I’ve been re-reading this a lot and trying to find a way to say this also.
You want to push another human being into suicide and you want your father to die a painful death leaving your mother alone and heart broken and helpless against your wrath and anger…
You have said you deserve a life of your own… I agree, leave them in peace and you go away in peace and never look back and have your a life of your own… without them.
It may sound harsh but my family has raised us to be pragmatic and accept that life is finite. I lost my beloved 16 year old cat this year (would have preferred it be Gary and have AliCat still be living but we don’t always get what we want) and that sucked. So based on our own parents’ teachings since they will wind up being gone from something at some time I can wish for it to happen in a way that is most convenient and suiting to my needs. And what you are hearing is my being fed up with my brother being so coddled his entire life that he’s been given diplomatic immunity from all accountability and responsibility and from having my mom who has 100% over coddled and over protected him that this has caused me to be thrown away from the very moment he had his psychotic break 25 years ago and has gotten worse over the years because she’s tried to drag me kicking and screaming into participating in the coddling he gets. She has outright told me I’m a bad person for not helping him with his crap when I’ve told her “NO” to doing things FOR HIM and has told her “he needs to do his crap himself and I don’t care how hard it is for him because he doesn’t drive - he made that crappy decision himself now the consequences and hardships are his alone to suffer”
Would I prefer that he vanish to Antarctica, the sane answer is yes, but I would pitty the penguins that have to put up with him.
As for vanishing out of their lives - my brother and his refusal to be in treatment has destroyed our family from the inside out. There will be an estate that will be left including our family home left after our parents are gone. We were initially sat down when times were better and there was still a relationship that existed with my parents and me when they sat us down and told us how their will was drawn. At the time it was set up that he would be allowed to live in the house for 1 year after and then a decision as to whether or not he will buy out my half will be made between us. With the way things have gone and the problems his remaining in the house with my elderly parents is going to cause me when they need help I DO NOT WANT HIM LIVING THERE I WANT HIM GONE IN HIS OWN PLACE. Let him figure out his life and how to live it alone all by himself. I also want the entire estate for myself as compensation for the utter destructive harm he has caused me. Let him be alone with only his own money (which since he has never had a life with normal living expenses i.e. car, rent, food, utils is extensive). Do not make me the bad person in all this. My mother’s coddling (with my dad acquiescing to her in all of this) and my brother’s schizo/mental illness (I truly believe he isn’t schizo - that diag. was 25 years ago and I truly believe he is more asperger’s than schizo but because he won’t go to ANY docs who knows) they have caused the harm TO ME. They have broken me, they have harmed me, they have hurt me so, no i AM NOT THE BAD PERSON IN ALL THIS MY SCHIZO BROTHER AND CODDLING MOTHER ARE. No bond is possible here. I do not want any bond, in fact I just want him 100% in any way possible, dead, moving to Siberia what ever.
Hi, I understand every ssingle word you are saying, I can’t even tell you how amazing it is to know someone else out there can relate because I feel the same way. I also have an older brother with the same mental illness and he has been nothing but abusive to me and my mother my whole life. It builds anger that people who havnt lived it will never be able to understand. They can say have compassion n all that n I would love to.but when your being abused by someone for so long it’s hard. People say oh he’s mentally ill, u have to feel sorry for him, it’s pretty much like saying feel sorry for the serial killer who murdered 20 people cuz he’s mentally ill. It’d not fair. What I can relate yo is watching your parents being treated like that by your brother n saying y do u even listen. I unfortunately still live at home and I will be minding my own business and my brother will just start calling me an ugly piece of s*** and every other thing u can imagine n my mother says, oh just ignore him.really? It’s inferirating, I get it more than u know. Thanks for letting me know I’m not alone cuz I can’t help but also feel the same, cardbored box n all! It’s so hard to deal with and people domy know what that’s like, I do.
He also refusrd treatment and has destroyed my family. Same experience for me and I agree on every level!
And you are not a bad person, anyone who thi.me you are has never experienced anything like this. It has broken me in every way, nobody has compassion for the people hurt in the path of this like us. And my mother’s coddling makes me sick, it’s not the appropriate way to deal, it’s just not. Message me if you need to vent, I’d be more than happy to chat n tell you more.
@WonderWoman your situation is clear, your parents have made a choice not to abandon your brother and you are angry about it. Okay, fine. But your anger towards all people with sz isn’t rational, and borders on eugenics.
Here’s my situation. I have sz/sza and by brother has bipolar disorder. He lived with my parents untreated for decades up until a few years ago when there was an incident and he became violent. So they bought him a house, and continue to give him an allowance and he’ll eventually inherit a trust that will take care of him.
Yet, I have the more serious disease and don’t drink or abuse drugs. I got treatment, a job, and have paid for my own way for living expenses and treatment after some initial help from my parents. Who has the better life, me or him?
