My Brother is Homeless

Hello,

I am writing here sort of to vent. My brother was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. He is 23 and after moving from family's houses to halfway homes and treatment homes he's refused medication and is on the streets. He is convinced he isn't in need of clinical help. I have no way to get a hold of him besides messaging him on Facebook since he doesn't have a phone.

Sometimes he tells me something important and urgent and then when I reply to his message he just doesn't answer back. Since I have GAD it's very hard for me to stop worrying about him all the time, but I'm afraid to have him stay at my tiny apartment because I don't trust him not to steal the few things I have.

What's worse is my family oftentimes blames me for his homelessness, that I am a bad person for not letting him stay with me. But I don't have the resources and time to support him. Some of them do and have stepped down from the job.

I feel so bad for my brother, but I also want to stop worrying about him so much.

I'm glad that you are taking good care of yourself, and that you know you need to choose your own safety first.

Your family needs to stop mistreating you. Is it possible to reduce your contact with them, can you tell them to stop with the blaming, and then give them consequences (one consequence could be that you limit contact) if they won't listen to you?

One way to reduce distressing worry about your brother would be to limit contact with him too. Maybe you could have a prepared message, a script you have practiced, that you could tell him every time he writes something distressing. You could tell him over and over again that the proper place to take his concerns is professional help, you could have ready a phone number, name of a clinic, etc.

That way you won't be triggered over and over again by trying to figure out if he is safe, what exactly is going on, things like that.

Thank you for your advice. It's a lot harder of course when you have to be firm with people you care about. The thing is about these family members, they ONLY call me when it concerns my brother.