How to deal with my mentally ill adult sibling

[Carly944]

I'm 38 and my brother is 42. He has always had mental health issues. But lately he's been getting worse.

We both had very bad childhoods.
We didn't have a dad and our mother was abusive. So we have suffered.

However as an adult I am now working full time and living by myself.

He is not working , he is on disability allowance for mental health issues.

We have an entangled relationship. In that I know he had a really bad childhood and I feel sorry for him, and i feel a bit responsible to help him....yet I also feel like he is making my life a misery as an adult. There's only so much I can do for him. I have to look after myself. Any suggestions I make, he ignores. He says he's isolated. I say "why don't you go and join this group you went to ages ago, you liked it there' but he won't go. He has one part time support worker that goes round and helps him.

He has talked about suicide and death many many times to me. Nearly on every third phone call he says he wants to die. . He has never attempted suicide that i know of. So I believe that when he says he wants to die, it is how he is expressing his suffering in words, it doesn't mean he's actually going to go out and kill himself.

However him saying it to me all the time, is causing me a huge amount of stress.

He also expects me to jump to help him whenever he wants me. And it is really stressing me out. Especially as he talks in such extreme ways. He never says 'I'm feeling bad". It's always "I want to die

Ill talk about two issues in particular.

For example three weeks ago he felt he had a panic attack late at night, and he called an ambulance to bring him into hospital. he started ringing me at 11.30 pm. I was in bed. I had to get up to go to work the next day at 6am. I have a very stressful job. I didn't answer his calls.

He then left me voicemails saying

"contact me now. I'll be dead soon!"

I did start crying at this. He was discharged the next day. And i rang him back the next day and I said he upset me and that I had to get up for work very early the next morning. And he said "eh are you aware i nearly died".

He's angry with me and said "you didn't care that I had a psychotic break' and "are you aware that I nearly died" and he called me cold. And be said that I wasn't there for him.

and I tried to explain that I have to work very early.

I said "you called me at nearly midnight. I had to get up to work the next day at 6am".

He doesn't work.

The whole next week during every one of my lunchbreaks, I spent every one of my lunchbreaks calling some therapists and support services to go and help him. He's my older brother. I didn't get any thanks or acknowlegement for this

Then last week I was on booked annual leave, and I went on holiday abroad. This is the only holiday I will get all year. I called him on the last day of my holiday, yesterday, I was there (more fool measto say hello.

The first thing he said was "I think we should go our separate ways and not talk to each other anymore. " I said " why" and he said " because you weren't there for me when i was in hospital". I said again to him "I had to work early the next morning". As soon as I had time to help you the next week , I called lots of support services for you. I did that on my lunchbreak. He has said before to me at various times that he won't talk to me again, because I've "done something wrong"

He can never grasp that I have to work. He never thinks about my day. Its all about him.

Then in the same phonecall he said "I want to die. There's no point in living. I'm going to do euthansia".

This is obviously upsetting to listen to whem im on my holiday. I did burst out crying after the call. Like i feel i cant even go to spain without listening to the most awful things. Like he will say the most extreme things. Until I feel dead with stress.

I got off the phone with him yesterday, and I was roaring crying. I was thinking "this is my only holiday all year from my really stressful job, and I have to listen to him talking about death and dying again. It's terribly stressful to listen to. Hearing someone say they want to die over and over, is incredibly upsetting to listen to. It makes me feel ill to hear it.

I rang him this morning and I said "it's my only holiday all year, can you not talk about death and dying for once.

And he said "well don't ask me how I am then" and hung up on me.

And I know if I ever ring him in the future, he will say I was nasty to him

I'm just not sure what to do. I just feel absolutely ill with stress from it all. We have no other siblings.

Sometimes it feels like I can't escape. I don't know how to handle him.

Firstly I'm so sorry you're having to put up with this. I completely sympathise with people who are mentally ill, however it is absolutely not on for your brother to be guilt tripping you at all. As you've said, you spend a hell of alot of time helping him with no thanks at all, and it sounds as though you have a stressful life yourself with your job and having to deal with him too. Does he have a support worker or mental health team who help him at all? If he does then I think you need to contact them and tell them that you can't carry on this way at all. Your own mental health will start deteriorating if you are constantly being pressured in this way. I've been in a similar situation and it really is mentally draining. I'm not saying to not help him at all, but you do need to take a step back before you yourself have a nervous breakdown. Sorry if that's not helpful but hopefully someone comes along with more experience dealing with these things. Good luck

OP, when I was in a similar situation a very wise person told me :-

“You cannot set yourself on fire in order to keep someone else warm”

