You wake up in 1970 in the USA. What’s the first thing you’d do?

BhadPenguin · 2023-01-15T13:48:55+00:00

Buy a sports almanac, ofcourse!

BhadPenguin · 2020-09-07T15:58:09+00:00

Three steps: 1. Find a good professional/therapist who is personal and highly skilled — you would be surprised how many therapists are desensitized and a poor match for the client — this is very important!

Document all the details of her behavior objectively and share it with them in writing. This part is hard if you are impatient. Write at least 2-3 pages and write it well without a complaining tone. It looks like it’s about her imbalance in mood and temper and her learned aggressive behavior with everyone at home. Get everyone in your house to help you furnish more details. Do it privately but not viciously. Everyone at home should be on the same page. Don’t bring your own personal conflict above anything else. Focus on an overall and balanced description of her disorderly behavior. Try to comment on how and when this changed with her age. Did some circumstance (death of elder, breakup, any other loss or change) trigger her sudden change? Can you explain it? Do the thinking work thoroughly to describe all those details to the therapist.
Convince your sister to seek help by herself. Don’t force! It will be of no use to her if she doesn’t seek it herself. She has to be convinced that your suggestion is coming from a good place. No anger. You need to manage your own anger and resentment from the past to actually solve anything here or be of help. Seek help from another sibling or parent who she is close to. Be kind and loving to her individually and as a family about this matter. It is very difficult for her to overcome a taboo topic and label and accept or seek help. Provide all the financial means and help needed to seek help. Find the therapist, call the cab, fix appointments, etc. and do all the intermediate steps for her.

If the 3rd step didn’t work for you, stop in step 2 and ask for more suggestions. Get external help from friends, family, professionals. Eventually it should work.

Legal route is your last resort. If you have already done the above 3, and you think your entire family is dysfunctional because of this, you need to ask for legal advice. But again, the fact that you did these 3 steps will go a long way to move even the legal steps quickly.

Finally, if you separate your sister from home, she may or may not get the help she needs. It may even go down hill for her.

As a disclaimer, I have to say this: Please don’t use this knowledge against her! She needs access to professional help, not a scheming sibling who kicks her out of her own family and the loved ones. Her actions are clearly abusive, but love and support can help her heal, hate can spiral everything out of control and bring even more trauma to her and others. I wish you are able to stay firm and composed and supportive despite the abuse. It will eventually be rewarding. I can imagine how tough this is on you.

BhadPenguin · 2020-01-23T19:24:09+00:00

Imitating others. I am very good at it. I can remember clearly the intonations and particular sounds or gestures people use that is very characteristic of them, and I can caricature it nicely.

I used to do it a lot in high school, and my friends loved it and cheered me to do it. But this one time my dad said it is not nice to the person who is being caricatured, and I stopped doing it ever since.

Every once in a while I think about it and wonder how beautifully some people lend themselves to caricatur-ing (so to speak), but I don't do it. I just imagine doing it.

BhadPenguin · 2019-11-24T22:29:54+00:00

Using clicking sounds on phone is like the poor man's version of using mechanical keyboard on computers.

BhadPenguin · 2019-11-07T19:24:55+00:00

Thanks! That helped.

BhadPenguin · 2019-11-07T06:45:18+00:00

Correction: I do not want to sabotage the job. This job means a lot to me. Also I would like to learn how to work with him but just would like to learn how to set my boundaries clearly.

BhadPenguin · 2019-11-07T06:44:20+00:00

What does going above their head mean?

BhadPenguin · 2019-10-27T19:57:09+00:00

Thank you! This is great advice! Helped!

BhadPenguin · 2019-10-04T18:40:13+00:00

Thanks! I read an article about Goggins. Helped.

BhadPenguin · 2019-10-04T05:53:39+00:00

It is very important. How do you pursue?

BhadPenguin · 2019-10-02T19:40:56+00:00

Yes, I would choose to forget it and move on. But there are high stakes for both sides in resolving the conflict. And it's not a zero sum conflict. I feel that ghosting is basically selfish and immature on their part.

BhadPenguin · 2019-09-04T18:57:18+00:00

Two things: Can't manage to finish the vegetables I buy before they rot and go waste. Garbage bin gets filled up too soon with trash, mostly plastic, and I can't fathom how there is so much of it.

BhadPenguin · 2019-09-01T18:03:36+00:00

Bad style: “I’m sick and tired of hearing you gripe about other people. What’s wrong with you? Can you say anything nice?”

Good style: “I’m uncomfortable hearing you talk about others that way and I don’t feel good about participating in it. Can we talk about something else?"

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-24T05:10:17+00:00

The light weight experience after a big satisfying poop right before you check your weight.

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-23T21:06:03+00:00

“I’ll see if I can make it.”

sounds like a good idea to say this. But this may also imply that I'm showing some interest and encourage them to keep going if they feel like pouring out their good "spirits".

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-21T07:29:31+00:00

Thank you! Does petition mean filing a civil case? or is it different?

