Feeling hopeless over my younger brother

[socalgg1551]

I have no one to talk about this with and I am feeling especially shitty today so I am gonna spill my guts a little and vent. My younger brother who is 26 years old is a paranoid schizophrenic who has been living on the streets of LA for about 4 months now. He has completely turned against his family and believes my parents and me are his worst enemies who are conspiring to ruin his life. He will not even accept the fact that he is mentally ill and believes it is us who is mentally ill. Watching his mind deteriorate the last couple years has been one of the hardest things for our family to go through, and that is saying a lot as they lived through and endured the hell of my past heroin addiction.

My brother has completely cut off our family and in our last email to him he said he was living on the street in LA and begging for change and using cocaine(crack?), and he was going to block all of our email addresses and does not ever want to speak to any of us again. His mental illness has twisted his mind so badly. It's so difficult to comprehend my younger brother out there living on the mean streets, and suffering from un-medicated schizophrenia. He's such a good, innocent kid who really does love his family, but this damn illness has completely possessed him. When I think of days like today, where its so cold and rainy outside and think of him out there unprotected, it breaks my heart. What if someone attacks him or wants to hurt him? I usually can't even think about it for too long because I will start crying myself.

My poor mother and father are probably taking it the worst. My mom is a shell of her former self and cries everyday and will probably have to go back on anti-depressants, despite the horrible side effects. I can't imagine whats shes going through, as she has more or less lost a child. My moms suffering due to my brothers homelessness hits me especially hard because my mom had to kick me out about 7 years ago due to my terrible heroin habit, onto the streets of LA, and now my younger brother is right back where I was. I wish I knew how to help her pain but I know I have caused a lot of it myself. Life can be so fucked up sometimes.

My parents want me to go up to LA to look for my brother and to try and make contact. I act like I am brave and courageous enough to do this but inside I know it will crush me to see him in the state he is probably in. The thought that he might now be on crack is unthinkable. He was already very violent before he left my parents house for the streets. I'm not even sure how he will react if he sees me and he could very well try and attack me if I approach him. I don't know if I have it in me to return to those streets to look for him but if I don't, that means my parents will eventually go up there due to their depression and search for him, which I can't let them do. I know I will have to go up there sooner or later and find out what has happened to him.

I feel like I am getting to my mental limit and am going crazy myself. I just go to work and come home and lay in bed and smoke weed all day, depressed and on the verge of tears. I feel I am becoming hopelessly addicted to smoking weed all day to not think about the problems in my life and my families life but the weed is only making me more depressed. My mom and dad are emotionally/mentally breaking and my mom has also developed a knee problem and can barely walk without assistance.Our family dog that has been an emotional life saver for our family through our many tragedies is close to being completely blind due to his diabetes. I also just found out I did not pass my classes and will now be kicked out of college. Oh and by the way, I'm trying to not say fuck it all and go back to losing myself in IV heroin/cocaine. What a life

 

[szuko000]

My condolences, I know its not much in this situation but I can not imagine how hard this must be for you and your family. My younger brother just got out of prison after doing a year for constantly getting arrested selling/buying drugs and the 4th time my parents had enough and didnt get him a lawyer, he started his bid off W/Ding from a 2-3 bundle a day habit and we would occasionally smoke crack together as he was always buying crack, always. Like i mean if it were middle of the day, morning, night if i wanted crack odds are he was driving around smoking or buying it.

My point being all i ever wanted for him was to learn through what my g/f and i went through. We were heroin addicts for 2 years before he feel off the tracks and i begged him to never do opiates. He was so upset with me when i ODed and ended up at the hospital i thought surely thinking i died from heroin would stop him, but it didnt. I had to watch him go from being a "normal kid" to some weak looking constantly cracked out, even for mother's day dinner, uncaring person.

I wish they made words to make it easy, i wish there was someway to tell a loved one "your really hurting us, please stop we are so worried we just want you to be happy" and make it stick. You are a good person for not giving up on him and if you keep trying he might come around.

