By: Revanche

Mental illness in our family

November 25, 2019

Mental illness in our familyMental illness speckles my family tree like leaf mold.

The bipolar uncle who cackled uncomfortably like a cartoon character, his mirth punctuated by random outbursts of rage. The cousin fallen prey to the lure of drugs to quiet his anxiety, lost when the drugs pushed him to suicide instead of helping as he’d hoped. Then his brother couldn’t handle the anger and loss and pain, he was finally diagnosed as bipolar and refused to be treated. Then Mom’s dementia and anxiety and depression, desperately intermingled, trapped her in a dizzying kaleidoscopic world until she passed. My dad was, and remains, a hardcore narcissist. If he doesn’t actually have NPD, his life and choices certainly mimic it very strongly, and he raised a son who was the same.

Mostly this kind of thing is hushed up by the family, as if not talking about it means that it doesn’t exist. That doesn’t work, family. It hasn’t protected any of us.

Some of got lucky. Some of us danced with acute depression and/or anxiety, lasting weeks, or months, admitted it, got help, and finally made it through to the other side. Humbled and a little wiser about the realities, and vagaries, of mental health with some tools to manage that anxiety and depression, we’ve understood the struggle a little better. And some of us who won free still live with the specter, daily.

My brother wasn’t one of “some of us”. He didn’t have a sharp psychotic break. He didn’t step in and out of schizophrenia, managed and not. It was almost a gentle transition. He’d always had delusions of grandeur – he flashed through get rich quick schemes like credit cards. Braggadacio fed his outsize ego which fueled his arrogance in an endless loop.

He never worked harder than when he was trying to dupe me, our parents, or family and friends. He was the first to fall head over heels for the earliest MLM scams of our time, dragging our worried parents and their connections in with him. He managed two quarters at the local state college before dropping out with parking tickets and failing grades trailing in his wake.

He slipped into the warm embrace of true delusions easily, just like he’d done every night when we lay in bed in our shared room, dancing through one imaginary scenario after another. His created world had always been far more desirable than the one we lived in, the one of bills, of hard work, of gritting your teeth and dealing with the daily mundanity that keeps the car running and the water on.

Is it any wonder then, as his delusions deepened, as he swatted away our reality to create a new world for himself where he didn’t have to do any actual work, that it simply wasn’t clear if this wasn’t just another one of his long cons?

For an uncertain number of years, his decline mimicked his earlier cons. Every weird encounter with him was nearly exactly like previous subtle schemes to force me to embrace his version of reality and not so incidentally, into providing his basic support. He has had a lifelong history of modeling fake helplessness. Those years of experience are how I learned to see through his scams and reject them. But because of his addiction to scams, for years, I couldn’t tell if this wasn’t another version of that exercise that had been successful in the past.

A year after Mom passed, when it was finally clear that whatever his choices or flaws, he truly had an undiagnosed mental illness, it was too late. He was too old. We could not force an adult to seek treatment against his will. We could not convince him that he needed to seek treatment. He was the normal one. He was right, he was the brilliant genius with ideas crackling and sparking up in the night, lighting the way for those of us too shortsighted, too fool, to see.

Several years ago, I considered what it would take to get him back. To get the brother I so briefly had a relationship with as nearly young adults. I’d have to leave my job hundreds of miles away that was supporting the whole family, personally babysit him to force him to tell the truth to his care providers, and then force him to take medications we could only hope might work. But there was no guarantee he would cooperate, nor that the medications would work, and that’s entirely aside from the fact that I doubt it’s moral to force an adult through those paces if they don’t want to change.

It’s been 8 years and he’s still convinced of his righteousness. We’ve lost him, too.

Why is this coming up now?

These memories resonate so strongly because for many years, I had to act like the parent to him. No one else could manage him. And this has preyed on my mind when I ponder our future. Unlike Ali’s aunt, I have very few fond memories of my brother: “After all my Aunt was able to remember a time when her little sister was a sweet and loving little girl. My only memories of that same person are of a very mean spirited woman who never has a kind word to say to anyone.

Ironically(?), my (financially abusive) dad still feels a sense of responsibility to his elder child that he apparently never felt to me, so they stick together for now as I’ve gone no contact with the two of them. Maybe it’s because they are so alike.

I don’t know what I’m going to do about them as we get older. I say that as if I’m supposed to do something about them. I say that because my gut says that after so many years of being pushed into the role of my brother’s keeper, if Dad predeceases him as one might expect, I’m going to have to be his keeper again. I don’t want that job. I’ve never wanted that job. Or if Dad gets seriously ill, I’m going to feel eyes on me, expectant, waiting for me to step up like I’ve stepped up a million times over 20 years. That might be worse. I don’t know, they’re both bad.

