I've got a younger sister who's 17 (I'm 21), and ever since going into PD (it's been about 9 months since I first read Steve's blog) I've been noticing, more and more, just how much of a negative vibe she lets off around the house, especially around me (being the closest peer, I suppose). So I'm wondering what to do about it.
Anyway, the reason I'm asking is that she's very stubborn and immature, and plays the "victim card" a lot. She makes it an almost daily habit to complain endlessly about everyone else (especially teachers, and other girls at school), and she always seems to be making excuses for why she can't achieve things. For instance, she has a test at school tomorrow, but today she said "because the teacher pissed her off" yesterday, she was making it a point not to bring her books home, so she can't study... as a kind of "revenge" against the teacher giving out the test. *Shrugs*
I'm assuming it's because she's afraid of failing, and doesn't want to accept a failure as validation for not being good enough (damage her ego/self-esteem.) So she plays the victim, blames everyone and everything else for her problems, and basically makes herself (and everyone else) believe that her life is really tough and hard. Also, I've never heard her say she was sorry, or she was wrong (I'm serious). She's very emotionally intense, has mood swings almost all the time (when I wake up each morning, I don't know whether I'll get Ms. Sunshine or the Devil Incarnate, put it that way
)
Anywho, I find I'm the complete opposite. I'm really relaxed and mature, I almost always take the responsibility for everything to do with me (I rarely, if ever, blame other people). I admit when I'm wrong, I say sorry when I'm sorry, I genuinely want to learn and find out where I'm lacking, etc. And being into PD so much lately, I find I'm only improving. So the disparity between us gets larger and larger.
It's pretty much impossible to reason with her, because she's so caught up in her own immature mind games (last night was a really big example of that) ... so i'm particularly frustrated when I try and talk to her about something, because even if i'm 100% right about something, she won't hear it. She uses me frequently in her rants and raves, about how I always get everything, and she gets nothing, and my parents love me more than her, etc, etc. It's so very not true; my parents are really, really good people. It's like she ENJOYS being a victim... I don't know, or get it.
But I find that her negativity really gets to me. I ask my parents for a favour, and she's straight away saying things like "what are you going to do for me? oh so it's okay you do things for (Holden) but not for me? oh, that's just great. oh, so you're not listening to me now? oh that's right, you never listen to me. but you always listen to (Holden) don't you? huh?" <--- just one example. She literally tries to bait my parents (and me) into arguments that validate her victimhood. She's the queen of Strawman arguments too (my parents say she'd make a great lawyer, LOL
)
I've read Steve's post about "how to deal with negative people" and the one about dealing with relatives, but I find that it's just too intense. I can't reason with her, and I can't particularly ignore her, either. I don't want to have to eat dinner in another room and completely avoid whatever room she's in. Being in the same house kinda sucks. And I don't want to have to move out just for that. If she doesn't listen to anything, and constantly sees through a stubborn, victim perspective (which she seems to like), and is always talking negative, and otherwise causing chaos in the house... what can I do? Is there anything I'm missing? I genuinely love my sister, and I would help her if I knew how. But at the moment I just feel like moving out and completely ignoring her, because the negativity
really pulls me down sometimes.