What can I do about my feelings of hatred towards my sister?

Question

She's six years older than me, but all my life she's treated me meanly. When I was little she always used to taunt me for no reason, pick on me with her friends, never want to be around me ect. Compare that to my other sister who's ten years older than me and has always been the nicer one and the one I could confide in for anything. I actually feel like I love my sister more than I do her just because she's always been there. I don't actually have a hatred towards her, but I don't want to continue on the path I'm going down because it's not healthy to hate your own family. What can I do about this? And like I said, she's not the one I can just sit down and talk to, so I don't think she'd understand.

Answer 1

You cannot change another person. But you can learn to change the way you react to them. And you can do this with the sister who is unkind to you. Apparently your "mean" sister has problems with herself and she's chosen you as her whipping post so she can get rid of her self-doubts and poor self image by being ugly to you. It's really your sister that has the problem, not you. If you can just ignore her and wait for her to mature and see how badly she's treated you, perhaps she will eventually change. Don't hate her. As you said, that's not good. But don't waste your time having hurt feelings because of the way she acts. Sometimes if a family member is not nice to you, it's necessary to just separate yourself from them as much as possible. Sometimes you have to just tell them that you do not appreciate being mistreated and while you love them, you will not tolerate their abuse and you will avoid them. Tell your parents too. THANK GOD you have another sister you can always count on. Tell her how much you love her and appreciate her!

Answer 2

Understanding her is the key to control your hatred. She was 6 when you were born. Thats the perfect age to be seething with jealousy about all the attention a newborn baby gets. At 6 she is old enough to be very aware the attention has shifted from her to you and as you grew since you were always younger you got the most attention (mainly because babies and toddlers require a lot of attention). She hates you for taking the attention from her and shes never grown out of that or matured. Her reasoning hasnt kicked in as to what her anger toward you is all about. I feel sorry for her because she cant mature and get past it. You might ask your older sis how to deal with it.

Answer 3

First, write her a letter- get out every nasty thing you've ever wanted to say- do not censor yourself at all. Put the letter in a drawer for a couple days.
Then read it again. Are you still just as angry or are you a little calmer? Either way, tear it up or burn it and write another one. Repeat this process until you've let all the anger go. It is such a relief to not have to carry around all that anger anymore- and then limit your contact with your sister. You don't necessarily have to cut her out of your life, but don't give her as many opportunities to disappoint you.

Answer 4

Im in the exact same situation as you. Except my sister is 2 years younger than me and we stopped speaking about 3 weeks ago. While we were growing up she always picked with me and then when I'd hit her back she went crying to my mom who'd beat me for hitting her even though she was always messing with me first. If she fell or got hurt through her own clumsiness my mom'd beat me for it so over the years I've grown to resent her. My parents divorced and remarried and we got step sisters...who hate me. And my sister sides with them on everything. Now its just blown apart to the point where I never want to speak to her again. I dont "hate" her...I just dont want to be bothered with her anymore.

So like I said, I feel what you're going through. Maybe you should just give your sister her space. Just because you're blood related doesnt mean you should always get along. I know its unfortunate, but at least you got that negative spirit out of your life.