Maybe those eyes are just in my imagination, leftover vestiges of being trained to do only my duty to my family of origin and never considering myself or my own choices. I hope they are.

Because after all I’ve done, paid, and sacrificed, and then learning of Dad’s betrayal, I don’t want to do any more. I don’t want to feel obligation to them. I don’t want to feel guilt over leaving them to fend for themselves forevermore. I don’t think I should feel any of this, which is progress. (Though I do, so there’s still work to be done.) It’s been years since I’ve spoken to either of them, and the one time he tried reaching me in the past two years, it was only to try to manipulate me into wrongdoing. He’s choosing to double down and I don’t want any part of that.

I want to be shut of them, emotionally, financially, in all ways.

It’s taking me what feels like far too long to shed the guilt on principle alone. I must let go of it because I have a higher responsibility to my child, spouse, and chosen family but this may be one of those things that time will heal more effectively than effort.

Our next generation

After many long years of these machinations and manipulations, I couldn’t imagine building my own biological family. For years, I was against the idea of having biological children. I felt as though all the genetics were arrayed against us. How could we take that risk? How could we possibly risk passing on my desperately flawed genetics to another person?  Yet some of us DID make it through. I live with my history of depression and balance that with my everyday life, even with depression-inducing chronic pain every day.

Of course, we did take the risk of having a child and we are doing our level best to provide the nurturing and the environment least conducive to those illnesses breaking through if it is at all possible to nudge zir away from the tracks that my family have run down.

I don’t know how the NPD works, other than anecdotally. I don’t know how strongly it breaks out when it’s not encouraged and nurtured. Has it bloomed greater in men than women since our culture accepts that type of behavior in men and doesn’t allow it in women?

There’s not a lot of great data out there but there are suggestions that it is an inheritable disease and that the early life environment will affect or determine whether or not the trait ultimately manifests. He was under stress as an infant and toddler since those were the years our family were refugees and trying to make their way to the States, whereas I was born when we were already here and settled in very humble lodgings. We were poor for most of my childhood but it wasn’t “traveling from one country to the next with only the clothes on our backs” stressful.

Whether it’s just correlation or causation, the manipulations and scams he ran on me started when he was 4. I was only 1 or 2 when he started finagling away my milk bottles, my candy, my toys. It could just looked like normal childhood manipulation of a sibling, and Mom did her best to stop him, but he never stopped.

JB’s life experience is about a universe away from that: loved, cherished, and even semi-coddled from Day 1 with all zir needs met without any upheaval or stressors outside of the one that made us move (evil neighbor). Even then, ze was not personally exposed to that horrible person, we kept zir safe and away from him at all times. I have at least one very close family member who knows our family history and will do their best to help us steer JB to a happier and healthier life but I also have to accept that there’s only so much we can do.

I don’t have any answers here. I just hope to have hope.

12 Responses to “Mental illness in our family”

  1. eemusings says:

    Oh, my heart aches with you. Yes, I think they grativate to each other because they are peas in a pod. Yes, I think time more than anything else will be your best friend in the healing process. And distance. I have been learning a lot about NPD and emotional abuse this year (weirdly, podcasts have been quite good) and really driven home that these are emotional and resource vampires who are black holes and will take all you give, and more. For me having a kid has forced me to get crystal clear on my priorities and what love actually is. That’s meant some painful personal growth but it’s necessary for myself and also for him in terms of modelling examples of what is healthy and normal as he gets older. <3

    • Revanche says:

      While I’d never propose having a kid for clarity’s sake, it is amazing the kind of clarity that having a wanted and loved child brings to our childhood traumas. It’s hard but necessary work we’re doing.

  2. You have my permission to never assume responsibility for your brother (you never need be his keeper) or your father and to not feel at all guilty. I mean, maybe you’ll want to help deal with Medicaid and a nursing home if your father becomes seriously ill, but you don’t even have to do that.

  3. I hope you resist the urge to take care of either of them ever again. I can’t imagine how hard that must be, but ultimately you seem to be getting better at placing your husband and child ahead of them (as it should be). So that’s progress.

    I know you’re watching JB like a hawk for warning signs, so I’m sure ze will get whatever help ze needs if god forbid any mental illness does rear its head. (Though for the record not all of us bipolar folks are quite so scary. Then again I have a more mild form in Bipolar II.) And if you normalize the treatment early on, it won’t be that big a deal to ze to stay the course. But of course I hope that’s not something you ever have to contend with.

