Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a 30 year old bipolar brother who is a huge emotional drain for me and my parents. When he is manic, I am afraid of him. When he is depressed, I worry about him constantly and want to cheer him up. Occasionally he acts completely normal and gives hope to my family. Of course the cycle repeats itself and he never stays normal.

How do you deal with a mentally ill family member?

Sometimes I think having a disabled brother prevents me from being fully happy. I always feel guilty. My parents are old and they live with my brother. Instead of enjoying retirement, they spend their time battling with him. My brother never holds a job so he is always asking my parents and me for money. We can afford to support him but sometimes his requests are ridiculous. Recently he has been pestering me for a new car when he has a perfectly functional car that we bought him 3 years ago. He will get angry at my parents for not giving him cash. They ration him an allowance but it isn't always enough. Then he gets angry and can be scary. Not sure what I am looking for here.

The symptoms described are the same as an entitled, spoiled rotten brat of a person. Your parents need to be protected from him. And he needs to have some healthy boundaries imposed on him. Of course he'll be kicking and screaming as long as he can find someone who will cave into his selfish demands and threats.

It seems as if you're expecting a person with diagnosed mental illness to make healthy, life-enhancing choices and decisions. I agree with you that boundaries need to be set and think it should be much easier to have a loved one placed in a group home where they can be appropriately supervised.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. My parents are currently visiting us and my brother has been severely manic for the past few weeks. My parents are begging me to intervene but I am not sure what I can do. The last time something like this happened was 5 years ago and I had to have police escort him to the emergency room at a local hospital.

Whenever there is a mass shooting or news of a catastrophe involving someone who is mentally ill, my heart sinks and I wonder if that will be my brother one day. My brother is not a violent person but when he on one of his episodes, he is scary. I have not lived with him for almost 2 decades but my parents fear my brother.

Please help. I don't know what to do.

You know exactly what to do. Do it.

OP here. My parents are currently visiting us and my brother has been severely manic for the past few weeks. My parents are begging me to intervene but I am not sure what I can do. The last time something like this happened was 5 years ago and I had to have police escort him to the emergency room at a local hospital.

Whenever there is a mass shooting or news of a catastrophe involving someone who is mentally ill, my heart sinks and I wonder if that will be my brother one day. My brother is not a violent person but when he on one of his episodes, he is scary. I have not lived with him for almost 2 decades but my parents fear my brother.

Please help. I don't know what to do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My younger brother's mental illness has resulted in him being homeless. Recently, in dealing with our mother, I realize that she likely did a lot of passive aggressive stuff that helped to drive him away. Not intentionally, but due to her frustrations.

We as human beings tend to rationalize after the facts.

Maybe but she is doing similar things to a cousin and to me (we both have chronic physical ailments). My cousin really has no one but my mother to do the pharmacy run or visit the dr. I call my partner or a friend not my mom when I need something and she resents that I won't ask for help. I just can't abide the caustic advice. I didn't understand what my brother faced. Now I feel badly that I brushed off his complaints.

Can you take in your homeless brother? You sound like a loving and compassionate sister.

If I could locate him, I would make sure that he had stable housing. We would not be a good fit to live together because he has OCD on top of periods of psychosis. I can't accommodate the OCD stuff even if the psychotic episodes were in check. I wouldn't intentionally trigger him the way that my mom did, but I have a young child and a pet so things would never be able to be exactly the way he needs to feel comfortable. Having control over just his bedroom wouldn't be enough.

OP, my heart breaks for you. Aside from the fact that I don't have your financial resources, I was in your emotional space 5 years ago exactly -- my own happiness, my ability to find peace in my daily existence, seemed to hinge on the condition of my brother's bipolar illness. When he was okay, I could be okay, but I was always bracing for a return to mania.

My brother was more independent than yours (he held down a job, was a community leader, etc.), and he was an extraordinarily decent and good man. He fought his illness bravely and as best he could. But he was destabilized after the birth of his second child (lots of loss of sleep as his wife was battling PPD). I left DC to go to New England to care for the family for weeks at a time, but I had already given up over two years of working to take care of my elderly dad before his death, and I told myself that I had to draw more healthy, reasonable boundaries. So I came back home here, knowing he was under a doctor's care and that I couldn't live my life trying to live his.

He died from bipolar disorder by suicide about a month after I got back home. It was completely and totally unexpected -- my greatest fear was his mania, and he didn't even seem depressed. Doctors say it was a "mixed manic" state. He had never expressed suicidality. He didn't plan to die; it was the impulse of a moment in which he was overwhelmed with despair and fear and he had no impulse control.

I will feel guilty forever. But my rational mind knows that I may not have been able to stop it, and that I could not control him or fix him or cure him, even though I spent a lot of my life trying to do so.

Nowadays, I try to thank God for the blessing of his stability as long as he was stable, and for the fact that he survived as long as he did and was able to do such good in the world while he was here. I miss him terribly.

It has been hard to have a life where I focus on myself and my own future. Too long I had been focused on my parents' and my brother's happiness and health. I got married and had a child since I lost my brother. I know that probably would never have happened had he lived; I still would have been too focused on him. Still, I would trade it all to have him back -- that's not to say that I don't love my own child more than anything in the world, but the heartbreak of my brother's death will forever hurt his two children who already existed, and I would never break their hearts just so I could be happy.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I feel for what you are going through. I hope you find support and help. Your happiness can't be dependent on your brother's stability - that's a recipe for you being as crazy as he is, honestly. Do you have a good therapist for yourself?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a bi-polar sister and it is truly awful. I feel for her, know it is not her fault, but there are times when I just hate her. What is the plan when your parents die? I would sit down with them and figure out what is going to happen. The only thing that keeps me sane is that my parents have carefully planned their finances so she can be cared for. My husband and I also have a rainy day fund just in case something happens to my parents $$.

DH earns a healthy living ($500k+). We will support him. The actual money isn't the issue. It's the emotional drain.

Then buy a small house or apartment near your parents, or build in law suite at your parents, and let him live there. They deserve some space. Pay for them to go on some vacations, without him.

You still might want to try to help him get disability.

This. I'd get him away from the parents if possible.