Mentally Ill Sister Having a Baby

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She was diagnosed as bipolar in the past. She does go through both manic and depressive episodes. I don't know if she is on anything now or is getting proper therapy. Last she discussed it with me a few years ago she said she wasn't taking anything My parents made sure she did but I feel that part of her cutting them off was feeling that she was fine and didn't need them and they forced her to be on meds. I truly think she needs them but she is an adult and makes her own decision.

22:21 again. Yes, unfortunately that's typical of many psychiatric disorders and ADHD. Patients are not self aware and do not accurately measure how much the medication is keeping them on the straight and narrow. My son, who is now 17, tells me he doesn't know whether his meds are working or not.. but I can see they're working, because his grades get significantly better, he listens to us, and he's more focused in general. Bipolars frequently believe they're fine and don't need the meds... until they crash and burn.

It's really tough to foster trust with adult patients of such disorders in a way that persuades them to stay on meds without getting pushed away and accused of controlling them and meddling. I get it. Since you're not her parent, perhaps she won't immediately jump to that conclusion. I would encourage her husband and MIL to also try to convince her to seek treatment.

[Anonymous]

I am glad to hear your son is doing better. I know bipolar people often don't feel they need meds and it's a very challenging situation. I am glad she has support from her husband and MIL but I feel at this point she probably isn't taking anything and would have a hard time being asked to. She very much does what she wants and her husband is very accommodating. I am glad she is happy but afraid she is not self aware enough to really take care of someone else.

[Anonymous]

My parents are both mentally ill and are both borderline nonfunctional. Help from family, even if they did not always do the right thing, really saved my life. I am a productive member of society, sane, and have a healthy family of my own. Please be a part of this child’s life OP; you could be the person who keeps them from having a horrible outcome.

[Anonymous]

I am so sorry that you went through this but it is wonderful that other family members were there for you and you were able to succeed with the odds against you. I struggle since I am not close to her at all and she has been very hurtful to me in the past, but I do want to be a resource for the child. My mom would have loved to be involved too so that's another part that is difficult for me. I feel like my sister expects me to play a mom role to her which feels unfair at times but she does have a mom who would be so willing to help and be there for her.

[Anonymous]

OP, I believe you about your sister and your concern, but I just want to bring up some possibilities you might not have considered:

It is possible that:

Your sister experienced trauma in your family, and it was not addressed
Your parents are not perfect, or even good, and you are in denial about it
Your sister is doing better, has supportive people around, because she distanced from your family
Your sister was misdiagnosed, has suffered mental illness compounded by misunderstanding

Or not. In any case, I support earlier comments to stay close and ready to help the child if needed.

[Anonymous]

I believe she had trauma in her life from her mental illnesses and not coping with them well. I do think my parents did work very hard to give her proper support and medications. She had a very bad relationship with my dad especially before they stopped speaking. My other siblings and I agree that my dad is a very difficult person to be around. My sister and my dad were like oil and water together.

I am glad she is doing better and has supportive people around. I don't believe she was misdiagnosed. I know a decent number of people with mental illness and her diagnoses seem accurate to me. But she does seem to not be self aware and I do think that meds would help her function better. Her reaction when meeting her husband was that his family was so much better than ours and so much more supportive. But that's not true. It's the way she sees it in her head. My parents were supportive of her, but she really disliked my father because he was very strict. She doesn't like me much either, she was always jealous of me. I asked another sibling if he could think of anything I ever did wrong or unkind to her and he said no. She had a very hard time growing up because her behavior was very concerning to other people, I won't go into all the details here.

She doesn't read social situations well. Her MIL doesn't seem to like my sister very much from my interactions with her. She never seemed happy about the marriage. She makes passive aggressive remarks about my sister and I feel she doesn't think my sister is good enough for her son. So I think in her head she was rebelling and doing her own thing and being independent and she's chosen a "better family" who is "closer" and "more normal" but I feel like she doesn't really read the situation because of her autism.

[Anonymous]

I feel for the MIL. It's not anyone's idea of a dream DIL. But it's nice they're trying to help.

[Anonymous]

What is her husband like? Neurotypical? Is he employed? Can you or your sibling talk to him about your concerns?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Her child will not necessarily inherit her mental illness. My father had schizoaffective disorder. My sister inherited it from him but I did not.

But the child will be raised by a mentally ill parent.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have experience with a mentally ill sibling having a child? How did they do?

I have two nieces whose moms (my ex-SILs) are mentally ill. Both are now grown and are wonderful adults. But it was complicated.

The older of the two had a mom who was terribly neglectful allowing my niece to do all sorts of things at a way too young age, like walk to her grandmother’s house, which was two miles away through bad neighborhoods, from age 5. Her dad was not involved. The mom of the younger of the two had a number of suicide attempts so from a young age her dad had full custody but by mid ES, they went to shared custody.

