I’m find myself needing to have some serious conversations with my sibling , I’m just not sure how to approach them at this time .
We lost our Dad at the beginning of the month my sibling has been living at my Dad’s home for most of his life despite a few brief years when he was with me or roommates , hospitalized or jail.
He has been in my Dad’s home for over a year by himself because his behavior was so erratic ( self medicated schizoaffective disorder and ptsd)my dad had to move out.
I saw him for the 1st time in 6yrs since my mom had passed when I went to care for my dad .
I was surprised at the constant talking he would talk into his phone or while sitting in front of the Bible going over things from the past almost constant. The times he was jailed or hospitalized. This was something I had never witnessed with his disease in the past. My Dad named me as executor of his estate .
And I’m considering declining, I don’t think I can afford the lawyers, I’m in another state , I don’t have enough time to properly address the estate which is just a house and one vehicle.
The state of the house would make it difficult to get what’s it’s worth and my sibling lives there in a pretty hoarded state his desire is to stay there but I will not be able to cosign for him.
He would be able to afford the current mortgage but nothing else heat electric food and I don’t even know if he could just be transferred to that same mortgage or if it would go up .
So there’s a lot I need to talk to him about but he’s mostly all over the place.
IDK, try the direct approach? If he realizes something important like he’s in danger of losing his housing because he can’t afford it, that seems like it would grab his attention. How lucid is he? Does he understand basic survival and that you might not be able to pay for his heat, electric and food? Does he take medication?
Right now he can cook for himself and basic things like this make some appointments if there was a working vehicle he can drive sometimes
It’s very hard to say it really changes throughout the day I think I I’m definitely going to try direct approach because I want him to be able to make the decisions for himself.
In the past he is ended up in crisis situations because of his actions and then I had been left to find him roommates or some type of housing situation which he constantly remembers and brings up.
He never has any accountability or awareness of why he ends up in the hospital or in jail unfortunately.
This time I really want him to have his own choices and of course keeping him housed is my major goal
Well unfortunately I just tried to have a short conversation with him about some possibilities and decisions we’d have to make which has sent him into a PTSD spiral
I read up on that. Does that happen often? How do you deal with that? You can’t talk to him about decisions and choices in life? I don’t want to pretend I know how to deal with something like PTSD. I hope you both end up alright.
It is very difficult to deal with basically when it gets heightened we have to stop the conversation so it’s very hard to accomplish things.
Usually he can just say I’m hanging up now he has been through a lot of programs throughout the years including anger management and I sometimes see the skills he learned in those classes coming to the front.
And of course he always says he uses his weed for PTSD .
I also need to hang up and take a break because it’s very emotionally draining and non-productive.
Unfortunately, your situation is probably playing out in multiple families every single day, year in and year out. There are no good answers or solutions to your questions and problems. Since there is a mortgage on the house, I seriously doubt the current mortgage will transfer to your brother. And, even if it does, as you said, he won’t be able to afford basic living expenses, so foreclosure would probably be in the near future. How much is the house worth and how much equity is there in the house? If there is considerable equity, since you are the executor, you could sell the house, and buy something less expensive or just find something reasonable to rent. Obviously, ownership is usually preferable, but in your situation, it may not be the best option. Are there any type of support systems or services in your area with group homes or something similar that he could live in? It’s a lot to deal with and think about, I don’t envy you. You have been put into a very difficult position. I am a Dad to a 29 year old son, who has schizophrenia, and who would self medicate if he had the chance to do so. He is currently on prescription medication and doing very well, but if he ever gets off his meds and starts to self medicate, bad things will happen. I worry about the day when I’m gone and who will care for him. I have other children, but I really don’t want to burden them with the responsibility. This is a huge problem in society that nobody wants to deal with and, until, the people in power decide to do something about it, nothing will change. I hope and pray you find a good solution to your problem. God bless you.
I’m glad your son is stable right now.
One thing I’m finding out about for future is if you’re able to set up a special needs trust for your son that does help to dictate someone what will happen after you pass.
If your son was disabled at 18 or younger he should also receive some of your social security which of course would help.
