Oof. This kind of thing is hard.
My sister doesn’t have a diagnosis and is very resistant to any kind of medical care or therapy, but her behavior looks an awful lot like bipolar to me. She has a 10 year old son and is largely supported, financially and with most “adulting” kind of tasks, by my parents. She works intermittently as a rideshare driver and goes through cycles of debt from things like impulse trips abroad, buying a timeshare, and getting sucked in by a pretty awful crypto scam. She posts lengthy rants and stream-of-consciousness dumps on Facebook, sometimes a dozen or more in a day. I share this just to put some specifics on what “generally quite chaotic” looks like in this case.
I realized in my early 20s that my sister’s behavior and attitudes about the world meant that she wasn’t somebody I could look to as a peer in life. By then we lived in different regions so I didn’t see her often. So it was an upsetting realization, but one that didn’t greatly change what things looked like day to day for me. The relationship felt challenging and uncomfortable in the times that we’d see each other. That was the state of things for several years.
I went no-contact with her shortly after her child was born because I found her behavior increasingly incomprehensible and distressing. I never announced that I was going no-contact, and didn’t entirely decide to do so in a conscious and purposeful way. It just felt too painful to maintain any contact, and so I didn’t. She and her son spent the first several years of his life living on the beach in Hawaii, in and out of shelters, and frequently dodging CPS. She eventually persuaded my parents to fly her and her son home and help her get on her feet; many of the things she agreed to do as a part of that have fallen by the wayside over the subsequent years, and my sister now speaks about her years in Hawaii with nostalgia.
After she had been back in our home state for a couple of years, I realized that I wanted to have some sort of relationship with my her, challenging as it might be. Because she is my sister, my only sister, and that relationship does carry some weight with me. I visited my parents at home for the first time since my sister and nephew had moved back, and saw them during that visit. We now text occasionally, and I see them (along with my parents) when I go out to visit once or twice a year.
I am careful to structure visits with my sister such that there is a clear end time/off-ramp (e.g., we’ll go bowling and have lunch, and then I need to leave to do XYZ). When we spend time together, I focus on keeping myself centered and keeping myself regulated. But the biggest thing that’s let me resume some relationship has been learning to deeply, full-throatedly accept who she is. It doesn’t mean I like it, or approve of her behavior; but it means that I accept the reality of it. When she does something truly baffling, I’m able to say – and accept – “Ah, well, Sophie’s gonna Sophie.” I sometimes gently breadcrumb advice or perspective if it seems like she’s open to it, but I don’t let myself get attached to any outcomes that I’d like to see. And if I feel myself starting to get attached to an outcome, or starting to feel heat about what I think my sister *should* be doing, that’s a good cue for me that I need to step back.
Sending you warmth and care. While I’m not proud of having gone no-contact for so long, I also believe that it was what gave me the space to come to terms with who my sister is, and find my way to being able to love and accept her as she is.
