my teaparty sister threatened me last week

[magical thyme]

I tend to avoid her phone calls because I've learned that when she calls she really is just looking for a fight, or looking to disrupt my life and hurt me somehow. But sooner or later, I have figured I just have to take the call and get through it.

For example, a year ago she called me just ahead of a week of finals for the Med Lab Tech program I was in. The first thing I told her was that I had just learned the night before that after 2 years in a nursing home, my SO of nearly 30 years had just died of early onset Alzheimers. She offered condolences and then really really quickly moved on to the point of her call, which was to yell teaparty political nonsense at me for 2 hours while I begged her to let me go. I had a headache and needed to study for finals. She claimed she was trying to help me, that this would make me "feel better."

She is nuts, however, basically all this was also just a couple months ahead of the teaparty idjits holding congress hostage and causing the US credit rating downgrade. And although she wasn't specific in her claims during that call, in hindsight it became clear that was the government takeover she was yelling was going to happen.

I have learned to tread very carefully around her because she will do anything to cause disruption. Basically, 65 years old and emotionally stuck at toddler age. So last week's call started out with her taking little personal digs and me just laughing about them and moving on, until we both were laughing and having a normal conversation. And then suddenly she started ranting about the poor Catholic Church, and I said I just think all churches should pay taxes and then they can do what they want. And then she started ranting about something else, and I said I thought the root of the problem was that we had been in a "sweet spot" for a couple hundred years, with unlimited resources and exceptionally good climate. But that we were running up against limits in both resources and climate.

And then she threatened me, snarling viciously that "as long as you believe that, you will lose everything and you will never have a nice life." Her tone wasn't concern about me making what she thought were choices based on bad info. Her tone was seriously threatening.

I was incredulous, repeated back to her in my own words what she had said, eg "Are you saying that when I walk out my door and am covered with ticks that 10 years ago we didn't have, when I walk into my garden and plants are growing that never lived this far north, when we have patients with tropical diseases at our hospital...and I believe it's cause by climate change, that I believe what I am seeing with my own eyes, is a changing climate...that will cause me to lose everything and not have a nice life?!?!"

"That's right. and....." again in a vicious, snarling, attacking tone.

Rinse, repeat. For the first time in my life, I ceased to accommodate her insanity and yelled at her, then slammed down the phone. I don't know exactly how she meant that my beliefs would cause me to "lose everything" but it was clear that she was threatening me with....something.

Needless to say, I will not take her calls any more, should any come. She claimed to have sent me a letter, but a week later nothing has arrived (probably not capable of addressing it correctly...) But that is not the reason for this post.

I've had a week to process this latest development in her behavior. I think the teaparty nuts are planning more insanity, something big. They really are trying to take the country down. Their way, period, and it's all out war. That's what's putting her so much on the offensive.

They are at war with the rest of us. They will sink to any level, as evidenced by my sister's attack ahead of finals week, trying to cause me to fail at a critical juncture. They are the minority and they cannot win, but that doesn't mean they can't inflict damage, and that they will continue trying to inflict damage over and over.

They don't expect to win in a knockout blow. They are trying to kill us with the death of a thousand cuts. And they undoubtedly have a shitstorm of some type planned for the elections. It's a critical juncture...

[maryellen99]

1. These people are nuts

First, I am so sorry about the loss of SO and hope you did well on your exam.

These people are crazy. For example, I was checking out something on Sam's club and saw the year supply of emergency food. Some of the reviews stated they bought it due to fear of Obama getting reelected. Do these idiots really think if that POS Romney gets elected,things will magically go back to the way they were?

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Why in God's name

did you let her rant at you for 2 hours on the phone?

Why not…

"I'm sorry. I don't really have time right now to delve into your psychopathology." *click*

[JHB]

11. Many people endure much for family...

...though even that has limits, and I think the OP's sister has sailed past them at high speed, despite being given more than enough chances.

You don't have to burn the bridge, but sometimes you have to make it a drawbridge and raise it until there's some sign of hope.

