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I think any of you with a chronically and severely ill family member - any illness will do - will know what I mean.

I'm tired of caring about my elder brother (technically half-brother). He's been letting himself succumb to voices in his head and delusions that he has for more than ten years now. I've worried, alongside my parents and my younger brother (who turns his worry to rage). My elder brother has disappeared for cross-country treks, leaving us fearing for his life; he's thrown s**t at hospital staff while hospitalized, he was badly beaten at least twice (once by local thugs who saw an easy mark and kicked his face in, once by a hospital staffer who put him in restraints, jumped on his chest and socked him in the eye), he's attacked police officers responding to the scene of a naked man (himself, sitting on his front porch) and now, he's attacked someone he was just talking with who was apparently rude to him. He tried to throttle her.

He's in a psych hospital in San Francisco now, and I'm at home in New Jersey, three thousand miles away. He expects that my parents and his father will go and get him from California and bring him home to New Jersey. All of us are, frankly, unable to provide any sort of home for him now that he's shown he cannot be trusted when he is off medication. (Not that he ever could be, but eh.)

Honestly, I want to kill him. I want to do it for two reasons. First, just because it's obvious that his experiences of the world are distressing and painful, and because nobody deserves to suffer. Second, and more importantly, as vengeance for the pain he's caused to people I love and care about.

There's a saying that you can never be hated by anyone as strongly as your brother can hate you, and maybe that's true. I don't hate him for being sick; I hate him for making the choices that he has made. I can't forgive him, though I may forget. For better or for worse, though, he'll probably die before I do - he'll probably die before my parents do. I hate him for that too.

But since killing for vengeance is evil, and because it's also against the law, I'm not going to do it. The best thing I can do is cut him out of my life as thoroughly as I can; maybe call him on his birthday, if I have any idea where he is or if he's even alive.

How are you supposed to deal with this kind of s**t? Why is it that I, struggling with my own mental illness, never turned into such an agent of pain for everyone else? And why the <********> are we still relying on models of patient/provider interaction that say handing someone a pill (or strapping him down and giving him a shot in the a**) is all the therapy he should ever need?

That sounds like a rough situation. Remember that you need to take care of yourself, too. In fact, taking care of yourself should always come before taking care of your brother, for exactly this reason. You are unfit to care for him in this state. I hope your family can find a better living situation for him, in proper facility. There are plenty of group homes and assisted living facilities that can provide him with the round-the-clock supervision he needs. No matter how tired you are, I'm pretty sure your brother is more tired.



A lot of them probably don't seem like his choices to make. One doesn't just let oneself "succumb" to one's own perceptions. The perceptions we have is all the perceptions we get. When you're being attacked, you attack back. I don't care how many people tell you that what you are experiencing are hallucinations and delusions... Seeing and feeling really is believing when you honestly think your life is in danger. He sounds truly dangerous, and shouldn't be let out of the hands of professionals if he is still lashing out at others in this way. It sounds like the system is failing your brother, and you. I'm sorry you have to go through this.

To me, it sounds like seperating yourself from his life and the direct care of him is a good idea.