Dear Cali Chica:

Your husband said that her energy is quite ‘erratic'”, delivering a point that she “tries hard to cover up”. And you wrote that “she goes on and on about things, even when not the appropriate context”, that she doesn’t “pick up cues or have awareness- she lacks it”.

In the past you went into “help mode” around her, turned “into silly young jokey Cali Chica almost like an entertainer to her”. You wrote: “her presence is not relaxing and calming”, that you were “not ‘severely’ affected by her”, but sensed some relief when she left.

My input: lots of people are disturbed in NYC (and elsewhere) and yet functional, sometimes for many years. I hope your sister remains functional as she is now. I hope she is functional for years to come. But she may not be and you have to prepare for that.

She has been disturbed for most of her life, since a very young age. She managed to go to school, graduate and now, be employed in NYC, great accomplishments. But this may crumble at any time. Because she is significantly disturbed, very anxious, lots of voices in her head, unable yet, as far as I know, to have a single healthy love relationship with a man. She lived across the country from her parents, failed to thrive away from them, went back to living with them and now she lives close to them and has been helped in practical ways by you and your husband, maybe by her parents as well.

This is the preparation I suggest on our part: if and when she breaks and  becomes dysfunctional (it may happen at any time), let her parents do the practical help. Do not pay her rent again, do not finance her, let her parents do that. If she has nowhere to live, let her move back to her parents.

The reason I am suggesting this is that she is nowhere in the process of resolving her relationships with her parents, she didn’t start that process, so it not like you will be helping her resolve those early relationships by helping her so that she  doesn’t contact her parents. She is and will be in contact with them nonetheless.

So let her parents help her, let them provide a place for her to live. Focus your time, your energy, your money (yours and your husband’s, being a team), on your life, not hers. Don’t make it so that two medical doctors living in NYC, both employed, will end up living dysfunctional lives yourselves.

There is no benefit for three people living dysfunctional lives (you, your husband, your sister), save the two  of you. There really is nothing you can do for her, and it is so very unwise to try once again in any way. I think it is a matter of time before she is in crisis. Prepare for it with your husband.

anita