by AnyaNikolaievna » 14 Oct 2010, 06:51
The following is a crazy vent/rant and I hope that you bear with me... I felt the need to express myself. You guys are like my family, as are Zhenya/Yana though of course I don't know them... anyway I love you all and when I love someone I waste no time expressing my thoughts and talking about events going on in my life. With people I love and rely upon for friendship, especially as much as you guys, I tend to have my life as an open book, so I hope that this is received for what it is, as a cry of frustration and anger, and I hope that I'm greeted with understanding. I know it seems strange but this is not the first time I have shared personal issues on a message board... I feel a great kinship and comfort with everyone here and I just needed to speak out and express myself.
My family's going through hell YET AGAIN, all thanks, AS USUAL, to my older sister Kristen. Not ONE SINGLE MEMBER of my family (inclueing me) wants ANYTHING to do with her anymore, her boyfriend now included.
I'll explain. They say every family has a "problem person," someone whom trouble always seems to follow. All my life, my sister has plunged the rest of us into a hurricane with her as the eye. She is 11 years older than me (which makes her 39 going on 40) but still acts like a teenager/child. Zhenya's so independent I wish he would have been around here to give her lessons in GROWING THE HELL UP! She has tried (and at times succeeded) to take advantage of me in the past (which REALLY angers mom, taking advantage of your younger, BLIND sister). I'm telling you guys, this is just driving our family CRAZY.
I could say it started in 2005, or 2004, but now that I think about it, it could have all started several years before when my sister fell at her job and hurt her knee. She had to get surgery about six times for it, maybe more. She almost died during two of the surgeries and got infection from two others and almost died then. My sister has low pain tolerance to begin with so of course they gave her medication. Big mistake cause she got hooked on the stuff. Meanwhile she was, at the time, an alcoholic, and so was her husband. She preferred alcohol to the pills for a long time, then her husband reached a climax when he stopped drinking, I think it was court ordered. Anyway, so for some reason she hooked up with another guy, who happened to be a drug dealer (prescription drugs). It tore her husband apart, and Kris went back and forth between the two for many months and finally chose the boyfriend. It drove her husband to attempt suicide. He'd tried it a few times before, or at least claimed to, but this time it was for real. He shot himself in the mouth. BUT he actually did not die. Horrible as it sounds, he succeeded only in blowing off half of his face. He was missing an eye and nose, teeth... yeah you don't need to know the full grotesqueries. Anyway, suffice it to say he had to spend the rest of his life in a home for the disabled. He actually died earlier this year, from an infection, four years after he shot himself, the poor man. Anyway, here's karma in action:
Several months after he shot himself, my sister-in-law asked me how he was doing. None of us had seen him since before this, so all we heard about his condition were rumors. So I told her about what we'd heard, and she said: "That's so wrong what your sister did to him. SHE SHOULD BE THE ONE WITH THE MESSED-UP FACE."
I have always, always believed in karma, and this cemented it in my mind. Less than a week later, my sister walked into a local bar. Out front a motorcycle was parked, and she admired it. A dear family friend, the father of one of the kids I graduated high school with, announced that it was his bike, and offered to take her for a ride.
What he failed to mention was that he had a fifth of WHISKEY before getting on that bike with her.
I was sitting at home, it was the Tuesday after Thanksgiving of 2006 (that's an American holiday the third Thursday in November for those who don't know), five days after my sister-in-law said those words above, and all of a sudden my phone rings. It's my mom, in a panic. She said my sister was in a motorcycle accident and it happened right down the road from our houses. He had gone 100 miles per hour (I don't know the metric for that) in a 45 zone I think. My sister begged him to stop and they crashed through a barn. My sister somehow managed to get up and walk away from the area, though she has no memory of doing this. When the scene was evaluated, people said she had lost so much blood it was a miracle she was able to survive at all, let alone walk. At any rate, she got to the hospital, and I waited at home for news. Several hours later, the verdict was in:
She had injuries to her FACE, almost identical to those of her husband's, and what's more they were cared for by the same doctor. It wasn't that severe for her; she still has her eyes and nose and such, but she now has trouble seeing (karma for me there because she would always pick on me for not being able to see things she could) and has problems with her teeth. Anyway, the pain of the injuries she sustained in the accident, coupled with the stress of the whole ordeal, caused her once more to drink and be addicted to pills. The driver, as I said a dear family friend, was not so lucky as her. He was in a coma for several days or weeks, I can't remember, and finally his family took him off life support. The poor man died a few weeks before Christmas.
My sister was of course broken up. She blamed herself for his death, and it didn't help that his family blamed her too and spread rumors all over town. We live in a small town where everyone knows everyone, one way or another. Her reputation was absolutely ruined. She attempted suicide herself, with narcotics and alcohol, and ended up in a mental hospital for a week or so. She was diagnosed at this time with bipolar disorder, I think, which explains why she came out of the hospital with a new man. This guy only lasted a few weeks with her. They called it quits just after the holidays. Soon enough she went back with her boyfriend. A few mponths later she drove drunk and crashed through some yards of her neighbors (our former neighbors since we used to live next door, one of the yards was my own best friend's). After this she lost her driver's liscence and was warned if she ever drank and drove again she would go to prison and serve the maximum sentence. She just got her liscence back a few months ago, and I know she was looking forward to it. She also quit drinking, but kept the addiction to the pills.
