[Becoming]

Hi all,

(First, sorry for another post...I know I have made a lot lately. I just don't feel that I have another outlet of people who can relate/understand at the least and I'm at a really bad point with my mental illness right now).

I'm venting and also asking how to get through a month at home with my brother. He's very triggering to me.

I just came home for the holidays from college yesterday. I was glad to be home and me, my dad, and my brother went Christmas shopping today.
But something happened tonight that makes me really uncomfortable and upset/afraid to be home.

Pretty much all day today, like usual, my 24-year-old brother was grumpy and pretty unresponsive. He is like this very often (much of every day usually...it is at least to the point where it's surprising to see him happy when he is not drunk) where he will not answer a single thing. You can even say "hello" and he will not even say "hi" back to you. That gets me very mad and I feel very devalued (as I would assume anyone would...he does it to other people as well). My brother is Bipolar, but he is Bipolar I and I'm II. So he gets extreme mania which means hallucinations, etc. etc. I think he has other unaddressed issues too though and he isn't in therapy (he doesn't want to be and I think my parents may have just given up hope on him).

Tonight, not unlike him, he went off on my family and I because we had a side conversation during a movie. Then we asked what happened and he was raised his voice all "well, if you were paying attention then you would know..." blah blah blah and started point fingers: "I'm trying to watch a movie and you two are over there having a conversation" and blah blah blah. None of us were really watching it and we didn't know he had started to...it was just in the background as far as we knew. So my mom said "you don't have to be all *****y about it." He then went on and on and on and on. So eventually I said something about how he's never happy and I don't know how my parents can always live with all his negativity. He got pissed, yelled more, and said some nasty stuff to me (like how he's apparently happier when I'm not home and when I move back home after college he is going to move out and that I'm a brat....all I did was stick up to an always grumpy and disrespectful asshole and I didn't do it in a bratty way; he just did not like me calling him out of course and never does but he never changes).

The craziest and scariest thing was when he got up, turned towards me, looked at me with a crazy look in his eyes, cracked his neck to both sides with his hands on either side, cracked his back, and then threw his hands toward me and said in a kind of evil/mad way "enjoy your night." (Mom had left the room before this as she usually does when we start arguing with each other...more like when I actually don't put up with his negative and rude attitude). After that he left, but I followed him because our rooms are right near each other anyway. And I said "What in the hell was that? Are you trying to put a curse on me?!" He said "Just for tonight. You'll see."
Now I'm all paranoid that maybe in some sort of somewhat irrational way he did put some curse on me. So I'm afraid more than usual to actually go to sleep tonight.

Before all this...on the car ride home...he was on about how certain he was that he had previously seen a polar bear, a werewolf, and willow wisps along the back road we were driving on. Most certainty no polar bears live around here lol. And the latter two are mythical (though I have to say if wisps did exist and they were like helpful or something that would be cool). I don't think he has any recognition that seeing those things would have been completely impossible.

There is a huge backstory to all this. He's struggled with this for years, of course. When I was in middle school and high school, he was in and out of mania and also in and out of the hospital. He was nearly always in mania. The creepiest time was when he noticed one of his pictures was crooked on the wall. He looked at me with an evil look and said "you moved my picture and you made me sick." So he blamed me for causing his mental illness. I always remember that and it freaks me out. I'm actually afraid of him a bit and I have been pretty much since then.

To be clear, my brother has never psychically hurt me. But very often, including tonight, he will threaten me and say "you're pushing your luck" or "you better watch yourself." Other times he has done a punch toward me sometimes stopping only a bit before my face so I think he will actually hit me. And now apparently tonight he believes he has cursed me.

All these things make me very paranoid, upset, and angry. No good emotions come from them. Especially when he is verbally attacking my parents or myself. I feel that he hates me and sometimes that he doesn't like my parents much either. It's certain he is unhappy with his life at the very least.
And I am afraid of him because he is angry and threatens me. He also sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night after a nightmare screaming which terrifies me.

All of that along with his diagnosis of Bipolar I makes him a very hard person for me to live with. I myself, having Bipolar II, find all of this very triggering for me.

How am I going to make it through this month home with him? I feel he will just keep making me feel like **** and be living in a unhealthy environment because of his negativity and belief in his vivid hallucinations. Most years he gets worse around the holidays too so I'm afraid he'll go to full blown mania (one time years ago he was 100% certain he could make health and mana potions as well as thinking he was driving a go kart around the house when he was really only sitting down in one spot like he was driving and at one point he was certain we had a brownie in the house that say the year "3020" and it must have been the year we were in).

My parents won't help. They love both of us, of course. My Mom won't understand why I have concerns about him because she won't want to hear it. My dad doesn't believe in mental illnesses at all. Both of them will probably tell me to be quiet if I bring it up to either of them. And, of course, talking to it about my brother is not an option because he'll get pissed and he's never in a stable frame of mind. I don't even have a therapist right now because I was only seeing one at college (which I am on a month break from). All support I really have is one best friend at home, some friends through text message, and this forum. That's it. As I'm living in this unhealthy environment that is true to screw with my emotions, anxiety, I need to have my parents or professional help and I can't. How am I going to survive this month?

