“God, Juniper, you're so annoying. Leave me alone, you're just an obstacle.” These are some of the things I heard and had to endure while my sister was home with me while my parents were out and about.

Ever since I was younger, my sister and I always had issues between ourselves. We argued about literally anything. Though she is only six years older than I am, she has the mouth of a fifty-year-old sailor man.  She had no hesitation in calling me horrible names on a daily basis.

This caused a lot of conflict with our relationship because I had looked up to her as a role model. She was beautiful and popular and I trusted her with literally everything, all my boy drama and my “secrets,” yet she seemed to despise me and everything I stand for. I always thought it was her way of showing love, but now that I think about it, I was wrong. My sister would constantly make fun of me, making me cry and hate who I was. Yet it was only when she was home alone with me–never did she do any of these things while my parents were at the house. Some people may think that's a normal thing for sisters to go through, but I'm still not sure.

Around my fifth grade year, I was getting tutored by one of my mother’s friends at a local coffee shop, when my mom walked in with an upset face. She pulled me to the side where no one could hear us and told me, “Your sister ran away this afternoon.”  That sentence broke me down right then and there. I couldn't comprehend anything that was happening after that. All I remember was that my mind was all fuzzy, and I was choking on sobs because my sister, my role model, left me.

This was the time I became cold. I was the most depressed I had been in a while. I was already suffering enough from unrelated PTSD and severe anxiety, and now we add the weight of my sister’s departure on to that. I was extremely close to falling apart, but I stayed strong. Well, I at least tried to: every day she was gone, grief started to pile up in my stomach. I had never felt so alone. I thought it was my fault. Even though she had mistreated me, I will admit that life was hard without her. I was young and blinded by the fact that I was alone, so I wasn't focusing on my school work and didn't see my friends as much. My grades were slipping, and I wasn't as active as I was beforehand. I felt ignored and overlooked because no one seemed to notice my mood.

A couple years later my sister came back, and the same thing happened. She left me again, and this time it affected me one hundred times more because I believed she had changed for the better, yet clearly I was wrong. “Once you lose someone the first time, you never fully get them back after that.” I had never felt this quote in depth until that day, but now I can personally say this is true.  After she left the second time, I learned I should never hurt myself over how other people treat me because that is out of my control.

© Juniper. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.