How do you know when to stop helping someone, especially when they’re your sibling and struggling with mental illness?
My sister just keeps making bad choices, it seems. She squeezed out two kids she couldn’t afford (on purpose) with a loser who can’t keep a job. She relied on our parents for free shelter, took advantage of them, and used the money she saved to purchase toys and clothing for herself while her kids languished. She has been Baker Act-ed multiple times and diagnosed with OCD, bipolar, and paranoia (though this may be due to her chronic weed habit).
But you know what? Our parents let us down SUPER hard. As teenagers, my sisters and I were physically and emotionally abused. The only difference is, I went to college and landed a good job, and she didn’t. It could have easily been me. I have something like survivor’s guilt, I think.
After she was kicked out of all the places she could have stayed (for yelling, for being neglectful to her kids, for not applying to jobs) we put her up in a hotel. We told her this is her last chance to make progress–get a job, enroll in an assistance program, etc.–and she’s about to be homeless. She chose to use her last money to get tattoos.
I’m scared she’s going to die. Or get attacked, once she’s homeless. My parents are trying to pull me into doing more, but nothing they ever did for her made a difference. It hurts so much.
TL;DR My sister is homeless, partly due to her own bad choices, partly due to mental illness and a terrible upbringing. I don’t know how to help her. What would you do?
4 comments
I realize this may sound harsh but this my opinion based on my liver experience.
I refuse to help anyone who consistently makes poor choices and refuses to help themselves. You could potentially give and give and give and it may never be enough. She may never come around. She may never get the help she needs. She’s 24 with two kids and on the brink of being without a place to live and spends her last money on tattoos?
Who’s got her kids? I have so many questions.
Could you get her into an inpatient mental health program? It sounds like she is in need of some intensive inpatient therapy. And it would temporarily solve her housing issue, and the hospital social workers should then be able to set her up with a housing plan before she is released.
>The boyfriend’s parents and my parents step up to care for the kids, so they are safe.
If your parents were so abusive to their own kids, are her kids *really* safe with them? Are you sure your parents aren’t abusing her kids?
Are you in therapy yourself? That support could really help you work through these feelings of guilt.
Your post lists a series of **choices** your sister made. These aren’t things that happened to her, these are decisions she made. She chose to have children, she chose to spend her money on herself, she chose to buy a tattoo.
In the end, you can’t save her from herself. If giving her $500 didn’t help, what difference would giving her another $500 make? If putting her up in a hotel didn’t help, why would you try it again?
Ultimately, she has to hit rock bottom. No, you don’t want to see her hurt, but your attempts to help her are not helping her and are only hurting you. At one point or another, you need to make the choice to swim to the surface instead of drowning with her.
Where are her children? She made the choice to have them, but they didn’t choose to be born. What is happening with them?