[Victoria'smom]

Can you get the $ for a sliding scale place or on-line therapy? Is there anyway to hang out with friends until night time? Maybe a seasonal job?

[Becoming]

Originally Posted by Miguel'smom

Can you get the $ for a sliding scale place or on-line therapy? Is there anyway to hang out with friends until night time? Maybe a seasonal job?

What is a sliding scale place?

And maybe on-line therapy. I could talk with my mother about it.

Job couldn't hurt if I get really lucky. He doesn't work during the days during the winter so anything I can do to get out of the house is good.

Only have one close friend at home. The rest are at college. Another friend will be home for a week soon though so that's good I'll get to see him too.

[Justugh]

i am bipolar i have some of both

i got like that went i was 16 ...........i ended up beating up 4 police officers getting maced and chocked out

from what u said the man is cracking ..........the whole crack the body is something do before a fight

i am sorry u need to call 911 and have him taken to a 72 hour hold once he talks and acts up he will be in there until the meds kick in and some talking helps him see things different

hell i am scared for yah because i know what able to do if a full break happens....and as u said he thinks it your fault ( i cracked one time and thought my little brother had taken something of importance to me and lost it in the wood ........huge fight broken bones stitches ....my father had to pull me off him ) find out 2 weeks later it was my older brother he took it to use working on his yard .....it was this special folding machete from the 1970 this war vet gave it to me for helping clean out his back yard

that was a fun hospital trip 2 broken hands cut on face and missing tooth broken nose (all of it from both of us) that got me locked down in the house for 3 months

but really ma'am no joke full blown seeing things .......meds need to be applied and drinking will not cut it

as for the parents it is not a mental illness like split personalities/ptsd .....it is a chemical imbalance in the brain it is a pychial defect in some area ...........it was in him from birth when the hormones in the body changed it became a problem ......the longer goes untreated the farther down the rabbit hole he goes until one point so far down the world is upside and 3 shades of yellow ........then comes the courts and the lawsuits and all that good fun ending in him killing himself/ cops doing it /prison/deathrow/premittly locked down in mental ward given ECT on regular monthly shocks

[Justugh]

....any luck he gets little more strait and can talk him into going for pills

[Jayne Marple]

I'm so sorry to hear things are so difficult for you right now. It sounds like your brother is not on medication and that makes it all the worse for you and your parents. And I'm sorry that you are struggling partially because your parents aren't gving you the support that you should have. Having grown up in a very dysfunctional family, I know some family dynamics can be very painful. I can see how the month would be extremely challenging for you. I can only tell you what I'd do if I found myself in a situation similar as yours.

First, I'd tell myself that I only had to get through one month (even if it really felt like it would be an eternity.) Then I'd make a commitment to myself that I would not allow my brother to shake up my serenity, no matter what he said. I would not engage in any arguments with him or do anything to provoke him because it would just increase the tension and negativity. He's not functioning rationally and any arguments serve no purpose and they would only upset me- I'd need to avoid being upset for my own health. I know that it could be challenging for me if I felt like he was stepping on me but there actually would be no need to assert myself unless I thought I was in immediate danger. If I felt I might be in danger, I'd physically remove myself from the situation. If he harmed me physically, I'd call 911 and have him arrested for assult, hoping they'd put him on a psych hold and maybe even require court-ordered treatment. If the worst did not happen, he'd still know I don't typically take his bad attitude without a fight so in the back of his mind he'd know that I wasn't a push-over. BUT, if I did not engage in combat with him as I usually did, I know it would keep him off balance. I'd just keep reminding myself that he's a very ill person and his behavior is abnormal. I'd try very hard to remember that he's not thinking rationally, hoping it would be easier to not be affected by his negtive, rude attitude. I would refuse to hand my serenity over to an irrational person who's behavior is being driven by mental illness. For me, it's hard to look the other way when I feel like somebody is dumping on me but if I were in your situation, I'd focus on my own health and not add more negativity to that situation for my own good. Even though it would not be fair to me, I'd chose to be away from the house as much as I possibly could be. And, while it might seem a little dramatic, I'd lock my bedroom door when I was sleeping and if there wasn't a lock, I'd push something up against the door- it's hard know what kind of paranoid delusion he'd have at any given moment. I'd just keep reminding myself that I'd only be there for a month and then hope for the best.

I grew up with a brother much like this. The alcohol and weed made him an unpredictable monster.

I agree with others that finding a place to be during the day is a good idea--work, the gym, the library, walking, reading in a cafe. One thing I do when I'm around anyone who feeds off violent/angry energy is to imagine myself inside a protective bubble where their energy can't harm me.

Hang in there.