[lunasun]

35. I always claim I am very busy to relatives I want to avoid and will call back

and then do not.
If they press me I lie and if they think I am lying then I hope they can add 2+2 = find someone else to listen to your bullshit whatever the subject
I am pretty clean now. A creepy nephew recently showed up but it took only 1 day for him to know I do not want to here you and he wont be back i am betting

She wont change - you wont change end of equation

or freak her with something like you think she fell from God's grace now and at this point you will pray for her but can not talk to her and hear evil transgressions spoken.

Hit her up for a big cash loan-anything to get rid of her> esp. if this stuck with you days later - that is a psychological assault you had to heal from-do not talk to her.!!!

[drm604]

3. Can you just hang up the phone?

When she starts on a 2 hour rant, can you just say "someone's at the door" or "I have a pot boiling over" and hang up? Or maybe you can pretend that the connection's bad and you can't hear her.

That's just a suggestion. I obviously don't know your family situation.

[Jackpine Radical]

24. Personally, I don't favor bogus excuses.

Much better to train her on what you will & won't listen to.

[obamanut2012]

29. +1

"Sorry, I don't have time for this. I'll talk to you later, Sister."

Click.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Two hours?

I'd give it 20 seconds, and the next sound she'd hear would be *Click*

[Harry Monroe]

5. I have a brother like this

Right wing idiot. I cut ties with him years ago and only see him when I have to (family functions and the like). I don't regret it, it was a toxic relationship and there was no reasoning with him.

[Zalatix]

6. This is why I believe in the right to keep and bear arms.

After the 2012 elections there'll be a Tea Party shitstorm and it will kill a lot of people before there is an effective crackdown. One of them won't be me or my family.

[leftynyc]

14. Amen

I know exactly who I need to protect myself from.

[hobbit709]

7. Why do you put yourself through this?

Nothing yu say or do will change her, so just hang up or don't answer.
I have enough problems in my life that I can do something about, so I don't waste my time on those I can't.

[liberal N proud]

8. We all have members of the family that are like this

My 50 year old brother told my 89 year old father he was going to go to hell because he was Catholic and a Democrat.

My father who is a WWII vet told him the reason he fought was for freedom of speech and freedom of religion and that he had no right to tell anyone else what they should believe.

They get this indoctrination that teaches them to evangelizes both politics and religion.

[avebury]

9. I am so sorry for the loss of your SO and hope that

all went well on your finals. I am amazed that you let her rag on you for 2 hours. Life is just too short to listen to nuts. If you want to take her calls you might consider setting the phone down when she goes off the deep end and go do something else. If she wants to rant, let her do it to dead air.

[JHB]

10. Sorry to say, your sister has joined a cult

It may be political rather than (overtly) religious, but the behavior patterns are the same.

[magical thyme]

12. why did I let her rant?

I was numb with grief and exhaustion. She was my only family connection after a 25 year hiatus, and I wasn't ready to give up being part of a family. And in childhood, I was as well trained to sit and take both physical and mental abuse as she was to dish it out.

Abusers stun you and shock you into paralysis with their first blows, and then just keep hitting. What I have come to understand in the past week is she is a serial abuser.

This time, I hit back. She kept throwing punches -- no longer hitting anything because I couldn't hear a word she was saying at that point -- until I hung up the phone. She is out of my life again, this time for good.

And that is what the teapartiers are. Serial abusers that stun and shock with their first blows, and then never stop swinging until they are cut off completely. Maybe they need to be in straight jackets, rubber rooms and heavily drugged?

Edited to add I did well on my finals and graduated summa cum laude.

[Ilsa]

15. I am very sorry for your losses,

your late SO, and now again your sister.

I have a sister that gets irrational. She'll keep calling to repeat something because she thinks everyone else is too stupid to understand it in one sentence. Then she figures out that I don't have time for her nonsense when I send her calls to voicemail.

Your sister has become irrational because of the teaparty paranoids. They are convinced that Obama is going to bring down the country to the point where everyone will have to be able to grow their own food and store their own water.

