Cape Breton Post

Outbursts call for health check

- Ellie Tesher

Q

: I’m a man, 60s, engaged to a woman who’s four years younger, living together for over five years.

Everything’s fine between us except for my fiancee’s older sister, 78, who lives in her mother’s house which I’m helping repair to sell.

She keeps yelling and screaming at me. She also did this when I was previously helping look after their mother.

I then thought she was stressed out as we all were about their mother’s declining condition.

Now, after ongoing outbursts for 10 years, I’m seeing it as harassment of me.

It starts suddenly during a normal conversati­on between us, alone. She yells, I just listen.

When questioned about her behaviour, she denies yelling. She won’t admit it to her sister nor me, saying she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

I intend to no longer associate with her. This is hard on my fiancée.

How can I keep my sanity and hold this sister to account?

My main goal is to keep my fiancee happy, or is there no hope? — Harassed and Fed Up

A: Tell your fiancee that you’re concerned about her sister. And rightly so. Ask her to trust you and accept your word.

Suggest that she be nearby the next time you’re alone with her sister and to come over when you send a signal.

Or, if she agrees, you could record one of those conversati­ons that suddenly turn into her sister harassing you with screaming.

There’s hope for all of you IF her sister is helped to recognize that she needs a medical check for any physical reason for her behaviour, also counsellin­g help to seek the source of these sudden outbursts.

Without alarming her about this, these checks are essential since some personalit­y changes and inappropri­ate behaviours like sudden unreasonab­le anger, may result from a brain tumour growing over time.

So, too, some mental health disorders cause explosive anger such as you describe.

If her sister’s suffering from anything like these, you and your fiancee could be doing her a lifesaving favour by getting her to a profession­al who can diagnose and treat her. This is not the time to dissociate from her.

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