Reply to how to help mentally ill brother, his wife who is sick of it

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think this thread shows the stigma of mental illness. Telling OP not to offer to help, to not offer support, to say out of it, to not engage, to not get involved in any way.

Listen to the poster who suggested contacting NAMI - they are much better suited to connect you to services and to help you navigate this than a board of people who are acting like mental illness is a horrible character flaw.

Any serious illness can be very difficult on a couple and it isn't strange or a lack of effort or poor character that are the reasons why SIL or brother are struggling. Mental illness (especially with no family support) is really, really hard on families, couples and individuals. You don't just man up and get over it.

The main priority should be getting brother a proper thorough assessment / diagnosis and getting into the treatment program that is best for his condition to figure out how to best manage / treat whatever he has. If your parents can help financially, it can go directly to treatment.

Selling the house in the middle of a mental health crisis would not be a good idea. Nor would taking the child out of stable child care.

OP please contact NAMI or other mental health for family resources in your area.

I also have a brother with mental illness. He is now properly treated and is employed in a stable low stress, still married and a great dad - although it wasn't always that way. We stuck by him through it all, just like we did when my sister had cancer. He still needs to live life in a way that allows him to manage his illness and we support him in that. Remember your brother didn't choose to have a mental illness and isn't just being a difficult, weak person[/quote]

So, I'm the first PP to suggest NAMI.  I've also suggested holding firm boundaries.  If you look at my and a few other PP's posts, we're not at all telling the OP not to help, but we're telling her to be cognizant of the help she provides and how that affects her and her nuclear family.  This stuff is very, very tough, and it's easy as a sibling to get sucked in and take on more than is your role to take on, to the extent that it severely negatively impacts your health.  Now, the OP (or anyone) could reasonably say, this situation is a crisis, I'm going to lean in and then lean out as need be.  Fine; easier said than done, and it usually requires assistance (be it NAMI or her own individual therapy) to navigate.  Also, it would be different if the OP's brother were, say, grossly psychotic and literally could not function.  That doesn't seem to be the case.

Stigma around mental illness may well be the biggest problem people with psychiatric disorders face.  It's grossly unfair.  Maintaining boundaries does not necessarily reinforce stigma, though.  I have a mentally ill sibling who is local, and completely dysfunctional parents, who are also local.  I am clear about how I will help and how I will not.  As the one in my family who's been responsible for everyone's mental health since I was a kid, I'm not willing to sacrifice my life or my family for them.  That doesn't mean I stigmatize mental illness, it means I prioritize my own mental health *while also helping my sibling*.  It's not black and white.[/quote]

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