[Jackpine Radical]

26. I think they're right about the food & water.

Only not on account of Obama. He's doing what he can to sustain an unsustainable system, but between climate change-related disasters, peak oil (think the end of oil-based fertilizer, pesticides, cheap plastic, etc.) & destruction of the aquifers via fracking, it will all come crashing down at some point. The question will then be whether the plutocrats can keep enough of an SS force (in the German Schußstaffel meaning of SS) going to suppress us.

I have a teabagger friend (yes, really; the guy I always refer to here as My Favorite Wingnut) who has a bunch of "tactical" weapons and a supply of canned food & water, plus cash money. He's ex-law enforcement, so he always buys guns on the presumption that he's going to need to be prepared to blow someone away at 20 feet or less. All his LE training told him that most gunfights with thugs occur at that range, so that's what he's prepared for. He expects an economic collapse, but not the GW disaster.

I take his whole position as evidence of the lack of imagination that pervades the Tea Party.

He stores food, we store seeds. He has a large-magazine automatic rifle, and I have a .22 pellet gun for small game. He pays $20 for 20 rounds of ammunition, and I pay $20 for 1,000 pellets.

[magical thyme]

39. that's exactly what I was going to reply

they got it half right for the wrong reasons.

Being able to grow much of your own food is a good long-term strategy, for all the reasons you mentioned.

My state, Maine, is working toward being 100% able to produce its own food, for those reasons. I'm growing using some seeds I saved from last year for the first time. Luckily organic is strong here too.

[jwirr]

49. One reason to have some extra food, etc. is the rising prices. Did Maine get the idea of state

self-sufficiency from Rodale? I remember he wanted to look at this way back in the 70s and I think he lived in Maine.

[magical thyme]

50. I don't know

all I know is that the University of Maine periodically reports on the state's ability to provide for itself. About 80% in the last report. And I read an article not long ago about Somerset County back in the 1800s was called "the breadbasket of New England" and supplied Boston's flour.

Last time I looked, they also were following N. Dakota's lead in having a state bank. It was strictly to fund state business, but was due to N. Dakota riding out the financial and jobs loss storm largely due to its having state banks.

I think their goal toward self-sufficiency is driven by peak oil. They may not admit it, but politicians have been well aware of it for along time. In fact, I think a lot of political drivers today are climate change and peak oil...no matter whether they're deniers. It's not by chance that W bought 10,000 acres sitting on top of the world's largest pure water aquifer.

[jwirr]

51. I envy you - as far as I know all of the move toward localization here in MN is an individual effort

and the state is ignoring it.

[BanzaiBonnie]

16. Exactly, MT

What you just said.


Take care of yourself. I love you.

[magical thyme]

18. back at ya

I love you too, Banzai...

[lunatica]

17. Don't feel defensive because some DUers don't understand abuse

They're really on your side, just misguided with their advice.

Congratulations on graduating Summa Cum Laude.

I haven't talked to nor do I ever plan to deal with my sister since 2010 and then only to let her know our mother died. When she became a born again Christian she finally went over the edge after years of abuse. She wrote me a letter describing in great gleeful detail how I was going to go to Hell and exactly how I was going to be tortured and suffer for eternity.

Just because they're family it doesn't mean you have to put up with them. you were right to avoid her calls all along. Just keep doing it.

[KurtNYC]

37. I'm not so sure this was about the Tea party, seems more like a relationship dynamic

that she was asserting.

First off, good for you that you understand this as abuse and you set limits. I'm going to speculate that she is older than you and probably a first born. First borns tend to be less flexible in their approach to the world and they are more comfortable in the role of leader than the role of team member. But this seems to go way beyond that.

Talking politics is not intimacy; it may avoid talking about things that are underneath this abusive relationship while adopting the tone and dynamic of the prior abuse. Some people who rant on the phone about 3rd party issues will sort of break out of that after 5 minutes, or more and suddenly say what is really disturbing them personally. I like that you tried to have a meaningful conversation with her and you have the patience of a saint apparently but maybe she is a rage-aholic. Some people get addicted to anger and the adrenaline and intensity that comes with it. In my experience the best partner for a rage-aholic is another rage-aholic.