I don’t hate my brother for this, or hate my parents for making this choice. They are doing the the best they can with a bad situation and a difficult disease. Do I wish their lives could be better? Of course I do, but I have to respect their choices and love them as they are.
It seems to me what you are doing is just an elaborate form of denial. Wishing your brother dead, or all people with schizophrenia dead or locked up, isn’t realistic or moral. It seems a bit hypocritical that you don’t seem to be getting treatment for your anger and depression. Who’s walking away from all treatment here?
First, I’d consider more effective treatment for your anger and depression, from your posts your vitriol hasn’t changed in over a year. It’s a common ploy for those in denial to say that treatment (and especially drug therapy) doesn’t change their reality. I’m sure your brother may have used this tactic on occasion.
Second, you are ignoring your reality that this is your parents’ choice and not your own. Their house; their rules. You didn’t like their rules and you left, estranged yourself from them, and have abandoned any hope of influencing the situation. The chief responsibility that your parents had to you was to raise you to the point that you could live responsibly on your own, to some degree they are achieved that. They have been less fortunate with your brother.
Many people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder suffer from anosognosia which means they do not know they have a disease and therefore don’t seek or stick with treatment. It’s theorized that there is a physical or chemical component to this that affects a specific area of the right hemisphere of the brain. It’s likely your brother suffers from this, and as with his disease it’s not his fault. Here’s a link to some information on this phenomenon.
You appear to left the nest late in life, and appear anxious to return for reasons of your own, not because your parents are asking for your help. I’d consider talking to your counsellor about codependency, it may be an issue for you.
I’ll let your stand on eugenics speak for itself. But your persistence on using the term ‘Hebrew Slave’ gives me pause to consider that antisemitism may also be a problem for you.
I wish you peace and healing, and deliverance from hate.
Im sorry for the troubles youre all experiencing but you have to know tis NOT your brothers fault that he has schizophrenia. Also Im 43 and live with my parents. Its not a problem for any of my family. The reason I think I do well is I have the support of my family and they do not cause stress. Stress is very bad for the schizophrenic. IT causes symptoms to get much worse. PLeae give your brother some breathing space. He did not ask for this illness. Trist me, you wouldn’t want this illness yourself.
I, like your brother have no friends. Its not a nice place to be. But a supportive family helps. Give your brother a chance.
My anger has abated to a degree but not my fear of being left with a non-functional burden and being cut out of the proceeds of the estate to be left behind after my elderly idiotic cowardly parents croak. I am smart and in touch with reality enough to know that I am supposed to have parents in my life and supposed to be contributing to taking care of my parents in their elder declining years which I cannot do because my demented denial spewing brother still lives in the house and I refuse to contribute to my parents care to any degree that could benefit my brother through the “trickle down” concept…i.e. help with food shopping and he gets to eat the food for example. I also do NOT want him to remain living in that house beyond their life span which are the plans for now. As “compensatory damages” repayment I intend to wind up orchestrating things so he only winds up with his own earnings and savings which due to the fact that the only thing he’s ever been able to accomplish was to keep a job and save (he has nothing to spend on because he has no life and has been helped to invest wisely so he’s well enough off to not need the estate which includes a several hundred thousand dollar house plus who knows what else). I do NOT intend to wind up with a non socially functional curse/burden which is why I want him out while my parents are alive; if he proves like I expect that he cannot live alone in his own (not the family house) place they are the only ones that will have compassion to get him placed somehow so he will survive. I will just go for the jugular to crush him to get rid of him in a manner akin to just ripping a bandage off quickly.
I am beyond pissed off and resentful that I was cast off as non existing before I walked away. I walked away AFTER being relegated to my needs not existing when they came up AGAINST my brother’s wrong doing and I intend to stuff their doing this down each of their throats by finishing him permanently or by forcing the three of them to “bow down and kiss my ring” so to speak by giving me everything I want as “compensatory and punitive damages”. I was punished for being healthy now they will pay the price of their wrong doings. All I need is to be around my brother and he will come after me to pick fights and antagonize me because he has always done this - he cannot help himself but to behave akin to a “moth to a flame” and when he does I will finish all three of them. I was done wrong to and my attitude is REACTIVE - NOT ACTIVE. But for their doing all they have done I would not be this way so they have only themselves to blame.
As to my “eugenics” attitude - you yourself gave me the justification I need to be right. You said that people with these conditions cannot recognize they need help because of the condition. A broken mind cannot make sound decisions so that is why I believe that once diagnosed with these conditions they must be forced upon them because they cannot make the right decisions themselves. Why should healthy people be forced to have to suffer from the bad behavior of those that are ill because the ill person has the stupid and wrong right to refuse treatment thus forcing people to have to be on the receiving end of their illness born behavior? The healthy are NOT the ones with the problems that need treatment - the ILL ONES ARE THE ONES WITH THE PROBLEMS. If my family had been in treatment my needs would have been respected and acknowledged and I would not be this way.