So often all effort is expanded on the person who is mentally unwell and scant if any regard given to the person who is supporting them. You are important. This is the only life you’re going to get..
You are not a mental health professional, a psychiatrist, a psychologist. You cannot cure him. Step back. ( that’s a really difficult thing to do, I truly know that) Tell him that because you love him you will encourage him in whatever proactive steps HE takes but that you cannot be his emotional punch bag or the person that he just offloads to.
Always remember that in a therapeutic setting, all appointments have strict time limits. No psychiatrist, psychologist etc. would sit for hours, or see the same patient every day listening to that. I hope you can find the strength.
edited for spelling

You need to prioritise what you need, and your own mental health and wellbeing. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, because he will drag you down with him, inadvertantly, if you let him. It's a thankless situation to be in.

Let go of the notion that you can "help" him, if he won't help himself. It is not his fault that he is mentally unwell, but neither is it yours, and it is his responsibility, not yours.

You are in an enmeshed unhealthy relationship with him, and as hard and impossible as it seems, the only way to improve things for you it to implement some boundaries around what you will and won't do. You can't change him, but you can change your expectations of him, and decide where your line is and protect it for the good of the relationship going forward.

It's better to have the energy and capacity to pick up the phone once a fortnight and spend half an hour listening and make a couple of phone calls to services to help him, because you're well rested and you've had a break, than pick up a call every day and finish them in tears, because you're on the edge. Your wider life will start to suffer and that's not helping either of you.

Find some support for yourself, and back off and recharge and decide how you want to move forward.

I have a similarly mentally unwell brother. He has attempted suicide several times, been sectioned, and has always expected me to be there for him, which I have. Until I couldn't do it any more.

Every contact I had with him left me feeling like shit. I felt stressed and worried. Pressured into trying to make things better for him. Driving for hours, giving him money, the list goes on.

I came to realise that it was causing me nothing but grief. I also came to accept that he is not my responsibility and I cannot fix his life for him.

My own mental health has to come first. Me, my DH, my kids - these are my priorities.

I don't feel guilty about it any more. I went fully No Contact and I don't regret it. His life is sad and lonely but there was nothing left of me to give.

Please put yourself first and think about whether you would live a healthier, happier life without your brother in it.

I’m really sorry. I’m in a very similar situation with my younger brother. I don’t have much advice, PPs have been better, other than to say it really really sucks when you are placed in the position of being someone’s lifeline and feeling like you are responsible for their mental health. I have become very resentful and angry with my brother over the years as he continually rejects any help (says he is “too self aware” for therapy, medications “don’t work” etc etc) and just seems like he wants to wallow in self pity a lot of the time. I realise this isn’t a fair or compassionate stance by me but I am just worn down. It is very difficult to know what to do.

I understand exactly how you feel. My sibling isn't quite as bad but it's tough. We're in the same situation. There is only me and my sibling, bad childhood, so I don't think I could ever cut her out of my life because the guilt would overwhelm me.

I do love her but she struggles with life so much. Whereas I've just kind of locked it all away and got on with life. I think a pp's suggestion to find some support for yourself is a good one. It's something I've been doing and it is helping. It's such a big weight to carry alone.

Another thing I do is to not always be readily available. I will put my phone away sometimes or have it on silent. Not even always for that reason. Sometimes it's good to just not have a phone right next to you and instead focus on other things. You definitely do need to take space for yourself.

I know he had a really bad childhood and I feel sorry for him, and i feel a bit responsible to help him

You had the same bad childhood that he did. You are not responsible for his mental health issues and

Your brother is obviously unwell. But he is also, in addition to that, a nasty, manipulative, selfish, attention-hungry, ungrateful bully who doesn't give a shit about your welfare, only his own.

He is abusive, OP. He is emotionally abusing you constantly and, regardless of his mental ill health, that is not acceptable.

He had a panic attack and called an ambulance. He did not 'nearly die'. He did not 'have a psychotic breakdown'. He was taken to A&E and discharged the next day. As you say, he has never attempted suicide, but even if he did, it wouldn't be your fault. It would be his and his alone.

You need to take a massive step back from him. If this carries on, you are going to end up a lot more unwell than he is. He has a support worker.

There is a reason that therapists and psychiatrists set very clear boundaries with their patients.

Similar situation here though not 100% the same - I think you need to go no contact for at least a little while, to get breathing room and to decide how much, if anything at all, you can give.

I’m NC with my sibling because she is abusive as well as unwell - your brother is being highly manipulative, that’s emotional abuse. You can’t be someone elses punchbag.

