches, and cooperate,
but she cantinues to accuse and take She told the
forensic evaluator we had a nanny, no proof, and we didn't,

(22:07):
and that I pleaded guilty to the charges I didn't.
They were dropped. She told the doctor that our child's
preschool couldn't administer his medication, but I have a recording
of them confirming they couldn't do. Story eleven. My sociopathic
older sister three years older, and I shared a bedroom
growing up. I slept on my stomach with my head

(22:27):
under the pillow and my stuffed animals on both sides
because she would attack me in my sleep. She would
lock me in our old, dilapidated, spider infested shed instead
of babysitting me. She would invite me to hang out
with her and her friends, something I desperately wanted, only
for everyone to be nice for five minutes before she
would suddenly turn on me physically hurt me while her

(22:50):
friends laughed. They bullied me all day, every day I
was sweeping the kitchen one afternoon when she came in,
grabbed the broom and hit me with it. Telephone receivers,
tennis rackets, soccer cleats, and hair brushes were among her
preferred tools to hurt me. When I was eighteen, I
still lived at home and she lived a couple of
miles away. After work, one day, she showed up at

(23:13):
our parents' house and invited me over, telling me to
bring something I owned. Knowing she was just using me,
I declined. An hour later, as I was leaving to
go to the store, I saw her speeding toward me
on our street. She crashed into my car, totaling it. Currently,
my mother, my brother, his partner, his ex wife and
her husband, and my eighteen year old niece all have

(23:35):
restraining orders against my now forty four year old sister.
She has been banned from multiple public places for her
explosive tirades. She was arrested for assaulting a family member,
and as the police were putting handcuffs on her, she
said I should have hurt her worse. My dad has
always bailed her out, so she's never been held accountable

(23:56):
and genuinely believes the rules apply only to others. According
to every mental health provider I've spoken to in the
past twenty five years, she is a narcissistic sociopath. Story
twelve not about a sibling, but a parent. My father
left home after fifteen years of marriage. My older sisters
left at thirteen. My mother was afraid to lose me too,

(24:18):
so she started telling me I was bad at everything,
that I'd need a disability pension to survive, and even
sent me to a mental hospital, telling me to pretend
certain things. She also told the doctor's fabricated stories about
me being violent toward her. Then she would tell me
I couldn't survive on my own with just a disability pension.
When I said i'd get a job, she told me

(24:39):
to be realistic, find work first, and then I could
think about moving out. I once asked her how to
do laundry, and she said, if you don't know, you're
not ready to live on your own. She claims she'd
help me with job applications, but when I applied for
physical work and asked her to confirm my reliability, she
secretly told employers I was lazy and would cause problems.

(25:00):
I never got hired. I eventually moved abroad without telling her.
Two years later, she said she was moving in with
me and started knocking on my door, speaking loudly in
Russian so neighbors would think I was from there. Story thirteen.
My sister is a narcissist. When we were little, she
would threaten me and say cruel things. As we grew older,
she told lies to get me punished and manipulated others

(25:22):
to feel sorry for her. My younger sisters, who were
much younger than her, were called names and told that
the family was embarrassed by them. She was targeting a
ten year old and a five year old when she
left for college. Our parents enabled this behavior for years,
telling us to ignore her and rarely reprimanding her. She
is almost fifty now and still acts the same, but

(25:43):
we can choose not to deal with her. Though she
still tries to divide the family. She is most effective
with me because she is the oldest and the most favored.
Once I loaned her something and she later claimed someone
else broke it, I knew she'd refuse to take responsibility.
Our mother would agree with her, and Dad would follow mom.
So I told the school superintendent since she claimed it

(26:05):
broke there. When we got home, she complained to our parents,
and my dad came in and scolded me for airing
family matters in public without asking for my side. My
mom told me that social life is different in high
school and insisted I was in the wrong story fourteen
in recent memory, she was getting married. Bridezilla doesn't even
cover it. Our parents are wealthy business owners and agreed

(26:27):
to help pay for the wedding. She assured them that
having it outside with a rented tent would be cheaper
than a hall. It wasn't. They paid for grass seed tent,
rental tables, chairs, portable restrooms, alcohol, and materials for a
dance floor. The total came to about twenty thousand dollars
from their pockets. They never got to thank you, and

