Dear Cali Chica:

Regarding the latest interaction between you, your sister and  your husband:

1. You: “being  around  my mother… her presence would turn me into this person who non stop entertains talks, makes people laugh, on on on, a manic energy. And also an angry resentful person… same with  my sister… I act like a  manic frenzied person when  she is  around .. feels uncontrollable and automatic”.

2. Your sister: she chose  to not attend Christmas with you, your husband and his parents. Upon receiving their gift later on, not in their presence, she “opens it and says thank you and all”. But she  is not quiet inside, distress is stirring inside her, so she “begins saying how  it’s  not something she would use, or a brand she likes”. She is angry. It is not about the gift. Her anger “feels uncontrollable and automatic” to her when she  is  in your presence, just like your manic energy in her presence.

Next, you “quickly jump in and say oh don’t worry we  can exchange it”, as if the problem was the gift.

Imagine if there was  honesty in that interaction. If there was,  it  would  be something like this (I am guessing, best I can): your sister arrives at your place, you all sit down, and she says to you: I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!

My input: in the presence of your sister, you automatically become anxious and manic and she  automatically becomes angry in a passive aggressive way. There really is no way to fix this unless the two of you attend quality psychotherapy together, both motivated to fix the relationship between you. Really, there is no way for this relationship to be fixed  without professional help. It will take a lot of time, insight, lots of honesty, lots of distress to be  endured, lots of work on both sides.

Without such professional help that the two of you will welcome and do your hard work  in it,  individually and together, the  contact you have with her is harmful to you and to  her. It keeps the same old, same  old automatic reactions in place. When the two of you do have fun together,  that  is  only a break from the tension, just as anyone tense gets a break, even war prisoners get breaks, people held captive get breaks when they experience calm and even joy.

3. Your  husband: he is a victim of this dynamic, “he is sick and tired of the same thing over and over”.

And it  is the “same thing over and over” that he can expect to continue unless you either attend the family psychotherapy I suggested, you and your sister or you cut  contact with her. The relationship between you and your sister cannot be improved if only one of you heals, it  will take the two of you healing. And for as long as the latter doesn’t happen, the relationship itself between you and your sister will keep both of you sick.

Your husband “spoke the truth. We are back where we started. It feels terrible… Over the last 2 weeks I am agitated and  anxious at almost every moment. I have had  horrendous insomnia, and  my anxious energy of course transfers to him. I’ve been negative and ruminating- and nothing like the progress I have made”.

It is very, very  common for people to hold  on to sick relationships and  sink, remaining sick, undoing prior progress. I wasted decades this way, lots of damage done along the way.

“We made SOO much progress over the past 2 months while at his parents’ house and away. And it feels like it is all undone”- evidence, isn’t it, to what I  stated here.

“she does not have awareness of how she comes off to others”- she is  angry. I don’t think you are quite  aware of this, that she is angry at you. Actually, she is angry at  everyone, really.

“I do  feel I have been entirely enveloped in her… I  need  to change my behavior around  her. I turn into an  immature lunatic with frenzied energy that  doesn’t relax”- you can’t change your behavior around her unless you and your sister work hard, over a long time in psychotherapy that you will be attending  together. All your efforts to change your   behavior without this therapy are likely to lead to  is you and your husband’s  health deteriorating or either one of you getting into an accident as a result of stress,  or some significant mistake done as either one of you operate at work,  with patients.

So you and  your husband paid for her first two months rent, helped her sell her  car, etc. but  she is angry with you, very angry. She wants to see you hurt, passive aggressively. She accomplished that. But she  can’t  help it, she is not  well,  I suppose. Best you can do for her is exit the dynamic. And you can’t do  it except in either one of these  ways: the therapy I mentioned or no contact.

“My sister isn’t asking me to. And she’s younger and influenced by me”- you are not seeing that your sister  is an  adult, no longer a child in her formative years,  influenced by you. She is already formed and anger is in her formation. Sometimes she feels affection for you, sometimes she looks up  to you. Sometimes she appreciates your help. At the same  time, she  is angry at you, always, underneath  her awareness  at times, and  at  other times  she is aware of her anger.

Her anger at you means she doesn’t wish you well. Angry people don’t wish well for the people they are  angry at.

anita