Decide how much space you want then tell him you’re taking it and you will be in touch on x date - there will be fallout, but better that and having the ability to live your own life with freedom.

He’s abusing you @Carly944 The only impact this has is horrifically negative. It doesn’t help him, either.

Theres a Kirsty MacColl line: “And if you leave all your dependents/then they will gain their independence.”

You need to go very very low contact with him. Have a holiday where you don’t call him and you don’t answer his calls. Give him boundaries: I won’t be answering calls at night, my phone will be on silent.

Hes manipulating you so painfully. I know it comes from his pain. But you also had that painful childhood. Why should he torment you further now?

Ps also look at some literature on codependency. You feel trapped in the guilt and responsibility. But this is your elder brother. He is capable of figuring it out himself. Do not be drained. Detach.

If funds allow I would get yourself a counsellor. It is not signing up for paying our hundreds forever. Pay for a session or two, then a block of 6 if you like the person.

Finding a way of shoehorning in something for yourself is absolutely critical. Baths and candles are all very well but you need and deserve someone skilled to help you process all this. GP might be able to sort something but it'll take months. I would address this yourself as an emergency, by paying someone privately, if you possibly can. It could make a massive difference to your quality of life, honestly.

I know it's a hard one. Cuz I feel guilty. And I do feel really bad that he's suffering. I don't like that he's suffering

But at the Same time he's dragging me down with him.

And I have to try to look after myself aswell

I just feel so awful when he says he wants to die. Cuz i feel I'm either going to have the worry of thinking he's going to kill himself all the time, or he is actually going to kill himself.

Either scenario is so awful.

But I have to think of myself.

Having a mentally ill sibling is very hard

Is he taking medication ? If he isn't you should focus on trying to get him to

I think this is an excellent post.

No I don’t think this should be her focus. It’s totally unfair to expect ordinary people, even family members, to try to manage someone’s mental health without any skills or training in the area. He needs to help himself.

I don't dispute that he's mentally unwell but he's clearly also very manipulative. Suicide threats and drama around the fear of someone you love suiciding are particularly despicable imo. He had a shoddy childhood but so did you. You and your needs are important too. At the moment he is abusing you and you need to find ways to protect yourself from his behaviour.

I think you need to stop trying to help him. He doesn't want help in any case - if he did, he'd be grateful. What he actually wants is to exercise control over you, which he can best do by maintaining his position of victim, not helping himself and not letting you help him either. He wants to be able to yank your chain, and if you actually succeeded in getting him back on his feet, he'd no longer be able to do that. Likewise all the talk of suicide and death. If he was actually suicidal, he'd be acting on it, not talking about it.

It's hard to avoid getting sucked in when someone knows exactly how to push your buttons. Can you develop some practical strategies? For instance, can you switch off your phone at night or put it on do not disturb between certain hours, so he can't get his fix by calling you out on bogus emergency missions when you need to get up for work the next day? Can you limit your contact with him to, say, a particular day of the week when you call and catch up at a specific time, with a particular time in mind to wrap it up? Can you disable voicemail so he can't leave accustory messages that you then feel obliged to listen to?

Above all, do you have anyone you can talk to about all of this? Someone who can remind you that his needs are not your responibity to fix? Could you organise counselling through work? Have you got friends? If you can find the strength to stop delivering what he wants when he wants it, I think he'll eventually stop wasting his energy trying to get attention that's never going to come, though I think he'll ramp up the demands first.

I feel really sorry for you. You sound as though you're about to go pop. Please don't let it get to that point. Your needs are as important as his, and should be more important to you.

I know threats of suicide are seen as manipulative but I really do wonder when some posters think it's an acceptable time to talk about being suicidal, ever. Literally everyone is encouraged to open up but any hint of "I want to die" and they're a manipulative abusive bully etc. yeah depressed people often know their behaviour is horrible, that's one of the many reasons they think their family will be better off without them. People who are hurting so much are often not the nicest souls, big surprise there. And society pretends to care about these people.

He had a panic attack and called an ambulance. He did not 'nearly die'. He did not 'have a psychotic breakdown'. He was taken to A&E and discharged the next day. As you say, he has never attempted suicide, but even if he did, it wouldn't be your fault. It would be his and his alone.

Panic attacks can be really scary and make you think you're dying, he didn't call an ambulance for shits and giggles did he? At the least it was a cry for help.

No offence OP but a lot of what I'm seeing is how this is making you feel, how upset you are, how it's ruined your holiday and it's the only holiday you get. You decided to call him from that holiday, he had left you alone by the sounds of it. I'll bet he doesn't get to go on holiday at all and then you're calling him from Spain to basically have a go at him again. You are the one that keeps ringing him, and he hung up. Just stop doing it if you can't listen to what he has to say about how he feels.

