Twisted Sister

I get told I'm crazy a lot.  I get it, I don't think I am good at acting "right" and I am often far too vocal about my failures.  I'm not special, but weird shit does tend to happen to me and I will always kiss and tell, if I don't then it may as well not have happened.  Ok, enough prelude rambling.  The point is I have an older sister.  In the past couple years she has shown signs of schizophrenia.  She began cutting wires in the apartment she was living in, she became obsessed with "snitches" and thought people were watching her and telling cops about her affairs.  Soon the wire cutting escalated to tearing apart the entire apartment.  She tore down many of the walls, the ceiling, had no working toilet or bathtub, and only one working outlet.  When confronted about her behaviour she would say she was working on a remodel.

Eventually, she ended up having to move back in with our parents.  She had been living with them for about five months when I moved back because of my mother's cancer.  My sister was prone to fits of rage, yelling obscenities at my parents whenever they ask her questions and at times physically pushing my father.  She had also been unemployed for about a year at this time.

I am not sensitive.  I am not a bleeding-heart.  I am not tolerant to people who make no attempt to help themselves or change their situation when they are in a shitty one.  Living in this environment was easily the hardest of my life thus far, and I did spend a few months living with a 50-year-old alcoholic.  This sister and I never really got along growing up, that, with all the extenuating circumstances didn't help.

All of this led to a lot of horrible moments, but some pretty funny stories.

So, I should start by saying I think my sister is also an alcoholic and a drug user.  I had bought a six pack of beer and after drinking a few left the rest under a table in the kitchen.  When I got home from work later that night I see that three of the four I had left had been taken and three dollars were shoved into the cardboard holder.

I was livid.  Not because I'm selfish and I don't know how to share.  I am living in my parent's house, so they make the rules and they were totally fine with enabling my sister.  I was not.  Moving back home I gave up a lot of my independence (which is really one of my defining qualities).  I did not want in any way to contribute to my sister's addiction or reward her appalling behaviour.  I confronted her about stealing from me.  She insisted it wasn't stealing because she had left the money behind.  I told her that's not how our society worked, I can't just walk into a store and take what I want and just leave whatever dollar amount I feel is fair.  She disagreed.  My point wasn't sinking in.  So, I took it a step further, I said I was going to go in her room and take something of hers and just leave some money behind, since apparently that's how she thinks things should be.

I went running up the stairs to her room and she chased me up, I was about to get into her bag when she grabbed me and pushed me towards a wall.  While clenching my shirt with one fist she reared her other back ready to take a swing at me.  She stopped herself and instead just said she wanted to punch me in the face.  I told her not to steal from me.  And she said I shouldn't have left it in the kitchen, if it was in my room she wouldn't have taken it.

After this incident I did not keep any booze in any shared space.  I also marked all the food I bought with a "K" to keep her from eating any of it.  Again, this isn't because I'm a selfish a-hole, I just needed to make my point.  I am not wasting my time, energy or money trying to help someone who shouts about not needing help and refuses to get any help, unless it means taking money from my fixed-income parents.

And because the depths of my spitefulness are limitless, I took those three dollars she left in the beer carrier and wrote on them, "Jami you're an alcoholic."  These were taped to the outside of my door which faced hers.  I know, its laughably petty, but living with crazy makes you do weird things.