Just to add to the conversation - family is always a mixed bag, due to the fact that even during the best of times, there are no perfect relationships between family members (many of us have family members that haven't gotten along with each other in a long time [in my case, my brother and sister have been feuding with each other for well over 10 years]). Throw in transitioning, and it just aggravates things. In my case, while I reconciled with my parents shortly before my SRS in late 2003 (as a matter of fact, I'm taking my mom to her follow-up appointment with her cardiologist later today), my sister and brother have never come to any full-on acceptance of me being myself. At best they prefer deal with me in a very remote, and cold manner. To top it off, my brother is a bit of a sanctimonious fool, who tries to manipulate others into being the way he thinks they should be. I ignore him (which gets him bent out of shape - such as when I wouldn't walk in lock-step with him about how affairs should be handled, when my dad was dying of cancer), knowing that that people like him (and more than likely your sister Lisa), have lives that are far from perfect, and in many cases, are just plain messed up.
For a long time, my credo for dealing with people like that (who feel they have to manipulate me/try to force me into living my life the "proper way") is to remind myself of the last line to the chorus of that old song, "Sunshine" by Jonathan Edwards:
He Can't Even Run His Own Life, I'll Be Damned If He'll Run Mine
Don't let your sister get you down Lisa. More than likely her life is far from perfect, and her own insecurities about it, are causing her to attack you, so she feels better about herself.
Ellen - On Vacation From Work (hey, I still have a week's worth of vacation to use up before the end of the year
)