That's a really unfair post. The brother isn't very concerned with how op is feeling. I totally understand the dread of a rare, much needed, and expensive trip being ruined. She's allowed to recharge her own tired battery.

He had the same childhood as you. He is obviously mentally ill but you are not a psychiatrist or responsible for his mental health. You can’t fix him. His manipulative behaviour is making you ill. People who constantly threaten suicide almost never carry out their threats, it’s textbook guilt-tripping.

I’m all for helping family but it’s a reciprocal deal not just one way the whole time. He seems to be punishing you for coping with life because he can’t or won’t cope so he is trying to drag you to where he is. He’s an emotional vampire.

Try to distance yourself a bit - if he calls and starts berating you tell him you are not managing emotionally and need to prioritise your own mental health, then end the call. Limit availability. You also need to talk to someone yourself as already suggested, even to give yourself perspective and permission to cut the toxicity (by cutting him loose).

You are trying to fix somebody that you can't fix as its out of your control.
Try focus the conversations on the medical experts. When he says that he can't cope, ask what professional advice he got, or advise to discuss with the support worker as you don't have the medical experience.
This will drag you down, so you need to put on a Teflon hat and redirect the conversations.
Take care of yourself OP xx

This is not helpful or fair to the OP.

They have described how they have tried to help their brother but they will not engage with others who can help.

The OP is entitled to have enough sleep to be able to function at work and to have a break from her brother. The panic attacks and ambulance call outs may be a frequent occurrence hence her decision that her sleep is of more importance.

The only thing she did 'wrong' was to still care about her brother while on holiday and call him to make sure he was okay.

As others have said OP, you need to lessen contact and when you do meet tell him that if he talls about wanting to die all the time, that you'll end the conversation/meeting. That you cannot and won't deal with his negativity all the time. If he wants to maintain the relationship, he will try to change. If he won't change then you have to walk away from him and leave him to the professionals. If that happens you are not a bad person. You are saving yourself from having a mental breakdown in the future.

@Niegenug This is not helpful or fair to the OP.
I'm trying to explain what would've been helpful to me when I was in a similar situation to her brother and saying the same sort of things. If OP doesn't want to know how best to help then she just needs to go NC.

She also needs to stop calling him all the time if she doesn't like what he has to say. Yes he called her once because he had a panic attack and he was scared. I would want to call family in that situation. I've only ever had a mild panic attack and I did momentarily think I was dying. I calmed down and was ok, but it can be worse and mimic a heart attack etc. if it's his first one I can see why he was scared. Obviously if it's a regular occurrence that's different.

He's already said they should go their separate ways and he left her alone, then she called him again. To tell him how he's making her feel. He needs her to listen to HIM right now if she's trying to help not turn it around to be about how much he upsets her. That's just piling on the guilt and will make him feel even worse.

I rang him this morning and I said "it's my only holiday all year, can you not talk about death and dying for once.

And he said "well don't ask me how I am then" and hung up on me.

He's being honest, if you don't want an honest answer don't ask. So much for all the campaigns to raise awareness about MH and get people asking their friends and family how they are. Not just "are you ok" but "are you really ok" but it's all a sham designed purely so that the person asking can just pat themselves on the back job done. The depressed person is still supposed to lie and say they're fine, that's their job. We can't have them actually opening up and talking about wanting to die and being manipulative now-god no that's not the idea!

No wonder so many keep their feelings a secret, they just can't win. Only the other week was a family on TV campaigning to try and get a Swiss assisted dying clinic to let family know their loved one intends to die because the man in question hadn't told his family. They also wondered why he did it all alone, without telling them he was travelling to Switzerland for an assisted death. Well this is exactly why, because talking about suicide is always seen as manipulative and family don't want to hear it. Always after the fact it's "why didn't they tell me how they were feeling?"

OP I know you are trying to do all you can, I'm not trying to have a go. But he just needs to vent his feelings to you right now, without being shut down. Just be as empathetic as you can, it's not easy dealing with someone who has suicidal ideation. If you can't handle him being honest and it's affecting your own mental health then take his advice and step away from the relationship.

I think some therapy for you is in order, not him!
You need to learn how to process all this. As this is a lot and simply awful.

You could just not phone him?

Do you have IRL support? A friend who knows what is going on, or a therapist of your own? Let us know if you need some ideas on how to find this support.

The current situation is not sustainable for you. A better way of handling your relationship with your brother needs to be found. You can’t change your brother but you can change your mindset and actions about the situation.