A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:My elder sister is now 46 and has been suffering from variously diagnosed mental illness since she was 17. Her first psychotic episode happened when I was 14 and left in charge of my younger sister who was 4 at the time. My parents were away because my father was extremely ill in hospital and had to be taken to a major city to be operated on at short notice. To cut a long story short, my sister's illness took over everything in a family life that was already highly dysfunctional. My Dad never properly recovered so was intermittently seriously ill until he died when I was 27. I have often seriously considered that my mother was in fact mentally ill herself because her character was so abusive and extremely disconnected from what most people consider to be 'reality'. All my life my elder sister had bullied me as I was growing up and my mother showed absolutely no care for either my elder sister's emotions or my own. My mother died some years back now and we have, literally, no other family except my younger sister who I now have no contact with. My elder sister's life became worse and worse and disintegrated into a kind of "hell" where she was continually preyed upon by drug abusers, very violent people and so on. The problem is that she has always had a problem with a. being honest - she will lie and cover things over b. she is prone to very angry and violent outbursts c. she has enormous difficulty in accepting any form of authority d. she is totally lacking in any sense of responsibility and/or empathy for others. She has recently been in a low security hospital for 2 years and has been 'rehabilitated'. During that time I have visited her and she has also continually 'phoned me. For years prior to this hospital stay she would literally 'phone me and rant, very angrily, about her life. During her hospital stay the 'phone calls got worse for the best part of a year as I felt obliged to 'counsel' her over the 'phone and then gradually got better - during this time I would often become very depressed after her phone calls as it was like someone literally "dumping" all of their rage and sickness on to me.During all of this time, neither of my sisters recognised that I was really struggling to bring up a child alone and also that I had severe depression for years and now, for the last six years, have suffered form chronic fatigue. Both sisters have totally ignored my child from day 1 and this has caused me enormous pain. The total lack of support from my sisters and having to deal with my elder sister's anger and so on continually stirs up very bad feelings for me - about my upbringing and about how unsupported I feel now in terms of family.I feel oddly bonded to my elder sister but I wonder if this is because I am so used to her just "using" me as an "ear" to listen to her. When she is not so angry, I still feel obliged to "entertain" her with stories of my life and so on when she phones and for this reason she feels very strongly that we have a good 'relationship'. She literally cannot see that I don't find this at all pleasant. I have told her that I am ill and she does express concern but it goes no deeper than a surface expression.My concern is that she is due to be released from hospital soon and to start her "new life". She lives far away but, in the past, has had a habit of literally turning up at my doorstep, usually drunk and raging, and I have no choice but to help her. Recently she said "I am going to come and see you" which really panicked me and I had to say that she must tell me first because I am so busy (I really am as I am in the final stages of a PhD) and very stressed. She seemed to accept this as a kind of 'rule' but doesn't think more about the implications of what I am saying ie. that I don't want her to come here and assume that she can stay overnight or for a whole weekend as before. I really don't know what to do about my relationship with her in the future. I am obviously cast in the role of 'care-giver'to someone that has always bullied and lied to me. My relationship with my younger sister is beyond repair as she simply began to mimic my mother's abuse of me, to the point where I realised she was trying to destroy my life. It feels worse because my parents, when they were alive, never once asked me if I was struggling to cope with the effects of her illness - basically this ruined my life at that time because I could not bring anyone home (she was too anti-social) and, as people in our small town became aware of her illness, stigma was attached to me and I became very depressed at people's rejection. If I ever mentioned my own feelings I was continually told that I was selfish by my mother, so I stopped saying anything and instead told myself that I was selfish for even thinking about my own feelings. For a while I became anorexic and then attempted suicide because I was so depressed. My parents response at that time was to say that I was "selfish" and that anorexia was " a load of rubbish" and - the most hurtful one - that I was simply a liar. This is quite typical of how they would react and I feel that this was a major contribution to my elder sister's illness, which has never been properly diagnosed.Throughout all of this I have worked immensely hard and am now only just starting to have the life that I want - from the outside, to people who don't know my full life story, I must seem like a very strong, succesful and possibly selfish woman because I have achieved an awful lot despite being alone and depressed a lot of the time. Only my ex=partner is aware of how awful my upbringing and life in the early years were. I am dreading having to assert my self with my elder sister and don't know what to do to assert with her what kind of relationship I want with her. Can anyone help please?
