agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR ABBY: I have a younger sister I love dearly. I respect and admire her. "Elise" is intelligent and talented. She is a minister's wife and a mother to small children. Due to some unfortunate family circumstances when she was young, she has some emotional scars she's trying to overcome. Sometimes at family gatherings she'll "explode" and lash out at whoever triggered her. Her outbursts usually take us all by surprise.

How do we, as siblings who have grown up in the same environment, handle this? We don't think our childhoods so terrible, although we did have some challenges, and our daddy does have narcissistic tendencies. He actually recognizes that and is trying to improve himself. Sometimes we feel she makes mountains out of molehills, but we want to be sensitive to her pain. I'm concerned she'll end up controlling our family gatherings in a negative way if these flare-ups don't stop. What do you think could be done? -- BEFUDDLED BIG SIS

DEAR BIG SIS: What could (and should) be done is an intervention by you and your siblings in which Elise is advised to seek professional help for her explosive anger issues. If she refuses and her behavior continues, let her know you support her but can no longer include her.

https://www.uexpress.com/life/dearabby/2021/12/30

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LW's sister is not the only one who needs therapy....

Is it me, or is this 'Missing Reasons Central'?

That's why I posted it!

Therapy for everyone.

Does Elise "explode and lash out at whoever triggered her" at the first comment or the twentieth? Is it just one person or a group effort? I ask because you say you "want to be sensitive to her pain" which implies to me that you're bad at it.

There is so much missing information in this letter I'm surprised it reads as halfway coherent. Elise may find missing a few family get-togethers is the best thing for herself.

My face was like one of those reaction gifs here. Or a combination of several of them. So much yikes and so many omitted details crammed into one short letter, holy shit. This is like the outsider POV on the beginning of one of those really long sagas of someone starting to cope with their abuse and ultimately cut off their whole family that results in like, restraining orders...

The entire second paragraph just screams that the OP's sister is the family scapegoat who is finally resisting that role to me.

Whenever phrasing like "we feel she makes mountains out of molehills" is used, the person doing it is trying very hard to blame the victim. There is so much missing from this letter, but the shadows cast by the missing reasons spell "GET OUT ELISE."

Weird how the LW slews from "I" to "we" in the course of this, too.

Oh, my. That's a family scapegoat/identified patient if I ever did see one. And also so many Missing Missing Reasons. SO MANY Missing Missing Reasons. I just. Ugh.

I wonder if Elise is exploding at

- the millionth remark about her weight/what she eats

- the millionth remark about her parenting

- the millionth remark about her education/career