Little brother living (silently) with bipolar.

[mrsdukelow]

My brother, at age 19, 10.5 years younger than me, who I helped raise, who I've always been close to, was committed to the local mental ward for 21 days in February/March of 2013. He had never shown signs of depression before (I've always been the "moody" one and was diagnosed finally in May of 2011 with depression).

He started acting erratically a week prior, very speedy speech, grandiose ideas, intense talks of a girl he was crushing on, lots of spending of his very limited cash, not going to class (he's an architecture major) etc.

My parents and I all tried talking to him to see what was going on. He would swear at us, which was SO unlike him, I think that was the biggest point of fear for me. This was my gentle little brother who didn't even like to say the words 'jackass' or 'hell' and now he was letting the F word fly with abandon and would tell us all to go fuck ourselves with an evil grin on his face.

My dad finally had my brother hospitalized when he called my dad saying he just wanted to kill himself already, that he didn't want to do life anymore.

Over the course of the 21 days he was in there, shit was all fucked up in my tight knit family. I saw my dad break down on more than one occasion. My mom never went to see him in the hospital for fear of breaking down in front of him because when I broken down in front of him, he told me to shut the fuck up and quit my crying. He was volatile and mean. I talked to him on the phone a few times and he would go from telling me to fuck off and being spitting mad to begging me to get him out of there, giving me hints at the boy he was before.

The doctors didn't know what happened. At one point they thought he ate a pot brownie laced with bath salts. Then they thought he was just having a mental break from the stress of school and lack of sleep and too much smoking of pot. Then they threw around diagnoses of bipolar disorder and even schizophrenia, which scared the ever loving shit out of me. The final diagnoses when he was finally released was bipolar. He was put on a ton of different meds and ordered to attend counseling by himself and group therapy with my parents. For the first time in three weeks, he looked like himself, acted like himself, sounded like himself.

It's been a pretty even keel year and a half since then. He's finally found a cocktail of medications that seem to help him and every time I see him, I'm shaken by how himself he seems to be. I'm shaken because I still have nightmares of his face back then. His face seemed to take on a different shape, a different structure. He looked evil. He looked sinister. It looked like stupid horror movies portray the moment someone is possessed by a demon. It's been a year and a half and I have not been able to let go of that face...

The reason I'm writing is because I needed to let this out somewhere safe. I talk to my husband about all I feel about that time, but anytime I try and talk to my brother, he changes the subject. I understand how hard that time of his life was, and how there is always the fear of another mental break. I get it, I really do. I try to put myself in his shoes and think about what that must have been like for him. But at the same time, I feel like I need to talk about how it made me feel, how destroyed I feel by that time in MY life, how I have nightmares and how I always search his face for signs of that demon. I don't feel like I'm allowed to push him to talk about it, that it's selfish to talk about how it affected me. So I'm letting that all out here.

I've talked to my husband endlessly about how I feel, about how I want to talk to my brother, to tell him how his actions made/make me feel, that I understand how absolutely horrible all the events of last year must have felt, how being in his body must have felt (he doesn't remember a lot of the things he said or did during that time), how I can't even imagine being locked up for 21 days because of my mental state, but that I also feel violated and physically and emotionally hurt by all that he said and did. But I can't. He won't let me. As someone who has struggled with mental health issues for most of her life (diagnosed, and not), I don't want to push. But I also don't want to keep dealing with seeing that face, hearing those words, when I close my eyes at night...

Thank you, to whoever takes the time to read this. I've been a listener of the podcast for just a few weeks. Already Paul's words, and the words of his guests, and the words of the survey-takers and email-writers, have calmed my mind immensely.

[manuel_moe_g]

Hello mrsdukelow, welcome to our little forum. Hope you enjoy all of your time here in the different threads!

I read your post, and I honor the immense sense of pain and terror you must be feeling. Your suffering is real, and you are right to try to seek comfort and understanding. You are suffering even though the diagnosis involves a different person.

Please take care, all the best, we here are cheering for you and for your greatest today and tomorrow!