My Trauma Is Happening Again.

[Sheer Force of Will]

One of my traumas stems from watching my mentally ill brother try to kill himself over and over. On Wednesday he over dosed on drugs he got off the internet and now he is in the hospital. He is doing really badly and it looks like he may have actual cerebral damage this time. His speech is slurred, he can't write, he is barely aware of who I am.

I am afraid he may actually die this time. It is my worst nightmare to watch my brother die. I am supposed to be able to protect him, I should be strong enough to help him get clean, to stop him from killing himself. Why can't I save him?

I feel so alone right now. I feel like I have no one to hold my hand while I deal with this. My parents are abusive, I have no other family but him. I am in a strange city where I only have one friend. I don't know where to turn. I feel so helpless. I should have been there for him more. I should have prevented this. I don't know what to do.

 

[Pale Warrior]

Hi Sheer Force, you are not alone.

I watched my mother's repeated suicide attempts and was powerless to stop her. My mother lived.

I can't say what will become of your brother, but it isn't your fault. You have done your best, you love him and want to protect him but you can't be with him 24/7.

He is in hospital now, they will care for him and he will get treatment.

I know it's hard, so awful for you, but try to look after yourself - cry, sleep, eat a little - whatever you can.

Tell us about anything you like, share if you want to, vent your anger, we will be here.

You are in my thoughts tonight. Wishing you and your brother strength and healing.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Hi- I am so sad you are going through this with your brother. I agree with Pale Warrior. He is getting help. You need to be there for yourself right now. You did the best you could. You couldnt have done anything else. I hope you both will come out of this ok.

You are on my heart and I pray for the both of you. hug.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

Sending you a 'cyber-hug'...how hard this must be on you!! My thoughts and prayers are with you and your brother. I'm sorry your parents' are not helpful, and that they are harmful, from what your post implies.
I hope you will find some help here. We all hurt, and it helps to have people who know about the difficulty of living in and with PTSD.

 

[Queen Boudica]

((((Sheer Force of Will )))) I feel for you so much. My mentally ill sister tried to kill herself multiple times and in the end she succeeded, but the sting in the tail was it was probably an accidental overdose that time.

I have gone over and over how I could have helped her, what I could have done differently. I had complex trauma, myself stemming from our abusive upbringing. I was not in a position to help my sister and neither are you. Everytime I tried my family sucked me in and ended up damaging me more, and my sister was part of that abuse. I had to distance myself for surivival but that brings guilt.

But I recognise and, you need to too, that my decision to distance myself was so that I could survive. I was not qualified or in a position to help, all I would have probably done was just add to the problem and end up further damaging myself and probably my sister.

The experts and your brother are the ones who are the only ones who can help your brother.

You need to stay strong for yourself and for your brother if he finally starts to heal, but that is up to him, not you. It is a very very hard thing to do and I know where you are coming from. It is not your fault, you are strong and have done as much as you can. You have to leave it to the experts and concentrate on helping yourself and healing yourself.

If your brother heals then he will be glad to have a brother who has stayed strong and not run himself down. If your brother heals he does not need the guilt of knowing that he brought you down too and the risk that he will be brought down again because of that guilt.

I hope it works out and your brother gets the treatment and help he needs. Whatever happens you need to keep yourself strong. I hope you too are getting the help and support you need and that means looking after yourself.

It is a truly terrible thing to see your sibling like that, but stay strong and look after yourself for both your sakes. It is not your fault. You have done the best you can.

 

[Sheer Force of Will]

Thank you all so much for reaching out to me. I have been alone all my life. I have no other siblings but my brother and I have no close relatives.

I am so scared for my brother. And even though I hear you all when you say that I need to take care of myself, it's so hard to turn away and leave him in the hands of our awful parents.

Also, my brother is not just borderline personality disorder, he also has crones disease, he is gay and he has a rare brain tumor disorder which is eating his brain. I am afraid to turn away from all of this because I am the only person in my family with training in neurology, and I am the only person that he is not afraid of. He has severe paranoia, and I am the only person that he trusts.

My extended family says that I should protect myself and walk away from a situation that I can't fix. I am just so terrified that he is going to die alone. No one deserves that. No matter what they have done, no matter what. No one deserves that.

 

[Queen Boudica]

((((((((Sheer Force of Will))))))) .

Too similar to my sister. My parents were like yours, in particular my mother continued to abuse my sister till the day she died. I had to remove myself from the situation to protect myself from my mother. My sister did die alone. So it is hard to read about your situation.

If you feel you have strength, then there is nothing stopping you being there for your brother, but please do not blame yourself for his condition or feel that you have to be strong for him and look after him. Leave that to the experts.

Are you in therapy or counselling? Is there anyone who is supporting you emotionally and looking after you?

Look after yourself first. You do not have to walk away, but you have to find a way of keeping yourself strong and not blaming yourself and feeling you should be able to fix it. That route of thinking you are the only one who can look after him will just lead to disaster. You know that is impossible. It is up to your brother and the experts to fix him, not you.

And that is hard for me to write, because the other side of me wishes I could have been stronger and fixed everything so my sister would not have died but I could not have done that, it was impossible.

You have to look after yourself and, if able, be there for him but not to the point where you drag yourself down, he would not want that.

 

[Pale Warrior]

Hi Sheer Force, thanks for comming back to us, I was thinking about you so much last night and worried that we might not hear from you again.

