I’m wondering – how would you handle unkind comments made by people who are close to you (e.g. family) when it stems from a lack of understanding?

Being someone who is always careful not to hurt others intentionally or otherwise, I am sometimes at a lost when someone in my immediate circle makes an unkind jibe to myself or someone else I care about.

For example, at a recent extended family reunion, I was met with some unkind comments by my younger sister, to whom I am quite close, and my cousin, who is the same age as I am but whom I haven’t seen for a few years. Now, I am in a field that already tends to be puzzling to others – think abstract humanities and add to that the fact that I decided to extend my studies to get a PhD in it. I’ve already had to field off more “why are you still in school”-type questions than I care to remember. Nonetheless, I enjoy my work, have a good job, and count myself lucky to be able to support myself doing something I love. My parents, long-term partner, and close friends are all supportive, for which I am happy and appreciative. On the other hand, my sister has taken to making jibes about how I took forever to “finish school” and yet haven’t achieved anything for someone my age (we are two years apart, I’m in my mid-20s.). Even though we don’t live under the same roof, she constantly brings this up when I call or when we meet. Her favorite is listing the achievements of a random athlete my age and asking me what I have accomplished in comparison. I initially laughed it off as a joke but it is becoming increasingly unpleasant. Every time I try to share my work or interests with her, she becomes dismissive and shuts off. The same happens when I gently tell her that she should be a bit more careful about the things she says, especially since she’s lost a few friendships and relationships due to her tendency to put people down. What makes this even more frustrating is the fact that she herself is struggling in school and has had to repeat two years due to failing her exams. My parents and I have given her all our support no matter how exasperating it got as she refused to be held accountable for her failures. She is finally back on the path to getting her degree and I hoped then that we could now have more balanced discussions without me having to fend off her usual comments (which might have stemmed from her own difficulties with her studies).

Well, nothing seems to have changed. During this reunion, when some relatives were surprised that my sister had not yet graduated, she replied “Well, lilacwine is worse, she took forever to finish school and hasn’t done anything.” It was nothing I hadn’t already heard, but she has never said this outside a private conversation. I was stunned that she would so readily throw me under the bus after having given her so much support and protecting her when she was getting flake for having to repeat her years. My cousin, who had just finished her masters, told me to stop wasting time and do something useful for the world. This went on a bit from the two of them. I refrained from saying anything in my defense during the evening; their comments just seemed so out-of-line that engaging in them would just be ridiculous and immature. That didn’t stop me from feeling really crushed though. Since the three of us were close in age, I was hoping that this family reunion would give us a chance to catch up and reconnect. Instead, I was left feeling ganged-up on and suddenly had a lot of doubts about my career choices, my contribution to society, that I wasn’t doing enough to justify my long studies, that I should indeed be doing something “useful”. To hear these comments coming from my sister and a cousin who also invested as much time into her studies was painful, frustrating, and bugged me enough to consider putting aside my research and picking up the next “real job” I could get. While my sister has long made it clear that my achievements “didn’t count” as my field was “too easy”, my cousin hardly knew what I did and didn’t seem interested in finding out before telling me to do something useful instead.

After reflecting on this and other similar unkind comments made (very often, and sadly, by my own sister), I would like to ask all of you out there, especially those of us who are sensitive, how you cope with situations like this. I have learnt to ignore the content of these comments as they are not based in the slightest truth nor are they constructive enough for me to take seriously. What’s more, I suspect that these unkind words are coming from an unhappy trigger in my sister’s and cousin’s own lives, but it doesn’t lessen the sting. Since trying to reach out to these people has remained futile, how does one rise above the hurt caused by someone you care about, and control the extent to which it affects your happiness? Please share your own experiences and thank you for reading through this long post!