This is a story about sibling rivalry and ending the cycle of abuse. Without a group discussion with guidelines and a process of cooperation amongst contracted and committed individuals, it will have to stand as one lasting perspective left to at person’s willingness to self-process. The process of family abuse and its trauma can be like that, but it doesn't have to be....
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This is a story about sibling rivalry and ending the cycle
of abuse. This is also a story about my wife Barb, who for the past 30 years
has been trying to strive beyond that and commit to a mission of loving service
to her family and her community.
Barb is a disabled woman. When I first met her she was
walking and taking care of two nieces left at her house by their mother, but by the time we got
to college she attended classes in a motorized wheelchair and taught me how to
filter my frustrations about that and how to see her as the loving person that
she is. She got a total hip replacement so she could walk down the aisle when
we got married in 1990.
She chose to be a Montessori teacher for a time until she went back on disability, is a mother to two beautiful
children, and she tries to be the best Aunt or Tia that she can be. When I chose sobriety and started my journey
of healing, we found that doing process work relieved some of the continuous physical pain that she was in. Cathartically letting go of the past allowed her to do all
the other things that she loves to do.
That path allowed us to find a diversity mission based in
Claude Steiner's love-based process of emotional literacy and transactional
analysis psychology. For 20 years we traveled the country leading trainings of
up to 20 people at a time and took on co-leadership of a global multicultural
council. We are still doing that work
today independently with permissions from the parent organization.
Here is the point: Every single group that I've seen her in
she shows up with all of her heart. Arnie Mindell wrote a book called “Deep Democracy”
that looked at group dynamics as a body. Each person in that group represents a
part of the body as a whole. In every group I have seen her in, she has
represented in many ways the heart of the group. Empathetic love, tough love, she was there
giving us what we needed to try and move forward. That is her gift. That is her
leadership.
Her family dynamics never quite caught up with that...
The Issues
During this time we also took legal custody of a nephew that needed a home. We moved into a bigger house to provide the boy a room and tried our best to make him feel at home but the previously mentioned family dynamics and sibling rivalry were always at play in the background. The committee committed to help the mother get better so she could finish raising her child. That never happened.
We raised him until he turned 18 and went back West. In many ways the boy was influenced by others to not feel as
welcome as we would have liked. That is working itself out with time but there
are quite a few regrets there. Life is like that.
At this point Barb's parents asked her and one of her older
brothers to be Co-powers of attorney for them as they planned their transitions. Like many of us plotting our later lives her
parents wanted to die at home. They asked two of their children to commit and lead in that
effort and support them. The assumption was that the brother would take over the
finances and Barb would be there with them to deal with health issues.
Because the brother was out of town and well into his career and life she wound up having to do it all. By the time her father passed away last year
she was in control of their money and their health needs because the brother
just couldn't be there. She did advise her co- power of attorney every step of the way as was
her responsibility.
The Group
At this point we need to talk about the nature of the other siblings and the group that they created. Even though the group claimed and strived to be democratic, sometimes the nature of democracy is that some people have more rights than others and some people have more access than others. Even the nature of justice is different and groups that evolve into borderline autocracy. Throw in the dysfunctional behaviors of the able-bodied to disabled and it becomes a difficult dynamic.
With respect to her parents
they wanted to control what they did, what they ate, and what Barb did. The nature of a power of attorney didn't
necessarily allow that so they used insults, infantilization, and sideways
remarks when they didn't get their way. Essentially if their idea was not
sustainable then she really couldn't commit to it, and she was doing her parent’s
wishes, not theirs. At that point, because of all the micro aggressions and overt insults she stopped communicating with the group and assumed that her brother would pass on all information to the group as he had empowered them in the first place.
The eventual impact was that one of her sisters convinced
her mother to sign a secret power of attorney and she would continually contact
the caregivers, the doctors, and start to take control of the situation behind Barb's
back.
Barb 's father passed away in February 2022.
Within 2 weeks,
during her mother's grieving period, and behind Barb's back the siblings had
her mother sign a new POA giving the group control and taking her off any
responsibilities at all from the document.
Her mother was blind and did not see what she was signing. She certainly
didn't know that she was signing away Barb's right to support her mother, but
after the fact and subject to the same kind of pressure inherent to the family
abuse they all experienced, her mother did not want to change it. Her mother knew she
was lied to but she accepted it in order to keep her peace while grieving the loss of her husband.
Barb took that opportunity to take care of herself, grieve, and
travel. She watched as the group made certain
mistakes, including leaving her mother alone during periods of time at the
house, tried to help but was served certified letters for her to
disengage.
This Christmas it was announced that her mother would be moving
into her sister’s home across the country, that the car promised to her would
be going to the elder sister, and that the home would be “given” to her younger
brother. The original will divided
assets equally. We knew this was coming.
But herein lies the impact:
The sibling rivalry group based these actions on making Barb “The
Other” so that they could convince her mother or pressure her mother to take
their side. Her mother is blind and
really has no long term context for what she says, believes, or the impact that
she is having on who was once her confidante and protector. She has said that she wishes she would die
before they take her away.
Conscious or unconscious elder abuse is another dynamic that ought to be considered, but the legal path forward is murky because her mother has accepted that the mob should rule in matters of her life and care at this point.
more to come....
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