Likely a highly functional–and unidentified–alcoholic
Dear Doug: Bad Sister
Dear Doug:
My younger sister, who makes a six-figure income, visits twice a year. Every time, I feel violated. After she leaves, I discover that photos, various handicrafts and even my artwork have “mysteriously”disappeared. I confront her, but she accuses me of persecuting her. She’s verbally abusive and ridicules me in front of others. I barely scrape by on a meager retirement, yet she steals from and abuses me. What is wrong with her and what can I do?
Signed,
Abused Sister
. . . .
Dear Codependent,
Other columnists would suggest that you stop inviting your sister to your home and tell her to seek therapy. While the advice to stop the invites is appropriate, telling her to seek therapy is probably not. Instead, she most likely needs AA or other rehab. A therapist without rehab would only perpetuate the enabling.
Your sister is displaying classic symptoms of alcoholism-driven egomania. She controls you by stealing your most important belongings, lying, abusing and ridiculing. You need to draw a line in the sand: she doesn’t set foot in your home until she proves she’s clean and sober for at least six months. The fact that she’s so successful at inflating her ego in the workplace by earning big bucks suggests she is in need of far greater pain than you can administer. If there are other family members in a position to impose consequences, give them Drunks, Drugs & Debits with the goal of imparting what they need to know about alcoholism and helping them to engage in “uncompromising disenabling”with a clear conscience. However, even if friends and family cease enabling, income and assets will not. If you can arrange to get her employer involved, a threat of loss of income may be particularly helpful. The optimal solution after educating everyone around her about alcoholism would be to arrange a professionally-aided intervention. You will need to be very patient during this process and expect no overnight miracles.
(Source for story idea: Annie’s Mailbox, December 9, 2006.)