(26:48):
the groom's parents, who didn't contribute financially treated them badly.
At the time, I was very sick and needed surgery,
but I delayed it so I could attend the wedding.
I was in constant pain and working full time. She
and her maid of honor got upset because I didn't
take enough time off work for wedding events. I didn't
want to attend the bachelorette weekend due to my health,

(27:08):
but she guilt tripped me, saying I probably didn't even
want to be in the wedding. I went anyway, and
it was miserable. That wedding was when she and her
husband showed their true colors. They accused me and my
parents of being unsupportive. She still brings it up two
years later. We hardly speak now. Story fifteen. I don't
use sociopath as a random insult for her. She has

(27:31):
a very high opinion of herself, posting online about what
a good person she is, never admitting when she's wrong
or taking responsibility for anything. She was fired for arriving
hours late to work repeatedly she'd fall back asleep whenever
we tried waking her, but she insists it was because
her boss had it out for her. When she does

(27:51):
admit fault, she always has an excuse. She shows no
concern for other people's problems. For example, when I got
in trouble for a mess her kid's maid, she said
I was just complaining about nothing, and she likes to
target people she knows can't fight back, like our autistic sister.
The moment she truly crossed the line was when my
parents found out she stole hundreds of dollars from their

(28:13):
bank account. This happened on the day they had to
take me to the hospital because the right side of
my face was numb. It turned out to be Bell's palsy.
While they were worried I might have had a stroke,
she tried to take their money. My parents were ready
to cut ties and press charges, but she made up
a story about being addicted and needing help. She does
have substance issues, but she doesn't want help. She's been

(28:36):
living with our grandmother to get rehabilitated for the last
few months, leaving us to take care of her kids.
I know she's just trying to avoid legal consequences. Story sixteen.
I don't know if my oldest brother, who I'll call BE,
is a narcissist or something else, but there's definitely something wrong.
He was an only child for five years and would

(28:59):
have preferred at stay that way. He would pinch our
sister until dad stopped him, and later did the same
to my older brother T, who's fourteen years younger than him.
He never targeted me, but as T grew older, B
tried to hurt him whenever possible. B dated a woman
who was still legally married, and often brought her, her kids,
and sometimes her siblings to our house to eat, even

(29:22):
though Dad was disabled and Mom was unemployed. Later, when
he broke up with her, he got his new partner pregnant,
and they took over our home, eating our food and
controlling the TV. When Dad passed away, suddenly, the funeral
home allowed us to make payments. Be, who earned the
most money, signed an agreement to pay, but stopped because
it made him sad. Mom eventually got a letter about

(29:45):
missed payments, and I ended up paying off the funeral
and buying the headstone. He once called me at four
am while I was traveling with my now husband because
he couldn't reach Mom. After his second wife left him,
he called Mom at all hours, disturbing her sleep despite
her heart problems. When I told him, he made it
about himself. When Tea's wife died unexpectedly, BE told him

(30:07):
it was worse when his wives left him, because at
least she loved you. At my wedding, I had Mom
walk me down the aisle since Dad was gone. B
said he should have done it because he was the
oldest son. He didn't like that our minister was female
and When I asked him to get black dress pants
so he wouldn't stand out from the other groomsmen, he
refused in more brand new genes instead. At the reception,

(30:29):
his son pinched tea, causing an argument that led to
b and his family leaving. Now he's deeply religious, believes
he's always right, and we rarely speak. Story seventeen, My
half brother from my dad's affair, has been cruel for
as long as I can remember. Every pet he's had
has died within weeks. He used to physically harm his girlfriend,

(30:50):
once so severely that she lost teeth. He lies constantly,
stole money from my mother after surgery and from his
own mother. When his girlfriend decided to leave him, he
threatened to harm her and their twins, even feeding one
child food they were allergic to. During a custody dispute,
he tried to take the kids and told my dad
over dinner that if he couldn't have full custody, he'd

(31:12):
harm them just to hurt their mother. He bullied me
as a child, including pushing me out of my wheelchair.
He once pinched my son hard enough to leave bruises
and told my other brother, I like to see him squirm.
He has made racist, homophobic, and anti religious remarks toward
my wife, thrown her copy of the Koran into a
fireplace at Christmas and tried to remove her hit job.