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anorexic, bullied, depressed, drunk, liar, my ex, violent Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (29 September 2011): Hi, well as someone who has bipolar disorder I can tell you that you are not in an easy situation. It is very easy for people who have sever chronic illness to use their illness as a scapegoat for their bad life. The truth is, despite having an illness, it is still our responsibility to battle the illness and own up to our issues and mistakes. Just like a person with diabetes needs to learn to eat properly, test their blood, and take their meds, so too do people with mental illness. If she is incapable of caring for herself, she needs to apply for assistance or a group home or something like that.
You must treat this as an intervention. You must say to her, "I love you, but I cannot be here for you unless you are in treatment and proving that you are working toward recovery. I will not tolerate lies, drugs, alcohol, or angry outbursts in my home or around my person. Until you can prove that you are continuing your treatment and working seriously toward recovery, we cannot have a relationship."
Either she will be angry and it will sever your ties with her, or she will be serious about her recovery. Recovery is not impossible. Not all people with mental illness fit into the box that you have described. But many fall into that box and can't get out. But you are not equiped to carry her, and you shouldn't.
People with mental illness do need a lot of support, but just like anyone else with serious illness, if they can't put their healthcare as a priority they can't expect anyone else to do it for them. And because drug and alcohol addiction are so common, you must put your foot down and say "Enough."
I wish you luck.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (29 September 2011): Wow, just wow. First of all - you seem like an incredibly, nay almost preternaturally, strong person. To have been through everything you have - and come out fighting is absolutely incredible. These are battles that are largely unrecognized by society (some people just seem to cruise on with their lives in blissful ignorance that anyone else has problems), but anyone who has been near them knows how intractable, difficult, and emotionally draining they are. To have achieved so much in spite of them - amazing.
Two things strike me. First of all, you cannot be a counsellor to your sister. You are too close to the situation, and too involved, and, being so, you can't deal with the emotional impact that your sister's rage is having on you - it's just too close. You need protection from this situation.
Second of all,you are being taken (emotionally and physically) out of your comfort zone by someone who (for medical reasons) is utterly incapable of thinking about the wellbeing of others. They will never establish boundaries themselves, or recognize the need to do so.
Those things being the case, it unfortunately falls to you to set these things in train. One thing you can do is to be completely open and honest with your sister about how you're feeling. You say you've mentioned that you're feeling ill, but you don't sound like the kind of person who will assert something very strongly! You really need to force her to see that you're not well - it may be a matter of being as blunt as saying 'I'm so sorry, I know you're really upset and angry, and I feel terrible about saying this, but I'm very unwell at the moment, and I'm not handling the stress of these conversations well. I wish I could be there to support you more, but I don't feel like I'm helping, and the negativity is just destroying me right now. I honestly think you need to talk to someone who is a professional listener about this, because what happened to us is so rare, so difficult to deal with that I don't think we can do it by ourselves like this.' She will likely be a bit shocked, and possibly even aggressive - but you can refuse to engage with any anger she shows.
It's important that you recognize emotionally that you're being pushed beyond your limits, and that you not only have a right to say 'No more!', but an adult responsibility to ensure that this situation does not undermine your health or psychological wellbeing. So stick to your guns, stay calm and don't be afraid, and remember that this is self-protection, and protection for your child. If you're not well, you can't be as active a Mum as you'd like! Plus, having someone turn up drunken and raving on the doorstep is nothing for a child to see!
I also think that you need to look at the feelings you have about this bond with your elder sister, particularly given your history of self-harming behaviour. It is possible that your behaviour, while altruistic, is actually not that healthy! Why does someone dumping rage and sickness on you make you feel bonded to them? Is it because you think that this is all you're worth - that, in the world, your value is to care for other people, and to absorb their pain like some kind of human emotional sponge? Recognize that your suffering does not reduce the suffering of your sister - she's still phoning you, upset - she's still ill! By hurting more and more, you are just punishing yourself masochistically, without really achieving anything more than a transient, unstable respite for your sister (only to see her crash again a few hours or days later). You don't need to punish yourself any more - you don't deserve to be punished - so STOP acting as if you do. Start building some walls so that you can co-exist with these problems in your family, and be happy in spite of them, rather than having them rule your life. Free yourself from guilt, start compartmentalizing the difficulties so they can't take over your whole existence and you'll be surprised what a tremendous relief it is and actually how much BETTER you handle those difficult issues when they do arise.
Good luck with the end of the PhD. It's a horrible time, but to have got this far with everything you've been throughis astounding.
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