Lizo is talking sense, you need to be strong for your brother and the only way to do that is to be fit for the job.

When my husband was in intensive care fighting for his life, one very lovely nurse made me take a break, have a sleep and pushed food at me till I ate a few mouthfulls. She was right.

You sound as if you have a good handle on your brothers situation, with all the smarts needed to be his proxy and advocate for him. He will need you to be fully functional to get the best out of the health system for him. He is very lucky to have you looking out for his best interests.

Well done.

PW, x

 

[Jen93]

Okay- this is really hard for me to post- especially right now- but I've got to. I can't stand the way you're feeling right now. You are too good to deserve the way you feel right now. You need to care for yourself as well. Keep healthy, eat right, sleep right, meditate, go on a picnic, take a bubble bath- try to relax a little. Go to a therapist. You are worth it. I also believe that you need to care for yourself before you can care for your brother.

One of my traumas stems from watching my mentally ill brother try to kill himself over and over.

I am afraid he may actually die this time. It is my worst nightmare to watch my brother die. I am supposed to be able to protect him, I should be strong enough to help him get clean, to stop him from killing himself. Why can't I save him?

I feel so alone right now.I don't know where to turn. I feel so helpless. I should have been there for him more. I should have prevented this. I don't know what to do.

None of this is your fault! Repeat that to yourself. You can not save someone who does not want to be saved. You can be there for him, you can support him; but in the end- it is his choice. It is obvious that you care about him and worry for him- tell him that. It is good that he is in the hospital right now and being taken care of by professionals. You are very, very, very good to be there for him to listen to him, and talk to him and tell him how much you love him.

It is very difficult to want to be a protector. If they do not want to be protected, and continually push you away, there is nothing that can be done but let him know that you care for him and love him.

You can not control what he does if he does not want to be controlled.

You can not save him if he does not want to be saved.

None of this is your fault and you are a good person!

Please believe me when I say that you are not a bad person. You are loved. We care about you.

 

[Tinyflame]

Dear SFoW, I have some understanding from both perspectives.

I agree with L and PW, 1st and foremost he would not want you to suffer over it (him).

It is not only not your fault, but suicide has been described by many who have studied it (and those who deal with or have SI) as frequently being like a terminal illness, sometimes. You can no more prevent it than stopping (by 'yourself') cancer or heart disease. (And that's without the presence of any other neurological condition, as you said). It's not 'willful', it's not a refusal of help, it's course is not within your control.

All you can do is love him now, take care of yourself FOR HIM, as well as yourself, as that is what he would surely want from his heart, and know he is in the hands he needs to be now.

You are a most wonderful sister, and I'm certain he surely loves you more than his words can express.
My heart and thoughts go out to you both.

 

[Sheer Force of Will]

Thank you all again for reaching out. I have always been alone and never been allowed to have feelings about this situation. You are amazing.

Junebug, you are right. He is very sick and his sickness is as consuming and difficult to treat as cancer. I have a lot of nuero traning, so I know that very well. I need to not take this all on my self. I study nuerology, no psychology, anyway.

lizio, I am so sorry for what happened to you and your sister. I am in awe of your courage. It must have taken amazing strength for you to protect yourself. I understand what you mean about second guessing that move, but you are right, it was the right thing to do. Thank you for sharing your story with me. I am really struggling to do what you did. I know that I have to. I know that my brother would want me to be happy.

Pale Warrior, thank you so much for thinking of me. I can't tell you what a strange idea that is to me. I have always taken second place to my brother in the minds of all of my family and it is so nice to hear that someone is actually thinking of me. You are wonderful to reach out. I am glad that you met that lovely nurse, and that she took care of you.

Jen, I know that things are really rough with you right now, thank you so much for taking the time to read this and reach out to me. I have a little leather pouch that I wear around my neck. In it, I keep things that I want to be mindful of. I have a selenite heart that my supporter has the mat of, a citrine stone to remind me to be cheerful, a pearl from my grandmothers necklace (she was a total badass) and now I will carry your words. You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved. I will wear them around my neck so that I don't forget. Thank you so much.

My brother was released from the hospital today. He has survived the overdose but he it has aggravated his crohns. While talking to the doctor, he began verbally harassing the person in the next bed. Then he started screaming at the doctor and flipped over a table. He tried to attack my mother but I pulled her out of the way. When he gets like this, I am the only person who can calm him down. I am the only person he does not attack (when he knows who I am) and the only person who can talk him down from his paranoia. My mother and father only make it worse, so I am afraid to leave them alone with him. But Jen is right. You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved.

I am trying to remember that I am doing all that can be expected of me, but I feel like a terrible person because my brothers hospitalization has put me in the shadows again. I just finished my final exams for my second semester of graduate school and I got straight A's. I also had my Evaluation of Clinical Competency and I earned the highest possible mark. I found all this out right when my family found out that my brother went into the hospital and it was instantly forgotten. I am upset that they forgot me for him again, and that makes me feel like a terrible person. What kind of sister begrudges her own brother her parents attention when he is in the hospital? It's just that he is in so often, and this always happens. I know that I cannot depend on my parents to take care of me, and I should not care if they are proud of me, especially after what they have done to me, but it still hurts.

Thank you all so much for reaching out to me. Things have been really difficult with my supporter this week, so I was on my own through this. I don't know how I would have managed without you all. Its amazing how much we struggle alone, but how much we can do for each other when we pull together.

 

[Jen93]

Congratulations on school! :D