Lived Experience Forum

[Gogo]

Hi there,

I apologise if this subject has been brought up before.
I’m basically very concern with my sister. She suffers a form of mental illness but has never been professionally diagnosed because she refuses to see anyone.
She hasn’t been happy for a very long time. She blames others for everything (even though I personally think she lives an enviable life compared to a lot of others). She isolates herself and refuses to be around people. She bullies people by saying really mean things (sometime makes up story and creates conflicts amongst others).
She has a very strong personality, so it’s really hard to talk to her. She quickly becomes very aggressively defensive when people try to give her feedback.
She attempted suicide once a few years ago (once that we are aware of), but didn’t want to seek help afterwards. We are very lost and don’t know what to do.
She is 40 years old and sometime lives on her own, so we are concerned if she does something stupid.

Any suggestions will be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

[Former-Member]

Hi @Gogo and welcome to the forum 

Rooney10 here, one of the forum moderators. I'm sorry to hear about your concerns regarding your sisters wellbeing at the moment. It sounds like a distressing situation but by talking it through with some of the contributors here I am hopeful that you will be in a better position to approach the situation in future. 

I'm wondering if @Former-Member, @greenpea or @Faith-and-Hope might be able to offer any insight for you? 

Take care,

Rooney10 

[greenpea]

@Gogo Hi Gogo

This is a tough one ... you say she has never been assessed ... but she is 40 years old ....  Does she work? Is she in a relationship? But you say she lives by herself (which I think is a good thing particularly if she is abusive to family members).  

Hmmm ... until she addresses that she needs help and that she has problems that need to be looked at there is nothing you can do until she totally crashes (my experience only there). If you could get her to her gp where she would be open for honest discussion with him/her then progress could be made but until then there really is nothing you can do except to protect yourselves.

You say she is abusive ... well you must keep yourselves safe and stay away from her. She is not a child any more. Family members can be toxic, you must look after yourselves. I wish I could come up with more of a solution for you but the ball is in her court she has to acknowledge she needs help and then seek it. 

[Faith-and-Hope]

Hi @Gogo and welcome to the forums.

I can understand your upset and concerns for your sister. I have a sister very similar, and she too has never been diagnosed, although having learned a lot in the last year or so, and am presuming she has a personality disorder. It makes me suspect the same for your sister.

Understanding that that is the case, and actually doing something about it though are two different things. As is the case with manythings in life, it's only when the person themselves realises that there is something wrong and is prepared to seek help that you can actually help them - unless they are endangering their life or somebody else's. Under those circumstances you call emergency services.

What makes the person realise that something is wrong is often when they lose relationships, employment, opportunities, and it is pointed out to them that it is because their behaviour is unsavoury. If life keeps working for them as they are, they will see no need to change anything ..... so it is important to push back when you're spoken to rudely etc ..... maybe saying that you will catch up with them when they are in a better mood, but you are not going to put up with tantrums, blackmailing, offensive comments, etc. The boundaries regarding what is acceptable need to be clear.

And it's very important to protect yourself, otherwise you end up unhappily livi g your life according to their expectations.

It doesn't hurt to be polite ..... but you don't owe your sister anything more than politeness, so give as much as you are prepared to for your own satisfaction, and then you have to let her go to live life according to her own ideas, even if she chooses to isolate and be lonely. Keeping offers open means she will know where to find you if she begins to change her mind.

I hope this helps.

💐🌷
F&H

[Former-Member]

Hello and welcome @Gogo.  Well done also in reaching out for some advice over this most difficult situation.

I think @Former-Member may have tagged me as being someone who may be able to help, because I have a brother who is suicidal after developing PTSD since the death of his young daughter in a car accident.  However your situation with your sister is very different from my situation with my brother.  My brother does not blame or bully others and is not aggressive or defensive. He seeks necessary help from professionals for his PTSD and SI, which is great.  Nonetheless I am his primary contact in his suicide safety plan, and it is a big responsibility being in that situation.  My brother is in his 50's and has a wife and 2 teenaged boys, so he tries really hard to overcome his MH issues.

Given your sister's apparent resistance to help or advice, and her strong personality, it makes it extremely difficult to do much for her.  All I can really suggest is to ensure she knows you are there for her, and to ask her to please contact you if she ever feels like she needs to talk to someone.  Make sure she has the phone numbers of Lifeline and Suicide Call Back Line handy for if or when it is needed.  Try to gently nudge her in the direction of talking to her GP initially and hopefully from there she can be referred to a counsellor or psychologist.  You could try offering to go with her to see her GP, even if its just to wait in the waiting room while she sees the GP.  It may give her the confidence to go.