(31:34):
He has stalked a coworker, been arrested over a dozen
times for drug charges, and openly identifies with extremist beliefs.
His crimes include arson, and he's now serving fifteen years
in state prison. Story eighteen. My sister doesn't take responsibility
for her actions. She got out of prison in February
and maybe going back soon to finish her sentence. She

(31:58):
claims her corrections officer is just being mean, despite testing
positive for coca meth and marijuana while five months pregnant.
I have all four of her other kids living with
me until recently. I had two and their father had
the other two. She calls constantly, knowing it's expensive and
expects us to answer every time. I've stopped answering because

(32:19):
I can't afford it. The last time I picked up,
she cried and begged me to post her bond, asking
me to put up my car as collateral along with
a few hundred dollars, promising the rest would come later.
I've bailed her out before, and instead of having the
money returned to me, she told the court to put
it toward her fines. I've lost money and personal property

(32:39):
because of her, so I refuse to do more. I will, however,
continue to care for her children and do what I
can for them. Story nineteen. One time I didn't order
my sister a pizza and she locked me out of
the house for the rest of the day. Another time
she asked me to make her a sandwich and I
forgot to put cheese on it. She screamed, you did

(33:00):
this just to mess with me, and then physically attacked me.
Six or seven years ago, I bought her a really
nice pair of red Swede boots she wanted for Christmas,
and she then proceeded to hit me in the arms
and legs with them for a reason that I can't
quite remember. When I was four or five, she told
me that everyone dies and that my mom was going
to die. When our parents got divorced and my mom

(33:22):
moved us into an apartment, my sister never let me
leave my room so she could have the whole place
to herself. I found out later it was because she
was smoking cigarettes and didn't want to get caught. But
if I left my room, I was chased right back
in with the threat that if I tried to leave again,
she would hurt me. There are a few other little
things here and there. I wasn't allowed to watch TV

(33:43):
shows she liked, or eat any kind of food or
candy that she liked. I always had to play games
that she wanted to play. I wasn't allowed to climb
a certain tree in our backyard past a certain point,
but she and my cousin could. She never let me
sleep in my own bed. I always had to sleep
in the bed with her, and she'd push me off

(34:03):
the bed with her legs. Anyway, when I'd try to
go back to my room, she'd scream, cry, and try
to hit me until I came back. I'm sure she's
done countless other things that I'm just blocking out, but
it really did feel like being raised with a controlling
tyrant of an older sister. Story twenty. Not a sibling,
but a parent. My father was diagnosed with schizophrenia when

(34:25):
I was about nine years old. He was a stay
at home dad since my mom had the better paying job.
I have two siblings. My sister was always the one
terrorized by my father, and my brother was the child
that he spent most time with. I mostly remember one
incident where my sister was coming home from school, having
already eaten because we could never be sure if we

(34:46):
would be fed that day. That time he had cooked.
My sister told him that she wasn't hungry, and he
became aggressive toward her. She was lucky to have gotten
out of the way before he could reach her, but
our kitchen door did not survive. My brother, on the
other had experienced even worse parenting. He never really had friends,
and since my father never let him play alone, he

(35:07):
now gets extremely angry when my mom doesn't allow him
to use the PlayStation. He has grown very entitled. After
the incident with the kitchen door, I started thinking about
how I could get rid of him, to save my
family from him. He did have a psychiatrist, but he
did not trust them and never took his medication because
he chose to self treat with alcohol. He once told

(35:28):
me it was healthier to be an alcoholic than to
be addicted to psychiatric medication. At that point, I didn't
have the energy to argue with him anymore. I asked
my mom to divorce him, but she was sure they
would get shared custody and feared that he would pick
us up drunk or crash his car into a tree
with us in it. I became really depressed and helpless
because the only way we could ever seem to be