I’m still trying to figure out if there would be much equity in the house. At first my sibling was insistent that he get to stay there and of course keep all the possessions he is a hoarder. Unfortunately the home is in an HOA neighborhood and it’s almost been taken in the past because of the hoarding situation.
But just recently he seems to come around to wanting to move My Hope is that there might be enough equity that I could get him something he can afford and a working vehicle.
Hi, thank you for the tip on the special needs trust. I will definitely check into that. I hope you are able to find the best solution for your brother. God bless.
@trcanon0121 in addition to a special needs trust, you might also look into an ABLE account for your son. It’s a savings and/or investment option for people with disabilities and is exempt from the $2,000 individual resource limit for SSI. My son has scz and like yours, bad things have happened when he self-medicated. Fortunately he has been sober for seven years and he takes his prescribed meds. I try to work with him to gain skills that will help him when I’m no longer around.
”Between a rock and a hard place” is a familiar place for me. That’s where a schizophrenic loved one always places you.
I’m so sorry about your Dad. As you’re going to figure out, the whole dynamic of dealing with your loved one is going to change. I’m afraid your brother will get worse without your dad in his life; that happened to Billy. Dad could get a little more cooperation out of him (not much) than I could. Billy would never cooperate with me even a little bit, and he was irate when I couldn’t straighten out his endless situations which he created by himself. It really, really sucks.
My mom could get him to do stuff, but he tried to kill her (almost succeeded) and she died in 1995 leaving my dad and me to deal with this monster. It wasn’t fair to her (I’m certain he hastened her demise) and it wasn’t fair to my father, or to me.
So I really feel sorry for you Meg. Take care of yourself. I’ll try to help if I can.
I agree it could get worse without my dad in his life,
When my mom passed 7 years ago he really went into a horrible spiral , death of family members has never been something he deals well with.
And how isolating this disease is just means that he’s lost one more person he has a very very small limited number of people he even speaks with.
I think one of the hardest things I’m dealing with right now is just trying to navigate this executor stuff unfortunately there was no special needs trust or anything like that.
So now I’m dealing with a mortgage that’s overdue a sibling that wants to live there but cannot afford the mortgage and the estate needing to go into probate which I don’t have the money for.
It’s just a lot to navigate and I really don’t have the resources I’m just trying to figure out a way to get enough out of the estate hopefully to get him something he can afford.
You’re right schizophrenia will always put us between a rock and a hard place.
Everything you say is true Meg. You have a lot on your plate just dealing with the loss of your Dad and dealing with his estate.
Siblings should be sticking together during a situation like this. Even in “normal” families that doesn’t always happen, but in the case of a schizophrenic sibling, they are like an enormous anchor pulling us underwater. While you’re bailing the boat out, they’re drilling more holes- and blaming you for the boat sinking.
A person like that is a vampire. They never help, always hinder, then blame you for everything. When I look back on my life, I realize how much Billy has cost me. I am a shell of the person I could have been, the person I was meant to be. It’s because of him I’m so alone. He chased away every friend, every girlfriend I’ve ever had. One look at Billy and any sane woman ran away as fast as she could. He cost me friends. He cost me my relationship with family. And, he diverted me from concentrating on my career, which was always of paramount importance to me.
I recently caught up with one of my ex girl friends. She has a family (kids grown up now), and a very rewarding and prestigious career. I am so happy for her! But if not for Billy, she might have been the one for me. Her mother even told me (years after we broke up) that her life would have been a lot better if she had stuck with me. The truth is that it was my life that would have been better, but I didn’t realize it back then.
So I know this is still happening to people today. They’re first blindsided, then overwhelmed, with their mentally ill loved one. It bothers me that nobody has a clue (or cares enough to) help them.
I’m feeling so angry for his lack of accountability for his own actions, I took a next step in the estate and I had a realtor meet him at the house yesterday and I attended virtually, I thought it was going to be an okay day my sibling and I had been talking and he seemed to be geared up for it. But once the realtor arrived they did a walk through the house and called me I could tell the realtor was some what uncomfortable my sibling was hounding him to give him a price, and he was trying to explain he needs to take things into account and then let us know. He said he was going to take photos and then call me he ended up having to leave because he was too uncomfortable and cannot work with my brother.
