[MadameImperfect]

After 4 years of college, my sister has become extremely emotional, sensitive, competitive, lazy & depressing. If you tell her she's wrong about anything, she'll insult people & cry. If you prove her wrong, she believes the world is against her. She tries to compete with everyone about almost anything! I've lost weight & she's trying to compete to be skinnier. I don't compete at all & tried to discuss it but she screamed at me & cried.. She's extremely lazy too. She would leave her trash & dirty dishes everywhere then complain to me that I'm not neat even though I clean after her all the time! Also, she's constantly crying about her weight, how dumb she is, how bad the world is… She was never like this, what's going on?

[joypulv]

I suspect that she feels a letdown after college, and now feels like a failure of some sort - either pressure to go to grad school, start a career, or get married. She may see going home as giving up. She might be more depressed than anything else. It shows as anger and laziness sometimes, rather than crying. What were your parents' expectations of her? Did she actually graduate, or did she have poor grades? Did she get jilted by a man who promised to stay with her after graduation, but took off?
Go ask her sometime if she wants to talk about anything wrong. Don't quiz her though - just listen. Do it at a time when you aren't fighting and she isn't upset.

[Wondergirl]

joypulv is on the right track, methinks. My younger son went through a male version of what your sister seems to be going through. All his life had been structured by school. He knew he had to be in class and take notes, he knew he had to do homework, he knew he had to study in order to pass quizzes and tests, he knew he had to fit meals in there somewhere, he knew he had to get some sleep in order to get through the next school day. There were no maybes or what ifs or unknowns each day; he knew what to expect.

When he graduated from college, he was footloose and fancy free. He had no job, and could do whatever he wanted to when he wanted to. But there was nothing he wanted to do. His life turned out to be empty and he had trouble filling it. He didn't have a plan to get a job and didn't know what he wanted to even look for. His education had been too general to push him into a specific career. He had no motivation to even get up in the morning. He was usually crabby and hard to get along with.

It took him about six months, but he finally found a job working with disabled young men in a group home. That eventually led him into a couple of other jobs until he finally discovered what he loved to do (and not do) and had finally found his calling.

Is there some way to, in a kind and loving way, help your sis latch onto at least a part-time job so that will give her some structure she is probably missing after all those years of school? And it will give her a chance to try out how a particular job and coworkers and supervisors work into her life, to understand work responsibilities and corporate culture and how to manage a regular paycheck.

[MadameImperfect]

I suspect that she feels a letdown after college, and now feels like a failure of some sort - either pressure to go to grad school, start a career, or get married. She may see going home as giving up. She might be more depressed than anything else. It shows as anger and laziness sometimes, rather than crying. What were your parents' expectations of her? Did she actually graduate, or did she have poor grades? Did she get jilted by a man who promised to stay with her after graduation, but took off?
Go ask her sometime if she wants to talk about anything wrong. Don't quiz her though - just listen. Do it at a time when you aren't fighting and she isn't upset.

She did graduate but with very poor grades. She never had a boyfriend so I rule that out. My mom did expect highly of her. There also seem to be a problem with jobs too. I believe I understand now. Thank you.

[MadameImperfect]

joypulv is on the right track, methinks. My younger son went through a male version of what your sister seems to be going through. All his life had been structured by school. He knew he had to be in class and take notes, he knew he had to do homework, he knew he had to study in order to pass quizzes and tests, he knew he had to fit meals in there somewhere, he knew he had to get some sleep in order to get through the next school day. There were no maybes or what ifs or unknowns each day; he knew what to expect.

When he graduated from college, he was footloose and fancy free. He had no job, and could do whatever he wanted to when he wanted to. But there was nothing he wanted to do. His life turned out to be empty and he had trouble filling it. He didn't have a plan to get a job and didn't know what he wanted to even look for. His education had been too general to push him into a specific career. He had no motivation to even get up in the morning. He was usually crabby and hard to get along with.

It took him about six months, but he finally found a job working with disabled young men in a group home. That eventually led him into a couple of other jobs until he finally discovered what he loved to do (and not do) and had finally found his calling.

Is there some way to, in a kind and loving way, help your sis latch onto at least a part-time job so that will give her some structure she is probably missing after all those years of school? And it will give her a chance to try out how a particular job and coworkers and supervisors work into her life, to understand work responsibilities and corporate culture and how to manage a regular paycheck.

My sister had an idea but no way of making a definite plan to go about it. She went through a few jobs but none related to her education or career goals. She always came home upset. Recently she's been fired for being late all the time. She's terrible with responsibility & time management.