(35:48):
free of him was if he wasn't around anymore. I
cried myself to sleep for the next year because of that.
This might sound harsh, but we were so relieved when
he took his own life when I was sixteen. Since then,
my mom only works halftime and found a better workplace
where she makes the same amount of money as before.
We finally got to eat regularly, and I gained ten kilos,

(36:11):
finally reaching a healthy BMI instead of being underweight. I
still struggle with romantic relationships, but with my current partner
it has gotten a lot better. My first relationship was
a nightmare, but that's a different story. Story twenty one.
I wonder if my brother has a serious personality disorder
because he has never really expressed remorse. He hit me

(36:34):
and called me a lot of names when I was
a kid. We have an eight year age gap, so
I was always on the receiving end. He plays a
lot of mind games to get people upset, ranging from
telling my family to all come to the house when
I was nine just so he could inform them in
a group that I was fat. He does things to
provoke people, he discards them when they serve no value

(36:54):
to him. A great example is my aunt. He used
to talk about harming her and called her awful name,
but if she had money, he was sweet as honey
to her. The moment she stepped out the door, she
was back to being someone he insulted. He also habitually
lies about things he owns, and it's not even because
he lacks money. He makes over one hundred thousand dollars

(37:16):
a year. He lies to people who are factory workers
about owning boats, four wheelers, or basically anything they have
talked about wanting. He has done things like take money
and refuse to pay it back, sell an engine hoist
he was borrowing from a family member, have me landscape
his whole yard and refuse to pay, and laugh about
making my grandparents go bankrupt after they co signed a

(37:37):
car for him when he was eighteen. Honestly, we are
all probably lucky. My brother is so successful in his field.
He even has a wife and a dog, but he
has an unhealthy fascination with violence. In my opinion, he
loves horror films for the gore, jokes about slaughter house scenes,
used to watch disturbing videos of real people dying, and

(37:58):
as a kid, harmed animals for fun. I remember him
making a pile of more than a dozen blackbirds he
had shot and topping it off with a goldfinch. I
also remember him talking about harming animals and other cruel ways.
He is also strangely obsessed with criticizing how women actor dress,
despite not being raised in a house that would instill
that value. He's incredibly meticulous. His house and room have

(38:21):
always been spotless and very organized. He used to get
really upset when his friends moved any of his toys
or touched his things. The worst part probably is that
he's not only relatively attractive, but he's also mastered masking.
He can be charming, he can appeal to people by
talking about shelter dogs. He can lead in business. He
can fit in almost anywhere, but he doesn't want to.

(38:45):
He doesn't have friends because he sees them as tiring
or stupid. He views nearly all social aspects of life
as drains a network to get to a goal. But
I think the peak of my brother's cruelty was when
he broke up with his first long term girlfriend after
years together. He openly messaged his current wife while still
with the other girl, literally while she cried and asked

(39:07):
him to stop acting like she wasn't even there. My
mom had to tell the girl to leave my brother
because she wouldn't do it herself. After the breakup, my
brother began parading around the fact that she had been
abused as a child, using it to insult her. He
laughed about it. She was the kind of person who
went out of her way to help others and volunteer
in her community, someone who was sweet and innocent and

(39:29):
loved him entirely, and she meant nothing to him. Story
twenty two. He may not be as bad as some
siblings in this thread, but my brother is still pretty bad.
I believe he's bipolar or something similar because he gets
angry very easily and out of nowhere, but my parents
have never had him tested. A few years back, he

(39:51):
got mad, threw one of my shoes at me, and
busted a hole in my wall. All he got for
that was a stern talking to from my parents yelled
at them in return. Another time, he threw an airsoft
gun at me and dented my bedframe. When I get
an attitude with him because he's annoying me, he goes
on a huge rant about how I have an attitude

(40:11):
problem and tells my parents they need to do something
about me, because once the real world hits and I
get an attitude with the wrong person, I'm going to
get punched in the face. He also puts me down
when I try to make a joke around his friends
we share a friend group, saying I'm just trying to
show off in front of them or act cool. Recently,
when I change my hairstyle from the one I'd had

(40:33):
all my life, he said it looked dumb. Now that
I have a job and a little spending money, he'll
ask me what I want to do with it, and
when I tell him I want to build a PC,
he goes on about how I should spend my money
on something that lasts and not something that will only
last me a year. He even suggested I buy a
project vehicle he found so we could work on it together.

