Hello,
I ran into an issue that needed to be dealt with. About a year ago, I told my sister that she could stay with me until she got on her feet. I'm 22 and she's 18 now, problems for both of us go way back. I have my own problems, which I'm doing what I can to change, by using the program and trying to deal with situations in my life better. My sister doesn't have the same desire to get better at dealing with problems. I think that she wants to get better and learn how to deal with things better, I think what I'm trying to say is that I'm really putting an effort into it, and she's not as much as I am. I'm not very angry about it, I realize that she herself has a hard time understanding what she's going through, and I don't want to tell her that she has to get much better, but I do feel that she needs to put in some effort. She still hasn't got her license yet, even though she's 18, which bascially she should have gotten her license a long time ago. I have to drive her to work and use break times on my work to make sure she gets to where she needs to. I care about her, so I'm willing to put in the effort to helping her get what she needs, even at the expense of my own comfort to a certain degree. But I expect her to be a little cooperative when there's something that I want her to do and need her to do it. It was her day off today, so what I did was say that I wanted her to get dressed because I wanted to take her to the DMV today to get her license. Well, her response was sort of like what she would have said to something like that in the past. Pretty much, she said that I can't tell her what to do and that she's going to go when she wants to go. I can respect her wanting or not wanting to do something, but she's been putting off getting her license for a long time and I felt like she owed it to me and herself to do what I asked her. The conversation got very nasty and she called me names and told me to F off and even threatened to kill me later on. She threatened to kill me when I put my brother on the phone. I got my brother to talk to her, not because I felt I was wrong, but just to sort of let her know that I'm not standing alone on this and that maybe by getting someone esle to talk to her, it would help her understand that I'm not doing this becuase there's a problem with me, she's the one with the problem, and we just kind of needed an outside opinion to help us clear things up, becuase I was pretty angry and was concerned that my anger was going to effect my judgement. There was one point when we were in the middle of debating it and she was using bad language with me and adopting this attitude like she can do what she wants and theres nothing i can say or do about it wether i like it or not. So I raised my voice and let the words just flow out, it was like all this tension from situations that bothered me from over the past year just came out, I'm not sure if you would call it rage, but it wasn't, I dont' think, like uncontrollable, I think it was controllable, I think it was like me just letting my feelings roll out at this issue, it was kind of different, but I think that it was healthy in a way that I was getting it out and not holding it inside. So, I calmed down, she calmed down, I told her that I didn't appreciate her saying she would kill me and that I didn't appreciate her using bad language with me. Even though she wasn't talking very much, i kept talking anyways, becuase I wanted to work it out and I had a pretty good idea of what was going on. I think actually what my sister was doing, even though I dont' think it was right, was that she was overreacting, it was like a die hard version of you can't tell me what to do and I'll go to an extreme to keep it from happening. I think it's good to weigh issues out and deal with them accordingly, with patience, but also understand that if things get out of hand you need to do something help keep the situation under control. I think she understood what i was talking about, I"m not sure if she'll remember not to threaten me but I do know that I told her when she was listening, whether she decides to to what asked her to and choose to react in a less hostile way is up to her. Not too much later, she said she'll go with me to the DMV and that she was sorry. I accepted her apology but I kept on talking, becuase I wanted to let her understand that it's not about she's right and i'm wrong or this is the way it is and i have complete control and she has no say so or anything like that. I wanted to let her know that I understood that she's not going to agree with everything I do, and I won't agree with everything she does, but even though we may not agree with everything, it doesn't mean that we can't work it out and talk about it. And even though we have problems, we don't have to use bad language or becuase very aggressive, or in my case throw a computer across the room. I think it was a real growing point for me and for her, I think it's a good thing that we could have a really bad problem but be able to work it out and understand that it worked out.

[This message has been edited by mgoldberg (edited 10-09-2001).]

I was just wondering, what makes you think you are responsible for your sister? It's ok to love her and help her, but where i live there is public transportation. If you are at work and using your breaks to make sure she gets where she needs to go, maybe you should just say, "Sorry, sis, I'll be working at that time". I say all this because I've been through this with my brother. I set defined boundaries with him and he knows what they are. If you rescue her everytime she wines, you'll rescue her over and over, until you decide you've had enough Maybe she doesn't have a reason to change because she gets what she wants. Good luck.