Not Fighting on the Way to the Grocery Store

Today my sister shouted at me, accused me of not understanding anything, and then hung up on me. Often these are the opening notes of serious drama. Thankfully, I was able to apply some hard-earned lessons and ride it out without significant casualties, by remembering to do a few key things:

  • Take a deep breath
  • Lower my sense of urgency
  • Ask my sister what’s hurting
  • Ask my sister if she took her medication

Sudden Storm

It’s a pretty day and I’m driving to get groceries, my almost-3-month-old son in the back seat. I call my sister to say hi. She tells me about her recent confusing interaction with her housemate (the housemate invited my sister to join for a yoga class, then left without her). As we work through what happened and what to do next, my sister starts shouting at me: Why did you bring me to California? My life is horrible! You don’t understand how bad it is! You’re just sticking me here and nobody cares!

And then she hangs up.

Immediately the potential catastrophes jump to my mind. She sure seems agitated. Is she going to be aggressive toward her flatmate (again)? Will the flatmate text me (again) to say that she is leaving because she isn’t feeling safe? Will my sister spiral down and I will have to rush over there and hospitalize her, or maybe…

Connecting Instead of Fighting

I take a deep breath and ignore the rush of catastrophes I was imagining. I fight down the urge to call back right away. It’s not urgent. After all, in the times when I hung up on my sister (which I usually do if she is screaming at me), I didn’t like it when she immediately calls me back, and continues doing so endlessly. My sister is alone in the apartment, so she can’t take it out on her flatmate. Let’s give her some time to calm down, and also some time for me to calm down.

I finish grocery shopping and call her back 20 minutes later. She answers calmly, sounding tired. I ask her about her pain: Do you still have a headache? Yes, she says, and proceeds to describe with astonishing detail the exact location of the ache (an inch into her skull, above her right eye and to the side, etc. etc). We talk about which medication she can take and about drinking enough water. Then I suddenly realize that if she’s this worked up in the middle of the day, perhaps… I ask Did you take your medication this morning? and she says No, she didn’t. So she is probably having some rebound anxiety from missing her morning anti-anxiety medication.

A few years ago, I would have asked her why she didn’t take her morning medication… which would have sent us both down the rabbit hole. I dodge that bullet and instead explain that missing taking medication on schedule can contribute to her headache, and she says Oh, okay. Will you take it now? I ask, and she says Sure, hold on. Then we talk about about the medication she can take for her headache, and about the importance of drinking enough water. She asks how my son is doing, and we finish the conversation. In the evening I get a voicemail message from her: She went with her flatmate to the afternoon yoga class, where she only lasted for 15 minutes. But she went. And she sounded decent.

One More Day Ends Without a Crisis

It could have gone much, much worse. It has, in the past. Maybe I’m finally I’m learning something. In the past I would have argued with her, called her right back, argued with her some more, probably riled her up further, maybe driven up to make sure everything is okay (read: to be angry with her in person), spent a lot of time anxious about her potential breakdown, and generally have my day ruined. Instead, being able to reduce my sense of urgency and connecting with her in a caring way turned out to have made for a much better day – hopefully for both of us.

Block Her!

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.