My heart goes out to you. Stay strong. Know your limits and don't go 2 hours again if the conversation really isn't going to go someplace more satisfying for YOU.

[magical thyme]

40. wow. good speculation and right on all points, but one...

Once she's on a rampage, she never seems to break out of the 3rd party issues. The tea party gives her a focus for her rage.

I don't know if her husband is a rage-aholic. The two times I've been in their home (the last time was about 30 years ago) he mostly seemed hang-dog and following her around trying to calm her down. Sadly like I still occasionally fall into when somebody I'm close too loses it, although now I have mostly given up my former role as peacemaker and simply prefer to disappear to a quieter place and let them rage on their own.

I expect they are following our parents dynamic, with my mother being the rage-aholic and my workaholic father either trying to reason with her or tuning her out.

There won't be any 2 hour runs any more. Relationships are like bank accounts. I quietly closed her account 30 years ago because her withdrawals vastly exceed her deposits. I only re-opened the account because she had recurrent cancer and didn't expect it to go into remission and to see if she'd grown up at all. So this was a trial period, she again is short on deposits and long on withdrawals, and her cancer is in remission.

She has nothing to offer me on any terms, not companionship, conversation, or ideas, and I will not be her whipping boy.

[We Want Peace]

55. "Abusers stun you and shock you into paralysis with their first blows, and then just keep hitting."

yes, and that is exactly what they did to us nationally as well 'Shock and Awe' ..now everyone is suffering from learned helplessness.

I am so sorry about your SO, and about having no real family support throughout your life, particularly during these ugly times in our nation.

It is incredibly crushing, but KNOW you are not alone.

WE are the change we want to see in this world, and WE WILL PREVAIL.

These dinosaurs are in their last throes, that is why they are so desperate.

And if they have any belief in God whatsoever, deep down they know she is going to be really pissed off at them and that is why they lash out at the innocent.

[lookingfortruth]

13. First of all I am sorry for your loss a year ago-my mom had a cousin who died from that as well.

Secondly--I wouldn't be surprise if the tea party nuts did something. I don't trust them not to try something bad this election. They have gotten angrier and more threatening these past few months than I've seen before.


I honestly think they are hearing BS propaganda from groups like Prosperity for America and that Jay Seklow ACLJ crap and it is taking them over the edge.

[surrealAmerican]

19. Looking for clues to the impending actions of the republican party in your sister's ranting ...

... is akin to reading tealeaves. She doesn't know anything. The "pundits" who whip her into these frenzies know very little themselves.


I'm sorry you have to deal with this. Your sister sounds like a very unhappy and sadistic person. She's the one in this story who "will never have a nice life".

[NNN0LHI]

20. Whenever I get a call like that I start yawning very loudly into the phone

After only a couple of minutes of doing that the person on the other end usually starts yawning too and feels a need to hang up and take a nap.

Seems to work every time.

The power of suggestion is strong.

Don

[catbyte]

21. I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your SO

but I congratulate your strength at cutting off your toxic sister. I know it's probably difficult after so long a separation, but some family members just aren't worth the headache or heartache.



Take care,

Diane
Anishinaabe in MI & mom to Leo, Taz & Nigel, members of Dogs Against Romney, Cat Division
"Dogs Aren’t Luggage Even Though They Are Lower Life Forms--HISS!”

[get the red out]

22. Tea Party = cowards

There may be some disturbances out of a limited number of kooks, and Fox and their masters may try to create screeching "town halls" again; but when the rubber hits the road the tea party are a bunch of cowards. They will certainly hope and pretend there's going to be a revolution but when it comes to getting their fat asses off the cozy couch in front of Sean Hannity and doing something dangerous, not likely.

[raccoon]

23. Sorry that happened to you. Yes, abusers can blindside you.

Some good suggestions in these responses.

