Lying brother - don’t know how to respond to this new disclosure.

[inigomontoyahwillcox]

Lying here awake as my head is all over the place.

Some of you may remember my thread a while back about how I was supporting my brother who landed on my doorstep in a mental health crisis expecting me to look after him for as long as it took (he has had depressive episodes before and decamped to my parents for over a year on more than one occasion). I connected him with our local mental health services whilst he was with us but also gave him a deadline as to how long he could stay with us (a couple of months). He eventually told some friends of mine he was going to hurt them and I took him straight to hospital where he disclosed he thought he was going to hurt my DD (16). The hospital rightly responded to this by raising a safeguarding concern.

He was admitted and eventually transported back to his hometown where he was under the psychosis team and eventually admitted to a psychiatric ward for some months where he underwent ECT. I still supported, attending his weekly ward meetings online, liaising with his medical teams, his employer, making practical arrangements, keeping his flat clean (which was a mess due to serious self neglect) and visiting in hospital (it’s a 6 hour round trip so couldn’t go often but when I could).

The safeguarding referral resulted in me being interviewed by children’s social care twice and having my fitness to keep my DD safe questioned; insinuation was that I somehow should have known my brother was a danger - which I didn’t until he disclosed it (I had still insisted to my brother that he couldn’t stay long term as it was having a negative impact on my daughter (who has ADHD and was preparing for her GCSEs) and husband (who had recently gone through his own metal health crisis), but physical danger hadn’t occurred to me). They also contacted my EXH (DDs dad) and asked if she could live with him if I “prioritised my DB’s needs” which he revelled in. They also spoke to DD’s school, and eventually DD. They were ultimately reassured that I was capable of protecting/prioritising my DD and that her and my brother would not be under the same roof again - on that basis they saw no need for any further action. It was a horrible time, with me feeling intense guilt about a) allowing DD to be put in a position of potential danger, not that I was aware at the time, and b) knowing that my brother had nobody else to turn to (parents are now very elderly) other than me for support and I said no (well, no to the support he wanted, which was to stay with us long term). I also had to have some very difficult conversations with DD, her school, my EXH. It also affected DD - only the other day she was asking again why he was going to hurt her and I explained that he was very sick and not himself - and who knows the impact it had on her exams.

He was very recently released from hospital and just this past fortnight has made a miraculous recovery - which I'm putting down to the effects of the ECT taking hold. I was so incredibly happy to see that he was doing so much better.

I got a message from him last night telling me he had made up the disclosure to hospital about hurting DD so they would take him seriously and give him some help/admit him. I don’t know what the hell to feel about this?! I suspect he’s saying this in the hope that say, “ah well in that case you can come back to ours to visit” (he used to spend a LOT of time at ours, in hindsight he was very reliant on us), of course that’s not going to happen, for a start social services would take an exceptionally dim view of this, god knows if he’s telling the truth now, or if he was telling the truth then? But if it was a lie, does he realise what the fall out his original disclosure had??? The shit I had to deal with, the shit DD had to deal with??

I’ve left him on read as I don’t know how to react to him. I’m now in a position where I feel as though I can’t be anything but nice to him about it due to the fear of him relapsing into depression if I do anything other than that. But I’m SO angry with him. I know he was sick when he said it, I’d come to terms with him saying it as I believed he wasn’t in his right mind, and actually came to see his original disclosure as his way of protecting her against himself. But now I’ve been told that he made it up, well, it seems very calculated and with no consideration of the impact it would have on DD and me. There’s no remorse in his admission - no apology, just a statement of fact.

If your brother has BPD or similar then he will be dishonest regularly as the only thing that will concern him is the immediate future and his immediate need. It sounds like he is incapable of recognising the effect of his actions on others and the short/mid/long term effects. This is probably due to executive functioning brain wiring.
he will not recognise the impact on you or your daughter. His brain simply doesn’t have that function.

I am not a doctor, but I can't believe that he didn't know what state he left the flat in. Illness or not, he must know.
Which means that by complaining about how much cleaning HE had to do, he is quite deliberately saying something to make sure you know your place.
He believes that, as a woman in his family, it is quite literally your job to clean up his shit, and that this deserves no recognition or thanks.
And perhaps he even thinks that you should be apologising to him because he came out of hospital and had to do a bit of his own cleaning.

That is what he thinks of you - no doubt learned from your father.

This contempt for you is not part of his illness, it is his personality.
Family or no, I would not have such a person in my life, at all.

OP, your brother may genuinely believe things that aren't true- like he was/wasn't a danger, that he did clean his own flat, all kinds of things.

He's been psychotic, on heavy medications and had ECT.

Any one of these is going to disrupt his thinking and rational processes.

You are expecting normal behaviour and normal responses from someone who is unable to give them.

The best thing you can do here is offer what AA call 'loving detachment'. You continue to love him, but you detach from being responsible for his life. He has the pathways now to get support, be monitored and so on. Let them get on with it and focus on your own life.

He is unwell and those saying he's a bad person etc., perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't, but there's no point kicking him about it all, because no-one would chose that life for themselves. All the OP can do is protect and keep her own space and her dd's space in the future.

Just cut him off
prioritise your own family
you’ve been a brilliant sister and deserve better

All lies have consequences- you can never know the truth but either way the trouble his behaviour put you and your family through means he cannot come back to your house because of safeguarding.

I can understand (if he is now being honest) why he might lie to access support that you recognise seems to have helped him because it’s often the only way people in crisis can be taken seriously, however, the alleged lie he chose put you in a very difficult position and placed your daughter in danger of being forcibly removed from you and that is not something you can just get over.

You have to be honest with him about it and decide whether you’re willing to maintain a relationship with him but away from your home and kids. His subsequent truth or lies cannot stop the machine that kicked into action after his statement and he needs to know that has consequences. A well man will understand and accept that.

It sounds like he is hoping to come back and live with you, or at least for you to be his support network again.

I would reply with some sort of:-

Hi, I'm glad you are feeling a bit better. I am not sure if you are aware but your claim of wanting to hurt DD, whether true or not, has had huge repercussions for us here. We have had a lot of social care involvement via DD, her school and her dad which has been brutal. I'm sure you'll understand that means we can't be your support network going forwards.

I wouldn’t want to have contact with him or let your daughter.
If your parents won’t help themselves then leave them to it; when there’s a crisis they will have to act.
It’s okay not to be in charge of everyone else and to focus on your own life.

I think it can be easy to get caught in a cycle of endless help and support when you feel the behaviour is not within someone's control or is a product of circumstances outside their control. This makes it harder to walk away because it feels like withdrawing support would be somehow 'blaming' the person for their actions when you feel they don't have full agency over the situation. This feeling may only be made worse given the terrible state of NHS and social care in this country.

But perhaps asking whether someone like your brother has control over their behaviour is not the right question. Perhaps the right question is whether you have the time and resources to provide support in a way that is safe for you and those around you.

From what you've written, your brother has highly complex needs, and the recent high will quite likely be followed by another low. His mental health issues manifest as behaviours that are dangerous to you and your family. I think you would be justified in drawing a line, blocking him on all devices and going no contact, especially if you feel you would be unable to resist any further requests for help.

They are very insightful words about the cycle @AnotherCrazyCatLady as that's exactly where and why I find myself in this position, I think. I can see that the likelihood is that none of this is his fault, which makes me automatically feel guilty if I don't provide what it is he wants/needs - but I am absolutely not in a position to provide any further support, not least because there is no going back from this lie and the impact it has had on us.

I'm going to draft a response using many of your suggestions - it won't be long, but to the point.

Exactly this, @inigomontoyahwillcox

How awful for all involved. I think, sadly, you have to pull back and see your brother maybe once a week or fortnight but prioritise your daughter and your own mental health here.