(40:56):
Sorry if this is long and hard to understand, but
once I started. All these things came flooding back, and
I wanted to get them off my chest. The only
people I talked to about it are my friends, and
they're probably tired of hearing about it. Story twenty three.
My sister played the victim for our entire childhood. She
never lifted a finger to clean, and my parents didn't

(41:17):
seem to care. She once choked me with a charger
cable because I wouldn't make her a sandwich. I punched
her in the face once for throwing a chicken strip
at me. When I was younger, she used to physically
intimidate me, pushing me while berating me and saying things
like what are you going to do? Then I joined
weight training and eventually pushed her out of my doorway
into hers. She once tried to take her own life

(41:39):
by swallowing every pill in the cabinet. My parents responded
by buying her a car. Soon after, she got intoxicated
and convinced me she was sober enough to drive. She
asked me to give her my phone so she could
go get hers. She was fifteen, I was twelve or thirteen.
I hid the car keys, but eventually gave them to her.
She went on a high speed chase and ended up

(42:01):
hitting someone. I had both house phones with the ringers
turned all the way down, waiting for her to call me.
When the phone lit up and it said police department.
My heart sank. I answered and they told me she
was in the hospital. I had to wake my mom up.
I felt like it was my fault. My parents then
enrolled her in cosmetology school after that event. The guilt

(42:22):
I carried from that lasted years. That event affected our
family's life tremendously, financially and in countless other ways. Nothing
was the same after she went through court and CPS
got involved. Eventually she spiraled into using hero and meth.
She's now in such a fragile mental state that she
says she can't listen to the white noise from a

(42:43):
fan because it opens the door for demons in her mind.
I moved to Texas two years ago and I will
never go back. The guilt still lingers. Story twenty four.
My older sister has never been diagnosed because if you
bring up therapy, she takes it as a personal attack.
She's twenty eight, only a year and a half older
than me, and after years of putting up with her

(43:05):
abuse because that's just how she is. Thanks Mom and Dad.
I haven't had contact with her in over a year.
I tried explaining to her that she's been emotionally abusing
both me and my mom, but she's never taken responsibility
or apologize. I've endured being punched in the face and
having my glasses broken because I changed the radio station

(43:26):
in front of one of my friends, to being told
nobody cares about me and that I should just keep quiet.
The last time I had contact with her, we were
both visiting our parents. I was there to see a
specialist for a chronic pain condition. My sister woke me
up at six thirty am by singing at the top
of her lungs and slamming doors. I told my mom

(43:47):
I might switch rooms, and since my sister had a
friend coming to stay, my mom mentioned it. My sister exploded,
claiming I was keeping her up at night skyping my partner.
I explained that he worked at four am and was
in bed by six, but she replied, well, two years ago,
you did. I stood up and left the room, and
she started screaming that it was our mom's fault. I

(44:08):
didn't like her because Mom coddled me. That was the
last straw she's reached out since, but I ignore her. She
only acts this way with me and my mom. She
lives on a different continent, so it's easy to cut
her out, and I'm a much happier person without her.
In my life Story twenty five, my mother is a
huge narcissist. Her favorite thing was gas lighting and projecting

(44:31):
onto others. The day I'd finally had enough was when
she kept burating my disabled sister while extremely drunk. I
told her to please just go to bed. She turned
her anger on me and said, you're not even a
real woman. You hate her, You wish she was dead
in a ditch. Nothing good ever came out of my
relationship with your stupid, worthless father, not even you. No

(44:55):
man will ever love you or give you children because
you're not a real woman. She has seven children, each
with different fathers. She resented my oldest sister in a
wheelchair because she had her at seventeen and was forced
to take care of her throughout her young adult life
until she got in trouble for drugs. It took her
two years to talk to me again after that night,