[warrior1]

25. I can't add anything more

than what was said here, but she sounds like an emotional vampire. I found this on the net.


http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/prescriptions-life/201201/dont-try-reason-unreasonable-people

Don't Try to Reason with Unreasonable People
Simple strategies for dealing with mean or crazy people

Are there people in your life that you try so hard to get along with, but you somehow always leave the interaction feeling disheartened, sad, angry, or demeaned? Are there people you dread running into or spending time with because there's just something about them that strips you of your power, either provoking you into acting "crazy" (when you normally are quite a sane, nice-to-be-around person) or somehow always managing to make you give up something that's important to your well-being?

snip

more that this site.

Good luck to you.

[lunasun]

38. Good read! thanks

[obamanut2012]

27. You need to cut toxic people from your life

Especially relatives. They shouldn't be given a pass because they are relatives.

[FSogol]

53. Completely agree. n/t

[JNelson6563]

28. If this were my sister I'd hang up and ignore her, forever.

There comes a point that when someone becomes nothing but a source of constant grief that one, if wise, assesses the value of that relationship. I would not let anyone remain in my life who treats me like that. Ever.

Just ask my mom who I haven't spoken to in 18 years. Yeah, fuck that. I say "go find a willing victim as there are none here."

Julie--who urges you to add years to your life by doing similar

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. Exchange email addresses.

It removes her ability to hijack your life for 2 hours at a time.

[SoCalDem]

31. Here's something you need to watch (and maybe get her to watch)

She'll probably blow you off, but it's all explained very well and is frighteningly true

http://billmoyers.com/episode/encore-how-do-conservatives-and-liberals-see-the-world/

[ananda]

32. Well..

You're doing better staying connected with your rightwing teaparty sister
than I am with my radical liberal sister who also can't let go of childhood
stuff. We don't talk at all and live across the country from one another.
I just can't take her meanspirited critical stuff... way too attacky.

As a friend once told me nearly ten years ago. If you're over 50, it's time
to let old stuff go and evolve. I heard that and did my best to love and
get along with my sister. When that didn't work, that was that.

[snooper2]

33. You meant your teabagger sister, that's the first fix you need to do..

She's a teabagger, not a tea-party-member

Next time she calls ask her is she is still a teabagging fool...

If yes-

Tell her to call back when she learns something and hang up

[nykym]

34. Sorry for your loss

one thing I do when I get in a similar situation is to ask myself "Why am I letting this person live rent free in my head? Unless you can come up with a really good answer it's time to serve an eviction notice.

[adigal]

36. You are allowing this, so you are guilty of enabling her

This is what my therapist friend would tell me. Why don't you just hang up on her, tell her that you don't have time for her insanity. We cannot pick family, anyone who yelled at you after you lost your SO is very damaging to you. Stop being a victim and tell her to leave you alone until she behaves kindly.

I didn't talk to my brother for 5 years after a particularly abusive/cruel thing he did. I was 43 years old and he was toxic to me. I recently started talking to him because he was suicidal. He knows now not to push me, or I will walk again.

Peace.

[magical thyme]

41. no I am not.

I cut her out of my life 28 or so years ago. I allowed her back in only 2 years ago because she was fighting recurrent cancer. Since the cancer has been in remission, she has returned to behaving in her old ways on spontaneous abuse, so I have cut her out of my life again.

My concern is this:

In her 2-hour rant last year, I got the impression that she is actively involved with a tea party group. She specifically referred to a general she had been talking to, and was giggly about what was being planned. She really was expecting some sort of government shutdown/take over, and this was all just a couple months before the teaparty deficit cap showdown that nearly did shutdown the government and did cause the US to lose its AAA credit rating.

This time she wasn't giggly, she was more like a wounded animal on a rampage, and was threatening me. I don't take her threat as a personal "I'm going to get you," so much as a "believe as I order you to because we are going to get all of you." Civil war type stuff, with choose my side because we're going to crush the other side.

In other words, I suspect that whatever group it is that she identifies with, they are planning more insanity this year, at the critical juncture of the election. And they are like wounded animals. Last year will seem like a tea party. That is all.

[Gold Metal Flake]

42. "Needless to say, I will not take her calls any more, should any come."

But will you stick to that?