    Take care. *hugs*

    • Revanche says:

      I hope I am able to. I have to.

      I sure hope I didn’t come across as saying I think any less of you or any of my friends with mental illness because none of you are “scary” in the least.

      It’s just the way MI has manifested in my family that becomes scary. My theory is it seems so much more devastating because they refuse to acknowledge the existence of MI and therefore let it spiral out of control. How can they get help if no one will admit they have a problem?

  4. Sense says:

    Oh. Oh! I feel all of this very hard.

    You are right. There are no easy answers. The things we want for ourselves are very tangled in and contradict our sense of duty on this front.

    I too wonder what will happen when my parents pass and I am left with the pieces of my sister that are left. I’ve told my parents I am not able, emotionally nor financially, to take on managing my sister’s care, particularly from abroad (even WITH state provided housing and the welfare and medical care–there is A LOT that gets left to loved ones to manage for a mentally ill person. e.g. my parents took her to the dentist after her teeth started LITERALLY falling out of her head–this was after she complained about toothaches for months and her carers ignored her).

    And what if she gets really sick, I mean physically? She doesn’t take care of herself, which means the smoking and diabetes will likely combine into a monster stroke or heart attack while she is relatively young. What then?

    I feel like I won’t be able to say no to dropping everything and helping. Esp because my parents keep saying they expect me to, because she didn’t choose to be sick or born with this. So, despite my protests to my parents (to try to get them to make some plans to anticipate likely future events), I am not sure I actually mean it when I say I can’t take it on, deep down in the heart of my hearts. I will be the only one left on Earth who cared at all about her, has any ties to her whatsoever. Do I live with a life of guilt for abandoning my once-best-friend and only sibling, or do I abandon my own dreams to help someone who will just keep sucking more and more out of me, and won’t even appreciate it in the slightest?

    My therapist says I can’t live in anticipation/dread of future events that haven’t happened, but this situation is too difficult not to try to anticipate. There aren’t many other permutations of how things could unfold that I can see right now, and I have to react to those so that I am prepared for the emotional and mental toll this is going to take.

    You are not alone.

    • Revanche says:

      While your therapist is right that we shouldn’t live in anticipation, it’s really tough not to when you know that other people NOT planning ahead is going to dump everything in your lap.

      I told my parents very early on that my brother was going to become someone requiring way more than I was prepared to, willing to, or able to give. And this was before his BPD became an issue.

      You had a relationship with your sister once upon a time, and I can only imagine that makes it so much harder than my own determination not to care for my sibling. He and I DID have some good memories, over the course of a year or two, and that made it so hard to get to this point of realizing that he’s not my job and I don’t want him to be. He wasn’t all bad, it just felt that way over the past lifetime.

      Of course she didn’t choose to be sick but neither did you choose to have her or sign up for sacrificing your own life because she became sick. It’s not a fair position to leave you in any more than it’s fair that she became sick.

  5. SP says:

    Please keep the hope, and continue to keep very strong boundaries between you and the family members that have caused you so much harm. You have done so well to extract yourself from that situation, and continue to prioritize yourself, JB, and PIC. <3

  6. <3 Families with history of mental illness can be so troublesome. I worry, too, about who will take care of my dad when I'm older (I hope to God it won't be me… because it can't be. But also, I'm going to be my mother's caretaker, so the pressure to be both might reincarnate itself).

    On another note, you're giving JB the best shot ze has by acknowledging mental illness and working to make sure ze has any sort of help ze might need. And that's HUGE (and was clearly lacking from your family upbringing).

    Sending love and empathy.

  7. Bethany D says:

    Between me and my siblings, parents, & grandparents, our combined mental history includes depression, anxiety, chronic insomnia, PPD/A, suicidal ideation, bipolar, alcoholism, and ADHD. So – my kids definitely have an increased risk of developing something, and that makes my heart sad.

    BUT they also have something none of the rest of my family had; a firm foundation in good mental health care taught right alongside their good physical hygiene. They know that I’m currently getting 2xmonth counseling visits to help with how I think & feel. They know that sometimes people take pills to make their brain work properly, just like a friend gets insulin shots for her diabetes. When they were developing some anxiety, we worked through “What To Do When You Worry Too Much” (highly recommend!) and it gave us a vocabulary to discuss how they were feeling and gave us practice in defusing an anxiety spiral. Like you & JB, I can’t prevent brain gremlins from existing, but I CAN maximize their chances of knowing how to identify & cope with it if they do have one.

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