I was very involved in their lives. Both girls spent most weekends and holidays living with me. I lived over an hour away. I’d pick them up on Friday after school and drop them off at school on Mondays until I moved out of their area. After that they’d spend school breaks and parts of the summer with me. This all started when they were babies. I was the school contact for the older one so if there were issues or she needed money for field trips or whatever I’d get called and I’d take care of it. My mom would make sure they had food. I would take them on vacations. For the older one, my mom and i always made sure she had clothes and whatever else she needed like school supplies because her mom and step father weren’t reliable in that regard.

The older is estranged from her mom but the younger one is really close to hers. The younger one’s mom is significantly better. Medications improved over the years and I think that helped. I see her a couple of times a year and we’re FB friends and she is so different from when she was young. I haven’t seen my older niece’s mom for probably like a decade but last contact she was a mess. I felt that I had to report her to CPS relating to issues with my nieces’s half sister and between that and some other issues, she does not talk to me anymore.

My older niece had a really tough life. Her mother was seriously unstable for her whole life and that meant my niece was never a child. She always had to take care of things and she lived in deplorable conditions. But as I said, she grew up to be an amazing person - one of my very favorite in the world.

So, anecdotally that’s our experience. Really though the bottom line is that you can’t change the fact that your sister is having a baby and she might have more than one. The only thing you can do is to be there and take care of the kids in the ways you can. I am very close to my nieces as a result of my role with them as they were growing up and I continue to be a resource for them as adults. It’s a very different relationship than I have with my other nieces and nephews whose moms were not mentally ill and one that is very satisfying.

[Anonymous]

Is her husband stable?

Unfortunately there nothing you can do to stop her
Just stay watchful and be willing and ready to get custody of the baby if needed

[Anonymous]

I think there are a few things you can do, OP. Try to maintain a relationship with your sister. It doesn't have to be much more than you have right now, just stay in touch.

Build a relationship with her husband and be supportive of him.

If you can, build a relationship with their child. Become a positive, safe adult in the child's life.

Remind yourself that the child has a father and his family, too.

[Anonymous]

OP, be honest with yourself here. Are you basically implying your sister should not be allowed to be a parent? Are you interested in having her baby taken away?

Your posts and attitude toward your sister are very harsh. You make excuses for everyone else, but her; in particular when discussing your parents. You also imply that your decision to not have a baby is right and her decision to have one is wrong.

Persons with disabilities, including mental ones, have parenting and constitutional rights. How do you know she won’t be a good parent, and doesn’t have a good support system? Because she hasn’t even had the baby yet. You don’t know. Just like you don’t know someone without bipolar and who has a cleaning driving record would be a good one.

Disabled people have been discriminated against for parenting since forever. Instead of shaming and shaking your head at your sister’s decisions, instead of having eugenic views about who should and should not be allowed to parent, why not support her, why not help her, why not educate yourself. Worried about her being a parent and having bipolar, talk to other bipolar parents. Worried about her driving, offer to pay for her Ubers or suggest driving lesson, etc.

The snap judgment that she shouldn’t be a mother is wrong. Plus that ship has sailed, she’s pregnant. And implying she shouldn’t have parenting rights is also wrong. It’s people like you that want babies taken from disabled mothers in the hospital by CPS. Shameful.

[Anonymous]

This is so hard, OP. My sister (my only sibling) has a host of mental illnesses, including alcohol addiction and borderline personality disorder. She has two kids.

I think the best you can hope for is that the child’s father is stable and willing to take over if need be. If you do stay close to your sister, you need to consider the possibility of needing to report to CPS, should your sister prove abusive or neglectful. She may not, of course, but parenting is extremely stressful, and many parents with mental illness struggle. People criticizing you don’t understand the challenges and the implications for the child, who is really the focus here.

[Anonymous]

The differences between this thread (my sister is bipolar, is a bad driver, and doesn’t speak to my parents) and the other thread about the majorly depressed mother (delusional, verbally abusive towards her children, cannot remember her prior actions/blacks out, having a nervous breakdown) are amazingly hypocritical.

This thread: sister with bipolar is bad, OP should consider calling CPS, sister will probably be abusive and neglectful, this is terrible


The depressed mother thread: we support you, same thing is happening to me, don’t give up, keep going, you can do it!

WTAF people?! Bipolar and major depression with delusions are both mental illnesses. So why are we still stigmatizing people for this? For one poster everyone has their hands on her back, tells her how much they support her and even can relate to her. On the other, they’re giving that OP advice on how to get the unborn baby taken away and are extremely judgmental.

The other thread is here BTW. SMH at the posters here. We won’t get ANYWHERE with helping people with mental illnesses with the attitudes in this thread.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1057172.page