Family is optional. Those family members that are toxic should be tossed away, just like toxic non-family members. No difference.

Politics is the media, not the madness. Politics is just the format she uses to abuse you. The abuse is her madness. You can not and will not change that.

So, jettison that evil anchor and don't look back. Even is others beg and tell you she has changed, she will never change.

Good luck. It's hard, but what makes it hard is the guilt you unfairly put on yourself, as well as the guilt assholes will put on you with such bullshit as "blood is thicker than water".

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

43. Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.

[raouldukelives]

44. So sorry to hear of your loss.

I think you sound like a very patient and very caring sister and she is lucky to have you around. And I'm willing to bet she knows it. These are scary times. The climate, as you point out, is rapidly changing and it is because of our actions and greed. People who don't want to recognize that or who are deeply culpable lash out and look for others to tell them it's OK. That the unsustainable lifestyle and investment choices they have made that are leading us all into untold suffering are understandable. That destroying what little future the children of tomorrow will have for a little extra money now is not only fine but even admirable.
Sounds like projection of the highest order. If you believe climate change is real and want to curtail it's advance because you care about people, critters and nature itself then you are making a bad choice, will lose everything and not have a nice life. Exactly what CC is ensuring for future generations. The epitome of selfishness is knowing what you are doing is bad for others but you will realize some gain and continue doing it. We are slowly becoming surrounded by people looking to be told it's alright, that it's not their fault, that everyone invests, that making money now and letting the world burn tomorrow is our God given right. That driving giant vehicles and jet setting all over the world is fine. Well, it's not. Not anymore. I wish we lived in that world still but we don't. What we can do is try to ensure it doesn't get worse. Some of us will try, but in the end if we don't change individually it'll never stop until it's too late.

[Pisces]

45. Hang up the phone.

[HappyMe]

46. I am very sorry at the loss of your SO.

You are a far more patient and understanding person than I. After many of these type of calls, I would simply hang up. And figure out a way to block her number for a few days.

[coalition_unwilling]

47. Sorry to hear about this. I ended up parting ways with many

people I once considered 'friends' over the Iraq and Afghan wars and my firm opposition to both. I could detect, in your 'slamming down the phone' on her, echoes of my own experiences in basically writing people off whom I had once considered friends.

That subsequent events vindicate you (as I was largely vindicated re the Iraq War and its 1st cousin) hardly compensates for the pain of loss. But at least vindication is something of a consolation. Probably tougher though, when it's family.

[DCKit]

48. Seriously, would it really kill you to no longer take her calls?

I've got three sisters in various stages of mental disruption, and I've finally convinced them to not call, email or write anymore about anything not relating to our Mom's estate.

While your sister, like each of mine, has a particular mental state, the one thing they all have in common is that they're shit-stirrers. Look at her from that POV, and you'll free yourself from the emotional attachment. Yeah, she's your sister, but if you can't distance yourself from people who need to do harm to others to feel better about themselves, you're going to go down with her.

Misery may love company, but they're going to have to look beyond me for their next victim.

[magical thyme]

54. I had no contact with any of my family for over 25 years. It hasn't killed me yet.

I contacted her 2 years ago only because I got a message on my answering machine from my father that she had recurrent cancer with poor prognosis and wanted to talk to me. The loony was there, but subdued by chemo.

The cancer went into remission, her old self came back first with the 2 hour rant, after which I stopped initiating any calls to her and returned her calls only when I was up to the challenge. And then, after 2 years of working carefully on her craziness, this last attack.

We are back to no contact.

My concern, as posted a few times throughout this thread, is in her 2 hour rant she hinted at being active in, or knowing people active in, the tea party. In particular a general she was talking to. She hinted at tea party plans to bring down the government or something along those lines. A couple months later, they caused the deficit cap showdown and the ensuing mess.

I'm concerned that this latest rant points to another, pending tea party attack. But worse this time.

[hamsterjill]

52. There is a magic little button...

There is a magic little button on phones these days, that when punched, will make it all just go away.

[Odin2005]

56. She sounds mentally ill. She needs help.