Life is hard when we get older, i too had a lot envisioned for me that fell through and i ended up in a bad spot but now it seems like the 3 of us, me my g/f and my younger brother, may be ok. And there was a time where i was "dead" (not as bad as others here) in the hospital, my g/f was a suicidal opiate addict who i thought would never find peace, and my younger brother on the way to prison as a drug addict. If you told me 14 months ago that "all of that would seem like a bad memory and you guys would pass for normal people in a year" i would have laughed in your face. And i mean laughed at the impossibility of the sun colliding with the earth and no one noticing kind of impossible.

In the end it will be ok if you work towards the goal at the very least you can say you tried. The one thing i never did was give up on the idea that there was a light or a purpose to all of this, you will see in time there is a reason for all of this. If you dont let it rule you, you will grow through the experience.

I hope you guys find peace through this and all turns out well.

 

[herbavore]

I would strongly recommend getting involved in NAMI classes for families. They are peer run classes for any family members of people suffering from mental illness. They are both supportive and informative. Beyond that I would try to get in touch with the mental health services in LA. Tell them who you are and who you are looking for. He may be in the system even though he is living on the street. LA actually has some cutting edge services amongst the usual dire state that is mental health care in this country.

 

[nygiants1313]

You said you dont know how hell react when you approach him. He could attack you, you said.

But you dont know. He could not attack you. You know how you fond out? By going and finding your fucking brother. Id be looking for my brother. Theyd be looking for me, regardless if we the thought we would maybe be attacked.

 

[skoat]

Having been in this exact situation with my best friend, (Boulder, not LA) I feel I have so little to say that can help besides one thing. Regardless of what happens with your brother, (so very sorry) your mental health is on the line here. As you know, these traumatic events have ways of tearing families apart and forever turning someones smile into a frown.

Go look for your brother, its called "piece of mind". You may not realize how important it is now, but you're going to need that later in life. Good luck.

 

[Phil.McKeer]

I vote go look for him. Do it 100%. Assemble a crew of some of your closest friends and don't call it quits until the mission is complete. I would probably abduct him forcibly and take him to the hospital or your house right away, but I'm not going to encourage you to do anything illegal.

Schizophrenia is a bitch. The illness twists reality so hard that it becomes impossible to communicate on the same level with the sufferer. He needs to be in a stable environment with the right medical attention. Go get him.

 

[socalgg1551]

I think I will drive into LA this Saturday and spend the day looking for him. I'm not afraid of him attacking me or anything, I'm just more afraid of the state I'm going to find him in. But I know its better I find him than my mom or dad.

@Phil.McKeer, I have considered abducting him and somehow getting him into a psych ward, even if its not in this country, but my brother would only get us arrested for it. He has many times gotten violent at my parents house and when the person hes attacking defends themselves(sometimes even with a weapon) he calls the cops on us for attacking him. He's a smart kid and knows the laws and has said before he would do anything he can to get us locked up for what we have done to him (which are all just delusions in his head).

My question is even if I find him what can I do? He won't get evaluated to be diagnosed and won't take medication. Even if we find him and get him back to my parents house he will most likely just continue to fight and be violent and make life hell for everyone. He was smoking weed at my parents house which would make his mental illness even worse and no matter what my parents tried, they couldn't get him to stop. It feels like a no win situation.

 

[Phil.McKeer]

Yeah, unfortunately, for all its benefits, cannabis is a catalyst for schizoid mental disorders and will either precipitate it if it's not taken hold yet, or make it worse if it's already in effect.

I really don't know what to do. But I do know that the last thing you want is to hear that he's dead and be haunted with "I could haves" or "I should haves" for the rest of your life. I have a couple of those and would give my left arm for a time machine.

But in the end, its very difficult to make someone do something they don't want to do, so don't blame yourself too much if your attempt fails. I'd go all out on this, but there's a lot of variables to consider.