My sister FINALLY comes to her senses

Whoa. I just got a crazy phone call and I was all, like, I have got to share this with SDMB.

This harkens back to this thread from last year: My sister thinks I have post-partum depression...and I totally don't! Right? - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board

I freaked OUT on my family last summer, after I went to visit them with my new baby. It was like, I finally realized that my parents were sucky parents and kinda mean people and I couldn’t believe it took me so long to realize it.

My sister said I had post-partum depression, and then we stopped speaking for more than a year. We’ve recently started exchanging friendly texts, but today I got an actual phone call from her.

She and her husband just started marriage counseling, and the counselor asked them to fill out this 600-item questionaire. She did, and the counselor studied it, and told her he thinks she’s suffering from PTSD.

She was like, huh? And he asked if she’d ever been raped, abused – anything really traumatic. Nope, she said. And then he asked about her (our) dad – not the he had abused her or anything, but how was their relationship?

And it alllll came out. She said it was like this facade she’d (well, we’d) invented about our dad just came tumbling down – he wasn’t a misunderstood genius, he was a kind of crazy jerk. And our mom let him practically raise us himself (since she was a flight attendant and gone much of the time). And then it got her thinking, Is this why smaje freaked out on the family? Dad is crazy and mom let him raise us, knowing he was crazy???

We had a great talk, and she asked me to join her and her therapist for a three-way conversation to talk about the family. I happily accepted.

I honestly never thought I’d get any validation for the way I felt. A little part of me was always wondering, am I blowing this all out of proportion? And I feel awful that my sister is sad and upset now, but at least she can start the healing process.

A lot of you Dopers gave me great advice and words of wisdom when I was dealing with all of this last year, so you definitely deserve an update on the situation! I can’t WAIT to see what we talk about during this therapy session!

Holy shit, that’s awesome!

I missed this the first time around, but good for you! And your sister! It sounds like she’s seeing reality for the first time.

Ah, the feeling of blinders coming off. Relief, understanding, and a healthy dose of “WTF is wrong with me that I didn’t figure this out sooner?!?” It’s amazing how skewed our sense of reality and proportion can be.

Good luck to you, your sister … oh, and new small baby! Glad you know enough to know to avoid that kind of toxic environment now.

Cool beans! Congratulations on what looks like a big improvement in family relations coming up.

That sounds like an interesting questionaire, bless its little heart.

Thanks! And yeah, I totally want to get a peek at that questionaire. I think the therapist was spot on.

A year ago when my sister accused me of having PPD, she initially said I had “post-traumatic stress disorder” by mistake and I was all like, That makes sense. Something happened in our childhood that is really screwing me up, but I just can’t remember it.

One of the interesting things she said to me today was that she doesn’t remember a whole lot of her childhood – and neither do I. My husband can recall a lot from when he was a kid; but to me, there are fuzzy bits and pieces here and there. I get the feeling I seriously blocked out a LOT of what happened…

I’m very happy for you.

Congratulations! I’m really happy for you, and honestly, a little bit jealous. Best of luck to you both.

Congrats!

Oh, that moment when you realize that you aren’t crazy - the situation you were in really was completely fucked up. Talk about a soul-affirming epiphany. And now your sister’s had one too.

I suppose it might almost, but not quite, make up for the shit you went through in the first place.

Excellent news!

Wishing both you and your sister peace and strength as you continue processing all this shit.

This, exactly. :slight_smile: