sister in law upstaging and causing drama

[Champgal]

my SIL is always causing drama in her family and causing people to worry. We are both early 30's and it just seems so bazar to me that she still acts like she does. She lives in US and we live in Aus. Me and my partner gave 2 years notice of our wedding and she decided to get engaged to a guy she had knows for 4 months and wanted to get married 3 weeks before us! This was announced three months before our wedding! Naturally her family were hugely upset as they couldn't get time off/ afford two big weddings three weeks apart. Her work even refused to give her the time off at such short notice so she decided to push it back finally. Now her and her partner have decided not only to not get married but they have very serious problems and need counselling (they have been together less then a year by this point). She didnt come to our wedding because she wanted hers, and just when myself and my partner have paid to bring all our family to AUS as a Christmas gift, she is now pregnant and will be due to pop when the family were due to come, meaning many will need to stay with her as the father isnt reliable and they are practically broken up. Shes not talking to half the family for not being as supportive as she wanted yet is still accepting money from them for bipolar meds she cant afford to pay for, Im so worried for this baby and the entire situation.

I think you need to look up bipolar op her behaviours such as impulsive is typical of people suffering with bipolar. You sound all me me amd competitive for attention.

I don't think it's fair to hold up those of us who have our condition managed (in a country where not just medication is heavily subsidised, but psychiatrist appointments, ongoing support from mental health services etc is free and available) and compare us to those who are struggling. That's like holding up an amputee in the paralympics and an amputee in a wheelchair and wanting to know why the one in a wheelchair can't run a race. It's a flawed comparison because BD affects everyone differently and different people tolerate medications differently, and some medications are totally ineffective.

My best friend also had BD. She died aged 49. She tried every medication, suffered through the side effects, got worse and worse, had several courses of ECT, tried TCMR, engaged with therapy, went through the hell of the after effects and... nothing helped. When she realised that nothing could actually take away the hellscape in her brain she overdosed.

I'm not better than her because I'm alive and she isn't. Because the second medication I tried worked for me and the twentieth she tried didn't.

deep breaths
I have bipolar.

I take the drugs even though it means I will die before my time. Better that than anyone might have to come across me having ended it myself.
I take care of myself. I try hard to enough sleep. I don't do a lot of things I might want to and that you can probably do without even thinking about for fear it might negatively impact my mental state.
I am lucky. I have a supportive family and an iron will. I will not let this horrific disease harm me or my loved ones any more than it already has.

Not everyone is as 'lucky'. If you are alone and unsupported things spiral quickly and it can be very hard to get out of. Being called a car crash or told you shouldn't have kids because you're not up to it is a cruel twisting of the already painful knife.

No one who hasn't had bipolar disorder or schizophrenia gets what it is like to have a very serious life long mental illness. Being depressed from time to time just isn't the same. I'd swap for that in a heartbeat.

Show some compassion OP and, if you can't,l just step away from it all.

Honestly I think just cracking on with your life and letting her get on with hers is the only way. My SIL is similar to this so I do get it, she literally cant stand not being the centre of attention at all times. Every time me and my husband or any of my other siblings have even the tiniest bit of news she has to announce something. Anything.

Yeah, I'd pretty much cut her out, don't engage, don't tell her anything and if anyone asks why just say that's life's too short for her drama.

I did this with a sibling.

Never looked back.

It is concerning that you're using bipolar and BPD interchangeably as though they are the same illness. They are not, and the fact that you can't be bothered to work out which one it is your relative actually has is very telling.

Bipolar is very treatable with the right medication. Unfortunately the "right" medication is different for everyone and so most people with the condition go through months or even years of trying different things until they hit on something that works. In the UK the big challenge is getting on Psychiatry's radar and away from GPs who usually don't know enough to be helpful, but once you're on it the only obstacle to getting it right is waiting times. In the US your SIL is facing the additional barrier of cost, of the prescriptions and of actually seeing the right professionals to adapt prescriptions as needed. It's very good that her family is able to fund her prescriptions because without them she would be even iller than she clearly is. If she has bipolar her medication isn't a luxury she is "pocketing" (what a lovely term you've chosen there) it is something she needs to function every day, like insulin for a diabetic.

Medical insurers hate customers with bipolar by the way - there's the costs of the condition itself and then on top that the risk that the impulsivity leads to more costs like dealing with broken bones, car accidents, addiction issues etc. I assume it's not her fault she lives in a backward country that rations access to medical care based on personal wealth rather than need. If she moved there on purpose you might have a bit of ground to stand on regarding her medication costs.

BPD stands for Borderline Personality Disorder. It's a personality disorder rather than a mental illness and therefore much harder to treat effectively. If this is what she has it's still not her fault. But deciding to marry a man you've only just met sounds like classic bipolar mania to me.

If you don't like her you don't like her, that's fair enough, but you can still have a bit of compassion.

I dont think you get to police how her bipolar affects her. I think just crack on with your life and don't be invested in hers. So what if she tried to book a wedding 3 weeks before, people who wanted to make it would have. People who didn't/couldn't wouldn't have.

Because, as is clear from her posts, shes not interested in the illness. She thinks its excuses and is far more bothered about the impact it has on her life and her husband's family.

Where does it say that?

In the Op and referred to repeatedly throughout the thread albeit incorrectly

OP you can't help her stop trying to "fix " people..... you can't.

Concentrate on your own family and leave her immediate family to support her.

She is what she is and has probably always lived her life like this..just let it go !

If her parents and brother don't fly to yours for Xmas, that's on them, not sil though?

She may need one parent, not both and certainly not her brother!

She obviously needs a high level of support and makes some fairly impulsive decisions. He child will need a responsible adult far more that you need to see family say Xmas.

Try a more compassionate (and less competitive) approach. I genuinely think you will make your lives easier.

@WildUnchartedWaters thank you.

I have bipolar and I can understand some of where you’re coming from OP.

When you are bipolar you do need to take responsibility for your behaviour (even if you can’t help it) in the periods that you have insight. You will invariably be burdensome at some points to your close friends and family, so at the very least you should try and set things up to minimise that.

The most pertinent point is it doesn’t sound like she’s on her meds or she hasn’t found a combination which works for her. That and it doesn’t sound sound like she’s used therapy to find ways to manage better. The wedding decision was her illness and if it wasn’t right ultimately it was correct of her to call it off. The stealing is so wrong but again it probably isn’t intentional. It’s likely that she gets the money and spends it impulsively, leaving herself without money for meds. This is part of the disorder, really if she’s that bad the meds should be paid for directly.

You are being unreasonable about the pregnancy because that’s just life. 7 grand tickets aside you know she will need help. It’s not fair to leave one person behind and saddle them with her. One person won’t be able to manage by themselves because she might be taken off medication completely during pregnancy.

Emotional dysregulation is also part of the disorder so her cutting people off is normal. I don’t compare her to your best friend because it’s helpful to consider bipolar as a spectrum. Some symptoms are worse for some sufferers than others.

The last thing I would say is with bipolar comes a lot of shame. No one wants to get on the phone and admit they’re struggling especially with the kind of stigma the disorder has. This runs in my family, so I saw how it impacted my childhood and my DM as she had to support her close family members. As a result, myself and my cousins try not to bother our parents with this as much as possible. We don’t even speak about it amongst ourselves. I don’t speak about the worst of it with my friends, and I would be very surprised if you know as much about your best friends experience as you think you do.

Actually, I also want to point out that while you might be assuming that she is stealing she might not be. It might be that different family members are helping with different parts of her care.

In the UK if you’re severe enough you’ll get NHS help. This is just my experience, but my NHS experience was horrendous so I had to go privately.

Psychiatrist - £150-£250
Therapy - £100-150 a session weekly
Medication - this really varies, but at one point, before a shared care agreement meant I could get meds on the nhs I was paying £400 per month

Hope that made you feel better - always reassuring to have someone to look down on. Interested in the thread at all or just excited at the opportunity to patronise?

She is living her life, upstaging sounds like something a child would say