Now I have posted about my mother's diabetes here before, but I am reminding you because it plays a prominent part in this saga. Because of my mom's condition she of course has to take a lot of pills including painkillers. WELL, after she fell earlier this year, my sister came in April to help her out. She lasted only four days. Mom had a hunch that she only came because of her pills. She had noticed her stealing them before, so whenever she would come she would have to hide them. Well, she put one pill in the cupboard and when she woke up the next day it was gone. My sister had driven ME crazy BEGGING me to call one of my aides for some pills! She manipulated me into thinking they were for mom at first, then I knew that they weren't when she told me not to tell mom that she asked me to do this. For two days my sister would NOT LEAVE ME ALONE until I got her pills. Thankfully my aide was smart enough to know that the pills were for my sister and she knew that she was addicted which was why she never got in touch with me. In the middle of Sunday night (she had come on a Friday) my sister had a SERIOUS breakdown. Thankfully I had no experience with it personally. She kept begging mom and my stepfather for pills and literally drove my stepfather to lock their bedroom door in their own home because he feared she would actually kill them both. He drove her home the next morning, and told her to NEVER come here again.
That didn't stop us from hearing about her exploits though. A few weeks later, we hear that she tried to KILL her boyfriend AND herself. She has a gas stove, and when her boyfriend had an argument with her, presumably about pills, she turned on the oven and just let the gas fill the room while he slept in the chair in the living room (which is not separated from the kitchen by anything really). He wakes up, and a neighbor, who happened to be a fireman AND a cop, knocked on the door, telling them to get out of the house. If he had come just a little while later, not only would her house have blown up, but the TWO houses NEXT to her would have gone up and the families killed (one a 3 year old boy). Her boyfriend demanded that she be taken into a mental hospital but she wouldn't go, and she couldn't legally be forced.
For months we never heard a single word from her. Which brings us to today, or should I say last week.
My sister called up an old neighbor and offered to give her and her boyfriend money if they would do some work around the house for my sister and her boyfriend. So after this she tells them she will call them when she has more money so they can do some more work. I guess the neighbor's boyfriend was a drug dealer too because when she called them, it was to buy drugs. She called them so much, they had to CHANGE THEIR NUMBER and they just got that phone. My sister called my brother out of the blue, who LONG ago said he wanted NOTHING to do with her, and he heard about what happened with the girl from the girl herself so of course that made things even worse. This was on a Friday I think. On Sunday (last Sunday) ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. We get a call saying Kris tried to kill herself, then it turns out that wasn't true, we hear her boyfriend beat her up and my dad wanted him arrested, but then THAT turned out not to be true. We heard that KRIS was in jail but THAT turned out not to be true! As it turns out, she beat up her boyfriend because she wanted pills. So skip to THIS Sunday. Mom calls me and tells me that my dad called her and told her he had been at the hospital with Kris all day and she FINALLY entered a rehab portion of the hospital. I got down on my knees and thanked God for that! She was told that no doctors or hospitals would give her any pills, that she was in withdrawal... only down side is that she could check herself out whenever she wanted.
Just when I thought that was the end, I turned out to be wrong. The latest part of the saga is the REAL reason my sister checked into the hospital.
It turns out that when she couldn't get pills from anyone, she went out drinking, and crashed into another car. No one was hurt, but she still fled the scene because of course as I said if she was caught drinking and driving again then she would go to jail. SO she checked into the hospital so she could hide from the police, who have a warrant out for her arrest. When she is caught she could serve (and how sad is it that all of her family WANTS her to go to prison?!) 3 years, at LEAST. I hope that it's not just drunk driving that they charge her with; I also hope they charge her with fleeing the scene of an accident which I THINK is a federal offense.
Through all the crises that she has put us through, even in childhood, my father has been the one to stand by her and tell others to leave her alone. He would never let her accept the consequences of her actions. However, now even HE is tired of it, because Sunday he told my mom that not even he wants anything to do with her anymore.
I thank God for our dear Zhenya. His skating transports me to another world, a place where it's just me and his skating, he makes me forget the stress of my family life and I thank God for that. I honhestly don't know where I would be without him. All I have to do is put on videos of him and I am TOTALLY at PEACE.
So that's all I have to say for now. I thank everyone for bearinhg with me, reading all this and understanding how much it means to be able to come here and spill my guts. I don't know what will happen with this but I'll keep you posted. All I know is that now, I never, ever want to speak to my sister again and I know that no one else in my family will either.
Words can't express what it means to have you guys in my life and Zhenya too. Thanks for reading.
Angie
"Show what you are capable of!" -- Evgeni Plushenko
"Was there ever a man who loved, who loved not at first sight?" -- Christopher Marlowe