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I'm the youngest adult female in my family. I have to bear the brunt of bossiness in different ways from my older siblings. I feel dealing with bullying or bossiness between certain siblings has made me feel fear and anxiety. I would like to know what ways one can feel stronger, even though my place in the family being the youngest will never change.
Last edited by sugar1973us; 10-18-2013 at 10:09 PM..
The only way to get rid of old feelings and behavior is to cultivate your life outside that circle, and keep in mind that you are not only the child of that family, and the sibling of those others, but YOU ARE YOURSELF.
I know it is hard to get over that identity.
You need to figure out healthy boundaries and enforce them; also you need to respect the boundaries of your siblings, including the ones you disagree with.
I have also found it helpful to put energy into any relationship only in proportion to the effort and energy they put into the relationship from their side. Often in relationships we want more than the other person wants, and it becomes unbalanced. We get hung up on our personal concepts of what the relationship "should" look like / how it "should" work. For example my wife is big on talking things out, her sister is big on avoiding talking things out. My wife had to let go of her attachment to talking things out with her sister and accept the fact that when her sister is angry with her, her sister is never going to talk about it and in fact may not know herself clearly what her issue is. My wife has had to accept a much more limited relationship than she would like. She has also had to accept her sister's boundaries (not wanting to talk things out) even though she very much disagrees with it.
Another example -- my daughter can't be bothered most of the time to express what I consider a normal interest in my life and concern for what is going on, she never sends gifts or even thanks us for gifts we send her. As a result, I have stopped investing in a one-sided relationship. I let her call or email me when she feels like it. I don't respond when she blathers on and on about herself, I only respond when she occasionally asks an actual question. It's a fine line -- I don't withhold from her -- I simply match her energy and intent. It has taken all the stress out of the relationship; of course, I have to accept that my daughter and I aren't as close as I'd like to be, in the ways I'd like to be, because she isn't really capable of it.
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