I see that @Faith-and-Hope @greenpea have already been in touch with you, and have offered some great advice.

Of course its a concern for you and her other family.  Please remember however, that its very important that you take care of your own wellbeing first and foremost, otherwise you will not be able to be there if or when your sister does need you.  So try to continue doing things that you enjoy doing, hobbies, sport, etc.  And please feel free to take part in other threads that you see which you have an interest in, or things in common with.  I hope to see you around the Forums some more.  You need support too, equally as much as your poor sister does.  Its easy to lose sight of that sometimes when you are in your situation.  Please take care.

Sherry 

[Gogo]

Thank you @Former-Member, @greenpea, @Faith-and-Hope and @Former-Member.

Really appreciate the feedback. My brother and I have been talking about this a lot and also thought that she needs to want to be treated, otherwise there's nothing we can do about it. But seeing her like this is really hard.

@greenpea, she is not married. She used to work full time before resigning and decided to follow her dream and change career. After she completed the training, she didn't get a job right away and turned down some opportunities. She then wanted to work with my dad and now causing so many issues within the company. She feels that no one in the family cares about her and her well being. Every night she locks herself in the room and sometime starves herself. I think she now has decided to leave the company because it didn't work out as she expected it to be and maybe go back to pursue that other dream again. She has done this a lot as a way of "escaping". 

@Faith-and-Hope, just had a read about personality disorder and that is definitely her. I also think she has bipolar because at times, she could be very nice and normal. It normally lasts for a day or less before she turns 180°.

When she is nice, she's really (almost too much) nice. And she gets disappointed when people don't reciprocate when she expected something rather unreasonable from them.

Like I said before, for some people, she has a great life, she travels a lot, she used to have lots of friends (before isolating them all out of her life), she has my parents as her safety net. I am very worried about my mum too, because she doesn't know how to deal with my sister and her emotions gets dragged around by my sister's behavior. My mother is doing the total opposite of what your suggestion: she always asks us to bend over backwards for my sister, even though we have told her many times that it is not healthy.

@Former-Member, I'm sorry to hear about your brother. 

I used to spend a lot of time with her and now she's like a stranger. Especially since I got married. She probably thinks that I've betrayed her. My husband and I try to see her every weekend when she's in town. If we're lucky, she'd get out of the room and chat with us. Otherwise she'd stay in her room. She also has told me that she has a personality clash with my husband, which of course is all in her head because they never have any confrontation or argument. She also feels the same way towards my brother's wife.

I would love to go to the GP with her, but I wouldn't even know how to initiate the conversation. I worry that she'd be defensive and verbally aggresive if I float the idea. 

She was violent towards my brother once out of nowhere. I don't think she'd do the same to me, but I just don't know. 

Again, I really appreciate your feedback. Even just talking it out like this helps. I always wonder if I stuck around her and not getting married, would she be in a different place....?

[greenpea]

@Gogo Hi Gogo

It is always hard to see a family member in trouble and not being able to help but .... unless she is a danger to herself or someone else the authorities will not intervene and from what you have said she has not reached that point (and hopefully she will not!). You really have to be sick before anything happens (like being hospitalised involuntarily) and she seems from what you have said no where near that point.

If it was me in your situation I would let her know that you care about her (that the whole family does) BUT that to protect yourself you need to distance yourself away from her until she seeks help. Her gp is a good way to start and then through her gp you can receive 10 free psychologist packages called BOMH and see how it goes from there. 

Sadly though she has to be the one acknowledging she has a problem. Let us know how it goes.

[Appleblossom]

@Gogo

I can relate to the difficulties of dealing with those kind of a behaviours from sibling and a friends. I also worried and gave myself a hard time about whether I should have married and put more of my energy into adressing their needs.  Now I think it may not have made matters better and that they were adults.

Your sister is definitely adult, and so the sense of responsibility does not extend beyond filial duties (not parental duties). You have the obligation to yourself to be the whole person you are, for your partner and any children as well.  

I was the oldest but through necessity in parental roles at times.  Sifting through the issues is hard. I am glad you are able to relate to your brother about it.

Take care