I did not wish to go through my whole long diatribe and edit it to be have it be revealed but here is my take on what you wound up hiding. All I said I would do was I wouldn’t do anything overtly against him I would let him do his routine of moths to a flame and attempt to pick a fight with me and not back down at all. When this sort of thing happens with my brother he starts to escalate and by standing up to him and not giving him an inch he will continue to escalate to the point of getting violent and when he gets violent against me and lays a hand on me I will then go ahead and have the police come in and arrest him. This will put my family in a position where they’ll have to either give into my demands to drop the charges those being he moves out of the house and has to prove himself like any other adult or I will press the charges and do what I have to to make it as harsh as stressful as possible to get him to crack up and whatever happens after the crack up be at him being in a condition where he can be permanently put into a mental hospital or he decides to off himself and hopefully you’ll get it right is going to be completely and totally on him but I will be free of him and the whole situation by him being around. I would much rather he moved out and moved to Wisconsin somewhere and lives his life but that is not what my family has set up by doing nothing so that boat has sailed. So as far as everyone reporting my post as of offensive this is the. reality of having to have a schizophrenic or mentally ill person in the family that does not get treated you wind up having a person who through no fault of her own winds up becoming very damaged and very abused and winds up retaliating to get her own peace of mind and that’s where I’m at I deserve peace of mind I was not the one who had the mental illness a caused all of this it was my brother and he should have and still should be dealt with by my parents and has not been and is not being. I am entitled to my retribution and standing up for myself and that is what I will do.
You are in a very difficult situation. What I see is that your parents will never kick out your brother and he will live with them until they pass away and then what happens to your brother will depend on him. My mentally healthy daughters often resent my daughter who has sz. I understand how they feel and I also understand my sz daughter’s struggles. Having a mental illness is life changing for not only the person who has the illness but also for the families. Sz is a dreadful disease and I can only imagine the suffering my sz daughter has to go through day in and day out. It’s all so unfair. Have you thought of joining NAMI?
I feel like all these other responses are from people who have never dealt with a violent, aggressive, schizo sibling. I get what you’re saying and what you’re feeling. I’ve felt this way too. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do. Your parents have to make the decision to place these boundaries around themselves, esp if he is abusing them too. The other option is maybe explore power of attorney (depends on the state you’re in) when they become too feeble to care for themselves. That could allow you to care for them and take control of the finances, etc.
“They” are not “schizos”.
Our loved ones are human beings with schizophrenia.
The use of a derogatory term to describe an illness only further stigmatizes and isolates those struggling with schizophrenia.
The original posting was from 2013 your point is appreciated.
I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. I have a 58 year old brother who suffers from paranoia schizophrenia. He was living with my mum for 30 years. I just managed to get him out of my mother’s house after 30 years!!! He was making my mother sick. He was giving her too much medication or not enough medication. My mother was in hospital approx every 90 days for UTI’s (urinary tract infections). She was bleeding from her rectum but my brother never told me. I had to take my mother to Emerg. She was admitted for emergency colonoscopy and diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Another time I took my mother to emerg bc she was dizzy very often. My brother said she just needs fresh air. He would open windows bc he said someone was putting gases in the air and making our mum dizzy. Turns out she had atrial fibrillation. She’s on medication. He assaulted my mother in 2008 and was charged with 12 month Probation. He had a gun license but I called RCMP to advise not to renew his license. He kept applying but luckily RCMP refused his license bc he lied on the application. The police have been at my mothers house at least 20 times since 2016-2023. He has yelled and argued with neighbours accusing them of putting ‘chemicals’ in the air which makes my mom cough. He has assaulted me. The police can’t do anything. He has fired 4 of my mother caregivers bc he claims he can take care of my mother. Two caregivers never came back but two of the caregivers stayed on to help my mom. He assaulted one caregiver and she filed a report with police. It’s been a nightmare!!! So unless you have lived through something like this, don’t be so hard and judgemental on the person who wrote the article. I understand how she/he feels. I cannot be around my brother anymore. He is a liar. He is manipulative. He wants everyone to think he is disabled and walks with a cane but his real disability is mental illness. Watch Jordan Petersons YouTube video on trying to help people. You can’t help people who don’t think they’re sick. Watch TedTalk by Dr. Xavier Amador. He talks about anosognosia.
Count your blessings that you don’t understand bc if I didn’t have a brother with paranoia schizophrenia I probably would have been judgemental too. It’s a nightmare. It brings out the worst in the family. It divides families. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
To the person who wrote the article….I hear you, I understand you and I don’t judge you.
I wish you all the best. Be good to yourself. Accept the fact that you cannot help people who do not want to get better. Sometimes you have to let them go.
Maggotbrane, I continue to admire and marvel at every post of yours I have read on this site. Thank you so much for providing us with your insight and perspective.