Expert: Joanne Chang - 10/19/2010

Question
My adult sister is exhibiting behavior that (to me)seems like it could be bi-polar. She's always had slight manic episodes that usually involved buying things she has no money for, quitting jobs to go after some questionable "holy grail", etc. Sometimes she succeeds, most of the time she doesn't follow through, and fails. In the last 2 years our parents died. First our mother who had very bad dementia, then our father from surgery complications. She had a terrible relationship with our father, and was closer to our mother. There is one more twist to this story, she has her masters degree in social work, and works in a mental hospital. She has a very know-it-all personality, and has a very intimidating attitude when things don't go her way, or someone questions her behavior. Our family pretty much has put up with her until recently when our father died, and we were given the task to divide up the estate etc. She decided to buy the house, and it has been one ordeal after another because of her overbearing attitude, and her grandiose ideas of how to do everything. I have decided I cannot deal with her anymore, and am not talking to her at the present time. Before the last incident she sent me some terribly hurtful emails accusing me of many things of which I won't go into, but the tone and purpose seemed to be to only hurt me, and not resolve any issues. She has never acted resentful to me in the past. She has many cats, and a dog, the odor in her house (my parents former home) is terrible. No one wants to visit, and it hurts her feelings. She seems totally oblivious to how it is. I would say she is a hoarder. Something is wrong with her, but because she is impossible to reason with, I don't know how to help. I also have to think about my own well being. The last years have been stressful for me as well. My latest idea is to tell her I am not going to talk to her unless we have a neutral 3rd party such as a mediator or my therapist there. I hate the idea of not being there for her. I'm afraid she's going to crash and burn, and we'll all be standing there watching not knowing what to do. I think she is taking a prescription for depression. On one of her good days I had a talk with her about being so stressed out and irritable, because at that time I thought she was just depressed. I told her we were all worried about her, but she said "I'm already taking antidepressants!" I told her maybe she needed something different or a higher dose, but she doesn't care what I think. That was about 8 months ago. The nasty emails were last week. She's done that once before since our dad died, but I decided to ignore it and chalked it up to stress etc. For my own well being, I'm not doing that anymore. She is divorced ,(about 22years ago)and I would say she's kind of a man-hater. She has no children, and is accusing me of turning my children (ages 25 and 31) against her,which is not true. She's going to miss out on so much if she doesn't get a handle on this. Thanks for your help and I'm sorry this is so long winded.

Answer
Hi there,

Very sorry to hear about your current difficulties and of your parents' passing.

From what I've read about your sister's personality in your email, she strikes me as a person who will not do something unless she has decided for herself and to be honest, this is often the case for individuals seeking professional psych help. As is often said, you can lead a horse to water but...

I'm glad you are focusing on your well-being because that is your responsibilty. Your sister's well-being is hers. You have offered help and suggestions and now it is up to her to take it from there.

Having a mediator when things are tense might be a good idea but be careful in your choice of mediator, preferably someone objective with enough distance from everything  to keep a level head.

I wish you all the best!

Best wishes,
Joanne