I was so furious and ended up going off on my brother he just wanted to act like once again it was everybody else’s fault. Saying the guys a fraud saying things that he took the wrong way just another mess.
,
“but he tried to kill her (almost succeeded) and she died in 1995 “
My sibling was threatening to my father multiple times once my dad was standing at the coffee maker my brother came up behind him and stabbed a knife into the counter right next time to his hand and was screaming. He walked off for a minute and my dad was able to crawl out of the window sneak out the fence and behind a neighbor’s truck to call the police.
There were other times too, I would get a phone call , from my dad he’d be hiding in his bathroom afraid of my brothers erratic behavior but not wanting me to call the police yet waiting to see if he would calm down.
Yes it’s our siblings with the disease but it has robbed me of so much as well. I can’t tell you how many times my parents couldn’t come see me because they needed to′ be with my brother too afraid to leave him on his own.
And even if you did have a partner it may have been really hard !my partner wants nothing to do with my sibling which makes it very difficult , they actually used to get along some and we all used to do family things together but as the disease has progressed it’s not possible.
@megmeg sorry I’m rather late to this thread as lately I’ve had my own issues to attend to. My situation with my brother is similar, although he’s self-medicated with alcohol for decades, his diagnosis is bipolar disorder and my mother is still alive, albeit at advanced years. It’s tough, but I have a silver-lining that he acted out to such an extent that he has a restraining order with a neighbor and has finally been convinced that he might spend the rest of his life in jail if he doesn’t straighten up, take medication, stop drinking (he’s damaged his liver to such an extent that it’s a one-way ticket to jail or hospital if he does) and not return to the house without escort.
My main problem with him now is his apathy about the situation. He’s shifted from a stance similar to your brother of staunch resistance and obstructing any real progress of addressing realities of his hoarded out house to not caring much about anything or offering only faint resistances. He’s not doing much significant work or at least his resistances have been muted or feeble. Clean up is mostly falling to me and another brother. The market is down in our area and his trust owns the house, so there isn’t as much of a rush to get the house fixed up and sold. Yet my mother isn’t going to last forever, and if something isn’t done before then I could end up with a similar crisis.
Not sure I can offer much help, other than to commiserate and say it’s tough and you have to do the best you can. I like to say his illness is like the weather: you don’t have much control over it, it can be really bad or get better or can turn in you any moment—you just don’t know. The best you can do is fight as best you can to protect yourself and of course talk about it like you’re doing here. And like the weather, talking about it doesn’t change much, but can change your outlook and how you deal with forces beyond your control.
It is very much like the weather and can change quickly especially when they’re unmedicated or self-medicated.
One positive is I don’t think my brother’s had enough money to buy weed at this point in time or much of it anyways. But unfortunately he does have an extreme personality and addiction so even coffee is dangerous!
Like a lot of schizophrenics he does smoke a lot of cigarettes and has a lot of caffeine well for the last few months he’s been telling me his coffee’s been poisoned and he’s been puking up black stuff saying his head doesn’t feel right, I’ve tried telling him to ask his doctor when he goes in about this. Of course he doesn’t.
But what I discovered is you can overdose on coffee /caffeine and it can cause all the symptoms that he’s been talking about for months.
I shared this information with him and I really hope that he might start thinking about it. Because when I think back this may have actually sent him into psychosis before, being over caffeinated not sleeping for days.
Another positive is he has gotten himself a storage unit and has been taking a lot of the possessions out of the home that he wants to keep. He has talked about trying to get a dumpster over there but they are very expensive I may look back into that hoarders resource you had mentioned before if I remember they only do certain areas of the country though.
I don’t know if you would be left in charge if your mom passes but one thing I found would have been helpful if my dad had put a Tod (transfer on death) for the house I wouldn’t need to be facing probate which is a horribly long ,expensive, kind of nightmarish process that I haven’t started yet.
I’m sorry that you and your sibling are left cleaning up for now!