(45:16):
and even then it wasn't to apologize. She wanted to
know why I hadn't talked to her and how I
could be so bitter toward her. She's not really part
of my life anymore. Occasionally she asks for money, which
I never give her. She gets mad, calls me selfish,
and then we don't speak for weeks. I'm doing well
for myself now, while she and my stepfather struggle financially

(45:39):
due to their poor money management. They like to pretend
it's my problem. I'm happier with them at a distance,
and my sister lives with me now. Story twenty six.
My two years older brother thirty five, is most definitely
a narcissist and possibly a sociopath. When we were young,
he would manipulate me into doing his bidding. He was

(45:59):
lazy in controlling, and with divorced parents who didn't intervene,
I became something he could control. My belongings were his belongings,
and my low self esteem made me compliant. He hit
me and threatened me countless times if he didn't get
what he wanted. In high school, I began to distance
myself from him. We moved between houses each week because
of shared custody. I hated it, especially at Dad's. Dad

(46:24):
was stubborn, uncompromising, and the reason for the divorce. He
and my brother would argue endlessly, and I'd be forced
to stay at the table and listen. My brother blamed
everything around him for his problems, while I believed everything
was my fault. My parents ignored every request to separate us.
When he left for university, it was the best time

(46:44):
of my life. Holidays were when I realized how much
I liked him not being around. My parents eventually noticed too,
only after he started treating them badly. Summers when he
moved back home were the same as before. Later my
parents convinced me to attend the same universe. There, he
became a womanizer. His looks and vanity gave him a

(47:04):
reputation that affected me socially. I remember hitting it off
with a girl, only for her to lose interest when
she learned he was my brother. After leaving university, we
had little contact until our parents talked us into living
together in an apartment. It lasted about a year. He
ate my food, barged into my room, tried to make
me pay more rent, did drugs with friends in our home,

(47:26):
and let friends sleep in my bed when I was away.
The last straw was finding my bed full of sand
from the beach. He denied it, and when told to
clean it, he just put my sheets in the dryer
and left them there. From then on, I've had minimal
contact with him. I blame my parents for enabling him.
We don't talk and he will never set foot in
my house. He's probably slept with over three hundred women,

(47:47):
and my mom still hopes for a grandchild. He recently
moved to my town, but we will never meet up.
Growing up with him damaged me, but it also made
me determined to be the opposite of what he is.
It's part of why I'm moving into lawlaw enforcement to
protect those who can't protect themselves. Story twenty seven. She
always made me do everything for her when we were
growing up, and if I didn't listen to her or

(48:09):
put up any form of argument, she would berate me,
telling me I was worthless and that nobody actually loved
me or ever would. When you hear that almost every
day as a child, you start to believe it. It
eventually led to self harm, and when my mom and
she found out, instead of asking what was wrong or
trying to help, She told me that all I ever
did was ruin her life. Because of her, I developed

(48:32):
not only self esteem issues, but also serious social problems.
She would insist that I go everywhere with her, and
if I ever wanted to hang out with friends without her,
she would berate me again. Now it's difficult for me
to make friends because I constantly think nobody actually likes me,
even if they say they do. I trust almost no one.
That's just part of it. Narcissists are extremely toxic, and

(48:55):
the full list of what she's done is too long
to write here. Everyone always says siblings fight, it's just
what happens. But no, not like this. Siblings shouldn't make
you feel worthless. Story twenty eight. My sister is a narcissist,
and growing up with her was like living with a
control freak. She's actually my younger sister, but that never

(49:17):
stopped her from needing to be in charge of everything.
She constantly tore others down to make herself feel superior.
If new kids moved into the area, she would insult
and belittle me to them. I had a stutter for
most of my life, and she used it to mock me,
telling other kids I was stupid. Because of her, I
never had many friends, and the few I did have,

(49:37):
she would go out of her way to bad mouth, insult,
and ruin those friendships. She always had to get her
way completely. If I was playing a video game and
she wanted to play, our parents made me stop and
play with her. But it was never about joining in.
She didn't want to play the game I was playing
or wait for me to finish. She had to be
player one. And if she didn't get that, she'd cry
to our parents that I wasn't letting her play, and

