Lifting the bell jar

I was reading a synopsis of the novel, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath at Wikipedia and came across an interesting analogy (spoiler alert). The main character battles a debilitating depression that leads to a couple of hospitalizations, a suicide attempt, and even electroshock therapy. Her ongoing battle to get heatlhy is profound and got me thinking about something. When the character finally begins to heal, she experiences a "lifting the metaphorical bell jar in which she's felt trapped and stifled."

I feel like that is a great description for how I've been feeling these past few years. Those close to me know my story and the resulting anxiety I've battled. Well, something has been eating at me lately and it's nothing I can do anything about. My sister-in-law has been treating me like the plague ever since her brother and I had a baby out of wedlock. She feels that we were "stupid" and a bunch of other lovely adjectives of that sort. In the years since, she has opted to ignore our existence because she disapproves of our family. Her brother and I have since married. While we have had a rocky road along the way, we are both determined to see our family make it. She only sees the negative side and has never stopped to notice the good things. We may've started out wrong, but ended up improving our lives in the long run. We now have two wonderful kids, both of us returned to school, got better jobs, and are in our own home.

I keep asking myself, why do I care so much what this woman thinks of me and feel the need to justify things? The truth is that I do care and I wish we could have a good relationship. I feel like she acted as judge, jury, and executioner without ever really bothering to get to know me. She doesn't know anything about me or my family, yet she feels entitled to shun us. This knowledge really caused me to actually lose sleep over it last night. All of the crummy things that have happened over my lifetime flashed before my eyes and made me realize something very important. She has to believe these things. For whatever reason, it makes her feel better about her own life and so I say so be it. I can't honestly say I won't let her attitude get me down every now and then, but I can at least crawl out from under the bell jar to go on with my own life. To me, the sweetest revenge is to go onto live a happy life with my family.