Today I hit yet another breaking point with my sister. She had been getting increasingly agitated over the past 3 days, shortly after she stopped taking her morning Lorazepam, and has been shouting and screaming at me every day over the phone at some point. Today she asked that I help her schedule her ride for tomorrow, so she could get to work. I did this, then called her back to and told about the time the ride was scheduled for. My sister, already agitated, cut me off with an incredulous “WHAT?! No, I’m sorry, this is just not acceptable!” and hung up on me.
I was left standing in the entrance to the restaurant where I went to place the call, baby strapped to my chest, friend waiting for me at the table, shaking with anger, taking deep breaths. It just felt so ungrateful of her, so inconsiderate, so entitled, and I was livid.
I choked down the urge to call her back and shout at her. What’s the point? It won’t change anything, I’d just get angrier, and it would take more time.
I also didn’t want to hear from her again. Never would have been ideal, but I realized even then that’s not realistic. However, I decided it was time for a break. So I blocked her on my phone.
I had blocked my sister before, for a few hours at a time, when things got too intense and I felt I wasn’t going to handle well any additional conversations with her. But this time, I’ve kept her blocked since.
It’s been amazing.
For starters, she seems unaware of the fact that I’ve blocked her. She is used to leaving me voicemail and me calling her back later, sometimes much later. So from her perspective, very little has changed. In fact, she told our mother that I said I won’t be available for a few days because I’m busy–which I didn’t, because I hadn’t spoken with her for the first few days I had her blocked–but the point is that my sister made up a reason why we weren’t talking that she was comfortable with.
The improvement in my quality of life is immense. I used to dread her phone calls, would always have a quick and intense internal debate about whether to pick up when she calls, would feel guilty if I ignored her call and stupid if I picked up too often, and all this was costing me a lot of energy. My beloved partner has also experienced the same improvement in quality of life, and mentioned it spontaneously to me – the frequency calls from my sister have been hard on my partner, too.
If I’m wondering how my sister is doing, I can always go into the “Blocked Messages” section of my voicemail and see the many messages she’d left.
This is only possible because my sister already has some support network in place in addition to me. She can call my mother, she has her housemate, she has her personal aide. If there is a true emergency and she is able to use the phone, I will hear about it before long from one of those people.
I would like to call my sister more frequently, maybe once a day or every couple of days. Even without doing this, it seems to be working well. I’m a lot less on edge, when I do speak with my sister she doesn’t seem to have an issue with my not answering, and she seems to be doing well overall.
In the past I would have thought this was a cruel thing to do, or demeaning, or at least inconsiderate. Right now, it seems to be a great act of self-care that is helping me be less annoyed and more emotionally present with my sister, less burned out overall, without really costing her much. So, at least under our current circumstances, it seems to be a very good solution.
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