(50:00):
then none of us got to play anything. This wasn't
when we were little kids. It was when we were
eleven and twelve years old. Even now, she insults anyone
and anything she doesn't like, But if you dare insult
her or her friends, she'll explode, yelling and tearing into you.
Her favorite TV show is Lost, and if you say
anything negative about it, she'll scream at you. She keeps

(50:23):
a mental record of people's failures, ready to bring them
up at any moment. If you get a new job,
a promotion, or even answer a trivia question correctly when
she doesn't know the answer, she'll immediately tell you you suck,
followed by a list of your past mistakes. My ex
girlfriends and my ex wife can't stand her. My friends
can't tolerate her. Some family members have chosen not to

(50:46):
associate with her at all. Her oldest child is about
to turn eighteen, and we've told them, if you want
to move in with your grandfather after you turn eighteen,
will help you pack because my sister is passing her
toxic behavior to her kids. Story twenty nine Funny You
should mention it because I've recently come to the conclusion
that i should break ties with my sister. She is

(51:08):
absolutely a narcissist and shows traits that aligned with sociopathy,
though I wouldn't say she's completely one or the other.
Since I'm still in the process of distancing myself, I
might recognize more of it later. For now, I'll share everything,
as this is still ongoing and has a lot of backstory.
I've always made excuses for her because her behavior seemed

(51:30):
to make sense to me. We have different fathers, and
she's several years older than me. My father is my
mother's current husband. While things weren't always perfect, my parents
were amazing overall. My dad went through a rough patch
and struggled with illness, which made him short tempered at times,
but he was never violent or cruel. My sister, however,

(51:50):
experienced neglect from her own father and at times from
both my mom and my dad when she was younger.
Because of this, I excused a lot of her behavior.
I also had my own struggles. I went through severe
mental health issues after surviving abuse and spending my teenage
years in a toxic relationship. While I managed to get
out and receive treatment, I'm still vulnerable when stressed, which

(52:14):
has been the case this past year. During this time,
my sister seemed to be trying to get her life
in order. She has two children whom I love dearly,
and a husband who honestly isn't the best person. She
picked up working out as a hobby. She changes interests often,
so at first no one took it too seriously, but
this one stuck. Maintaining a good relationship with her has

(52:36):
always been important to me, and I've gone above and
beyond to make her happy, spending thousands on gifts, trips, events,
and even baby sitting almost every night when she was
separated from her husband. Whenever she was struggling, I dropped
everything to be there for her. She would be grateful
for a few days, but then it was as if
it never happened. I often blame myself, thinking if she

(52:59):
didn't love me, it must have been something I did wrong. Recently,
while I was in a fragile state, she began posting
constant workout updates. Because I'd survived a life threatening eating disorder,
these posts were triggering for me. I didn't bring it
up to her directly. Instead, I went to my mom
for advice. My mom, concerned, mentioned it to my sister.

(53:22):
My sister's reaction was explosive. She accused us of not
being happy for her and of ignoring her progress. That
reaction alone would have been one thing, but she escalated
by posting about it publicly on social media, mocking the
idea that her fitness journey could be triggering, and making
snide comments about it. Her friends chimed in agreeing with her.

(53:44):
This was when something clicked in me. I realized this
reaction was extreme for such a minor issue, and I
started remembering incidents I had buried, like the time she
hit me with a wet towel in front of her friends,
pulling up my sleeves to reveal self harm scars, telling
people about my trauma without my consent, mocking my mental
health online, and even making fun of my eating disorder

(54:07):
at our grandfather's funeral. She has been gaslighting and humiliating
me for years, and I had mistaken it for normal
sibling rivalry. I considered confronting her, thinking it was a
communication problem, but my mom warned me that if it
went badly, my sister would retaliate and make my life miserable.
I waited until after my wedding to decide. Even at

(54:29):
my wedding, she rolled her eyes, made jokes at my expense,
and complained about everything behavior that other guests also noticed.
If it weren't for her children, i'd cut contact completely.
But I love those kids and I won't abandon them. Instead,
I've decided to keep my life private from her. She
doesn't know about my upcoming surgery, and if I ever

(54:50):
get pregnant, she'll only find out when everyone else does.
Any information I give her ends up twisted and used
against me, and I refuse to let it happen anymore.
This might not be the most extreme story out there,
but for anyone dealing with something similar, whether it's a
family member or a friend. Please know this. It is abuse.

