My middle sister was a bitch throughout her "character development arc", which was made even harder when my late father babied her, my mom hated her guts (because they are basically the same person), and she herself had some serious mental health issues in a society where support is much more scarce and limited to people with surplus money (and more aware parents) than we did.
My youngest sister had her own mental health issues, too, due to our rather tumultuous home life. It was compounded by the sheer stress that arose in droves from the conflicts between mom and middle sis, mom and dad, and dad and middle sis. Sometimes all 3 were against me when they needed a united front moment or something.
I'm (we were?) lucky that I'm (we were?) strange in just the right way. I ended up the most functional when my siblings (and parents) struggled with their worsening mental health, which all fed on each other in a stew of chaos. I was (we were) just a kid too, and so we weren't skillful enough to always know what to do about these things, including my middle sis. That skilllessness ended up making things worse for all of us. But that consequence also made us want to be more skillful with humans in general.
Her being a bitch--whether it was because of her immaturity or toxic "this-is-self-love-fuck-your-perspective" mindset or struggling mental health or other conditions--didn't make things easier when I also had to watch over my parents' fuckery and monitor the other sis (who was the only one who gave me the least worries). I had homicidal fantasies regarding her and my parents; I really wanted to make them real. I only wanted to kill to be free... so that I could pretend I never "had a past" and could be someone new. But Fionn said if I do that, I will still not be free, because no one has "no past" and this is gonna be part of our past. One of Them then reminded me that freedom is an illusion anyway! Determinism is like that, innit?
That whole history was more than a decade of lives. Lives, as in there were so many things happening, from the very troubled to the genuinely happy-even-if-small-moments. Lives, as in they were experienced by so many different, previous versions of me that they might as well be seen as past lives. We were lucky for being strange in the right way, I think, and several past versions of me never really hated my middle sis in a personal way. We just hated moments of her.
And, well, even if some of us, and many of Them hated her... Fionn was too kind to leave her or my mom alone in their struggles, because "there is no such thing as a 'self', untethered to other persons and standing above the deterministic world it is born from" (definitely paraphrased; I'm the more erudite one between us). And so even if I run away or ignore them, these two are still going to continuously shape who I "am". Because I'm made up of everyone and everything else, including them and their actions.
I can never escape from these random housemates I'm associated with by the pure chance of the birth lottery. And even if I ignore them or dissociate with them as they destroy themselves, each other, and other collateral damage, I'll never be happy either. And because all Fionn wanted was for me to be happy...
So we kept trying to be more skillful. And my middle sis kept trying to be better too; because given the chance and the support, nobody wants to be stuck in that sort of agitated mental state for the rest of their lives either. Our relationship improved. The process was definitely a torment though. Needed the patience and perseverance and fortitude of a saint or boddhisattva or whatever-you-call-it, which none of us Lyndis was known for or had in abundance. I'm really glad I was not strictly "one" person... Wait, that's not exactly right. Uh... I'm really glad someone had those qualities because most of us sure didn't!
I think I'm lucky in a lot of ways. There are far more broken sibling/familial relationships that cannot seem to be resolved at all, chiefly because one or both or more sides simply aren't in the state to make amends no more--whether alive or dead. I don't think anyone truly desires to have strained relationships with people they know, no matter if it's friends, exes, siblings, family, coworkers, etc. So much of humans' happiness can only be found outside themselves; so much of it comes from eusociality. Relationships don't have to all be lovey-wovey-kissy-huggy; we just want them to be decent and cordial, at base.
I think I'm lucky because I'm the version who's enjoying that sort of cordial, decent relationship with my siblings, especially with my middle sis... which my previous versions had been working hard like a relay race to get here. It had felt so impossible more than a decade ago that past versions of me wanted to murder her (and our parents) just to be free from what felt like an endless agitation.
But the current me is free to a certain extent--and no murder was required.
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