If it helps you to hold strong, I’m just going to point out that if you were to be hit by a bus tomorrow (god forbid, obviously) the attitude of your parents and brother will definitely be that your daughter must now take over as his carer and support system.

They obviously feel that any female in the family must look after him, whatever the impact on their own life, and whatever problems he causes for them.

You need to protect your daughter for the long term by modelling healthy boundaries for her, and by forcing them all to find ways to manage without your involvement.

Have you ever had any therapy for your people pleasing, male prioritisation problems OP? I'll be honest, I facepalmed when I saw you were moving your parents. Could you stop facilitating that?

I agree bringing your parents closer to you is madness. You are storing all kinds of problems up for yourself and likely for your poor daughter too.

I think you should prioritise not only your daughter but some therapy for yourself with a view to putting a stop to these intense feelings of guilt and people pleasing tendencies you have around all the members of your family.

If he lied to the hospital and didn't intend to hurt your daughter - he lied back then.
If he did intend to hurt her and is pretending he didn't mean it to get back into your lives - he's lying now.

Mental illness can be so devastating for the person and those around them. It doesn't mean that any of us have to put ourselves in danger though. Stay strong OP, you know what you need to do ❤

You have your children that you specifically have been given to look after and nurture. Beyond that, there are family members and maybe close friends, neighbours etc that it's a wonderful thing to help with so long as it doesn't impede your ability to provide for your own children. Remind yourself of that when the guilt creeps in. You helped until you couldn't any more, and that is where it will stay. Other people, autiorities etc can help with your brother but nobody can replace you as a mum doing what needs to be done for your DD. You've done a herculean job so far of proctecting her and sound like an amazing parent (and sister too, but thats secondary). Yes to getting some therapy for yourself.

OP perhaps you should rethink moving your parents closer too. Partly because of the risk of your brother being around that it brings with it. But also because it sounds like your father is abusive and always has been. You are no responsible for your mother. Primarily you are responsible for you, then your immediate family. The example you have set for DD so far seems to be that the difficult men in your life must be given what they demand even when the cost to you is high. And it’s okay if they treat you badly while you do it.

If it was trye he was a literal danger to you and your dd. If it wasn’t true he displayed a sociopathic level of disregard for your life/dd/household to get his needs met. Either way he expresses a massively narcissistic world view in which neither you nor your dd matter at all except as tools for his gratification . I would cut him off for both/either. Just flatly cut off.

Unfortunately for him, he can't just say he didn't mean it and expect you to be pleased or go back to the way you were. He's traumatised you and your child, got social services involved, and strangers have been judging you and your life. That is enough to never speak to him again in my book. That is not something you can risk again, whether he did it on purpose or due to his illness. You need to stay away and concentrate on yourself. And stop facilitating your parents' move. They are not good for you. You've done more than enough for all of them. Model boundaries to your daughter, starting now. It will feel weird at first as you don't have much practice, keep going!

You have been so caring and supportive to your brother. You have gone over and above. Now, however, I would be keeping him at arm's length and would never have him under my roof again.

I've written out my response to him. I now need to re-work up the anger to send it (have now gone into guilt, fear he'll do something drastic, desperate sadness mode - habit of a lifetime and will take a while to crack that one I'm afraid). I am re-reading all your messages to this end.

You don't have to reply right now.

There's no rush, you can sleep on it. Or not send it at all. You don't need to respond to every request he makes.

I think you can put a positive spin on it, his course of action now means he can never be under your roof again.. he has done you a massive favour by making that disclosure.. it can't be put back it's box even if he now says he didn't mean it at the time.

I'd ignore all his selfish and ungratefulness, step away from him, and just thank your lucky stars that being with you in your house is off the table completely.

He only has himself to blame for that, so you AND your daughter can guilt-free say no if he asks to visit etc and tell him exactly why he can't.