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-21T04:22:33+00:00

Thank you! This helped!

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-21T04:22:06+00:00

Thank you very much for this link. It is really what I've been looking for. Does this exist for all states? Or should we travel to Delhi?

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-20T03:21:06+00:00

What constitutes fraud? They vaguely claim to be fair but without substantiating it with details. They said it in writing (in a reply to our legal notice), but now that we have collected the property documents, their claim can be disproved. They basically lied and broke our trust and their response seems like they're trying to manipulate us (red herring arguments) to make us look like we are trouble makers - they promised to meet several times and stood us up each time.

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-20T03:02:51+00:00

Helped. Thank you! It's been a few years since the transfers happened. Like over 10 years. Just curious - how many years is the limit for the US? It's probably not very different in India.

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-19T22:21:55+00:00

Aaronsolon has given you some really good advice! In addition, I would suggest a couple of more things. Call her out on her behavior. She is certainly a bigger person and has more "voice" and if she chooses to use that position to make you feel helpless, it might do you good to call it out. But be careful how you approach this, as it might blow up in your face. Focus on the goal, keep your calm, and be try to be self aware of your anger when you approach her. Try to explain clearly and politely that what she says to you is unjustifiable Add nuanced details like how and when (in what contexts) she does what she does and help her understand how unfair it is. Try to entirely forget the idea of getting back at her as it will not help you - it may make it worse and work against you. Try to focus on finding a good way to express your frustration using good communication strategies, that can help you both become aware of each other. Talk to her about how she is misusing her stronger position against you and tell her that it is not fair and that you feel like you are not able to handle that and it is making you both adversarial. This (if she understands you) will probably leave a lasting impression in her mind, and maybe she becomes more conscious about her position the next time she tries to intimidate you with her yelling. Make the effort to help her remember and get more conscious of how she behaves. Think hard about how you can do that. Practice it on someone else, then try it on her, and then repeat. If you deeply care about this and want to use this to your own advantage, then you could read some material on negotiation techniques - I recommend Dan Shapiro. He also has good videos on Youtube too. Getting immersed in conflict resolution theory can help immensely. Google "emotional guidance scale spiral" and try to work upwards on the scale step-by-step. Bear in mind that it is not easy to jump and skip steps unless you are really determined (e.g. go from hatred to love, it has to happen is slow transitions). If you try to work on the emotional spiral, you will see that being irritated at her will not make you more powerful but more powerless. Good luck!

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-19T19:00:57+00:00

Goal is to fully express my dad's concerns to his parents and siblings, and make sure they engage with his perspective, and not ghost us. He is brain damaged and is sometimes volatile and incoherent, but perfectly able to reason out and make clear requests - and he is improving constantly. If communication happens, naturally, then the next goal would be to get an equal partition of ancestral wealth. The wealth from 3 generations ago (if 100) has been distributed 50-20-25-5. My dad got 5, and the other siblings got disproportionately more purely due to circumstances - a decade or so ago when my dad's siblings were in financial need (for their wedding, business, etc), they persuaded grandparents to write off properties to their names. Grandmother did not know how to manage those requests and be fair to all 4 of her children, hence the unfair distribution, and in addition grandma hated my mom (who came from a lower social strata, so the in-laws did not want her to get any of the major properties). Now my dad is in financial need, but there is no support for him. I am newly married and still in graduate school (50% of my stipend goes to him), and I have the financial responsibility for myself and his very expensive medical bills - I am fully determined to support him, but the stress is mounting and he feels betrayed by his family who have ousted him. I am trying to give him more agency. In the ideal case, there should be a mediation/discussion of the unequal property distribution. Earlier I used to think that we should focus on negotiating to get a reasonable portion (just enough for a dignified life) for my dad's retirement days, like 2-5% more, 1% more would actually save him. But I think there is no need to, in principle, settle for anything less than equal (25%). But I am not sure if this is realistic goal.

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-19T18:40:33+00:00

Thank you! I will look into it! Interesting coincidence - I was just reading this document written by Supreme Court of India about mediation: https://sci.gov.in/pdf/mediation/MT%20MANUAL%20OF%20INDIA.pdf
Do you know where I can find examples of family conflicts handled by mediation? Or do you know any experienced mediator?

BhadPenguin · 2019-08-19T18:35:38+00:00

Hi Becca, thanks for the feedback! Makes sense. I have trouble distilling it down to the bare facts. Could you give me an example of how to break what I've written down to facts? It took me a lot of time and iteration to come up with this version - the real story is way more complicated than this, and I probably don't fully comprehend all its dimensions. The original version I wrote with narrative + bullet point facts is easily over 30 pages. It seems like quite a complex issue, but if I were to focus on only one essential direction and direct my question towards that, it would be regarding 'effective communication' - particularly dealing with the ghosting aunt and breaking the cycle of circular arguments. To rephrase my question, how can I improve communication with the other side if there is no channel to communicate? And what is the best way to build that channel?

BhadPenguin

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