Alisha, I am just speculating "what could be" going on with your sister. I am just thinking that if she has had therapy, she may have had a chance to grieve with a therapist and allow her emotions to finally come out. It's hard to know for sure without knowing the person and their history, especially their history from their POV.

When I think of my relationship with my sister? I often just distance and
because of the PTSD I don't really make plans if I can help it because I
don't really know how I will be feeling, but that is just me and I had to
distance because I was struggling so much. When you said "like a secretary", I did that too because at times I had to communicate and I did it that way to try to communicate, but to do so in a way that would not invite my sister in to her way of treating me that triggered me. Now that is just me and how I managed trying to gain the space I needed to heal. I know that when I am struggling and I talk to my sister and get weepy, the conversations just goes right down hill and she starts to say all the things that trigger me and make me even worse. A lot of my sister's messages to me are about telling me to try to not "feel" and "I should not be struggling or that she doesn't have time to listen to my challenges because she is just so busy with her own". Yet, when she struggles and I take time out to validate her and tell her that she is being strong and doing her best etc, she will keep that conversation going with no time limit.

I have some painful "blocks" when it comes to my sister, but if she was
posting here she would insist she was caring and trying to help me. My sister doesn't see "her" shortcomings and how condescending she can be.
But this is not just MPOV, her own daughter is challenged this way with her too and has distanced and often uses that "secretarial response" to her too.

Now, when you talk about relationships and "meeting half way", yes, that
is how a working relationship should be. However, when I try to do that with my sister, unfortunately I open a door for her to pull me right back
into a place I just can't go now, it's not healthy for me to go. And that is
what her own daughter realizes about her too. That can be a challenge
with a family that has dysfunction going on, family members can be trying to heal or even get help and then try to connect with family in healthier
ways, but they tend to find themselves slipping into and unhealthy role
again and have to distance again.

Where there is some kind of family dysfunction, its really complex to each
family member to really function in healthier ways. There are "years" of
these different members settling into their own "unhealthy" roles and that
becomes deeply engrained in the subconscious mind. It's like a motor in a car that isn't running right and breaks down, one can try to fix that engine but if there is a faulty part left in place, all that happens is the engine is still stressed and may just not run right even with all the other new parts put in place. Well the same is true if the engine is not all that good and
one piece of it is "fixed/repaired" and then put back into the engine, that one piece is fine, but won't last because of how the rest of the engine isn't right.

So, when I said that if my older sister was posting here, she would say things about "me" from her POV that is not the "truth" about the dysfunction and her part in it either. My sister really doesn't "see" her role in the dysfunction, to her it is everyone else and she has to keep trying to fix it somehow and make it all better. What she doesn't realize is that she was often "too controlling and condescending to others and it tended to make things worse instead of better". She will not see it that way, she will insist that she was the glue that held it all together and that she is just worn out now. She doesn't realize that everyone sees her as bossy and controlling either, EVERYONE sees her that way and we all pretty much stay back while she does her "in control of everything mode".

Now, for example, my sister "insists" on the holidays always being at her home, and she does that with everyone, even her mother in law. My sister is actually very gifted and she really can create a Martha Stewart perfect holiday presentation, however, she is gets so involved in that perfection that she just doesn't let anyone help her or pitch in, her entire body language is "no, I don't want your help I need to do it all and you will just be in my way", and she actually says it like that too. The problem with her doing that is she actually "hurts" people and they begin to feel unworthy and they just "give in", which then means to her that she "has to have that control over everything now". I tried to do things at my home many times until no matter what I realized she would have all kinds of reasons why "she" had to do it that I just gave up and let her have her way, everyone did that. But I remember at one holiday where everyone was sitting at her table and she made fun of me, joking about my not cooking and doing holiday gatherings, and I just joked and laughed with everyone there watching, but inside I WAS VERY HURT.

What my sister doesn't see is that she became the director of the show and put others into their character roles and she always set the stage. Well, people get to a point where they get tired of being put in the part that "she" puts them in, yet they have all been trained to play that role and give in so much that as time passed "her control" became expected but at the same time "unpleasant" too on some levels, even for her.

Well, I just could not "play that game", when I broke and developed PTSD
it got so going to that "holiday stage" was not something I could manage
AT ALL. When I broke and developed PTSD, she got mad because I fell out of the role she needed me to be in, and it was that way for everyone
around me. And I got really bad because of that too. With therapy however, I slowly learned to give myself permission to "distance" and yes, I did have that secretary like way of distancing as you are describing. But I was not "happy go lucky", I was struggling to much to be that way, but that is just me, and the PTSD was really bad, too bad to act gleeful.

Well, didn't mean to get all about me, but I was trying to show you my own family and relationship with my sister so you might be able to relate
and think about your relationship with your sister differently and maybe see "why" she has been "pulling back from you". It could be that she just
is not capable of meeting you half way, and it could be that way for a long time too. I used to have a much closer relationship with my sister, but I also learned to give "her" the control too and do that half way that "she" needed, but it was not really working out all that well for me, and that became very obvious when I broke and she failed to really "see" me the way I really needed her to.

Well, something to ponder.

OE