(55:11):
You don't deserve it, and you do not have to
tolerate it. Story thirty. My brother is both a narcissist
and a psychopath. I have never seen anyone get away
with as much as he has. He can be incredibly
charming and fun when there's something in it for him,
and then become a complete, raging nightmare the next moment.

(55:32):
I developed a fear of water for years because he
used to push me under whenever we went swimming. I
became claustrophobic because he would lock me in the trunk
of our mom's car for hours. Things like that happen
so often that I still flinch when someone so much
as raises a hand near me, because I can't forget
how he used to hurt me in every way he

(55:52):
could When we were children. He harmed both me and
our cousin in ways I was too afraid to talk about.
The Fear of speaking out kept me silent for years.
His need to control others was unmatched. He once took
my laptop and my console's power cord when he thought
I was acting out, and refused to return them no
matter what my mom or I said. He's stolen countless items,

(56:14):
including our mom's engagement rings, from both my dad and stepdad,
and sold them to feed his drug habit. He took
thousands from her credit card and more than a thousand
from me. He is a master manipulator, always managing to
make me look like the unstable one to our family.
Only a few close friends know the truth about him.

(56:34):
Even now, in our twenties, my family still doesn't see
the reality of the person he is. He's been in
jail more times than I can count, yet somehow manipulates
the system to avoid long term consequences. Once, when he
had a warrant out for his arrest, he was high
and threatened to take his own life in front of
me because I wasn't doing what he asked, even though
his request made no sense. Despite that, he makes cruel

(56:58):
jokes about mental health ruggles and crimes against women, as
if those topics are entertaining. One of his former friends
once told me they used to make disturbing comments about
me and our mom when they hung out. Even as
an adult, I am afraid for my safety. I hate
him with every ounce of my being. He has shown
me that there is real malice in the world. I

(57:19):
can't even fully describe the destruction and pain he leaves
in people's lives, especially mine. He is living proof that
some people bring nothing but chaos and misery wherever they go.
Story thirty one. Ironically, I came across this post right
after a fight with my sister. It's unsettling how similar
these stories are to my own experiences growing up with

(57:40):
a narcissistic older sibling. I recently got married, and as
I enter this new phase of life, I've decided I
no longer want her in it. I've kept her at
a distance, even after all the childhood trauma she caused,
but in adulthood it's become worse than ever. She's an
energy drain, constantly saying or doing the most ridiculous things

(58:01):
to grab attention around my new family. She's never been
genuinely supportive or helpful. Everything is about appearances on social media,
showing off this supposedly perfect life the reality. Her husband
recently filed for divorce after an incident of domestic violence
where she lashed out physically. She's also an absent parent,

(58:22):
often gone all day or taking week long solo trips
for fun. My young nephew actually prefers when she's not
around because she makes him anxious. My brother in law,
whom I've grown close to, now has custody of their
child and has a restraining order against her, which is
honestly the best thing for my nephew's future. I'm committed
to supporting both of them because beyond being the closest

(58:45):
family they have, I genuinely love and care for them.
Every time she's around, I feel nothing but anger and resentment.
She lies constantly, and I no longer trust her. I
dislike the version of myself that comes out when she's present,
not who I want to be for my family. Even
on my wedding day, she started drama for no reason,

(59:05):
barging into a space where my groomsmen were hanging out
and creating a scene. It was embarrassing, and my friends
finally saw the dynamic I had tried to hide for years.
My wife supports my decision to cut ties. I'm finally
accepting that I need to do this to protect my
mental health and move forward. The part I struggle with
is the guilt. She has serious mental health conditions, and

(59:27):
part of me feels a responsibility to help her, but
every suggestion I've given for her own benefit has been ignored.
All my advice falls on deaf ears. It's a painful conflict,
wanting to protect myself by cutting her off, yet feeling
a moral obligation to help because she's family. I'm learning
that sometimes, no matter how much you want to save someone,

(59:48):
you can't force them to change