Disclaimer: I would not normally blog about something so personal but am hoping that someone has experience dealing with a loved one with mental illness and can provide answers or can just offer words of support. And if nothing else, others in my position will find comfort knowing they are not alone.
This morning was like any other morning, coffee, diapers, breakfast, baby bath time…and then I went to put the little one down for a nap. There was a knock on the door, then a second knock, dog barking, third louder knock. I woke Danny who was asleep because he had worked late and asked him to get the door since the person wasn’t going to go away and I thought I could get Olive to sleep if I didn’t get her up and stimulated by a visitor. He got up and went to the door then came back into the bedroom and said, “It’s Jesse” (my youngest sister who is estranged from our family). “She’s in there crying and wants to talk to you” he continued. To say I was surprised would be an understatement.
I left him with the baby and went into the living room. She was a wreck, crying, and looked like she’d been through the ringer. I sat down across from her and asked, “Hey, what’s going on?” She proceeded to tell me, through tears, that she just left the emergency room (which is a few blocks away from my house) and that she had been taken there by ambulance this morning. She couldn’t get a hold of her girlfriend to come and pick her up and that the only family member that still talks to her told her to “grow the fuck up and figure it out” when she called her to ask for a ride home. She was sobbing at this point and said she had to walk to my house with no shoes and has no way to get home. (Home being the house we grew up in that sat empty for a while until my dad decided it wouldn’t hurt to let her stay there.) All she wanted was to borrow a pair of shoes and a couple of dollars to catch a bus. Obviously, I had a million questions. I got her a glass of water and said I’d give her a ride home but needed to know what was going on. She was taken by ambulance at 4am this morning because she was doubled over in pain (she has suffered from ovarian cysts since she was a teenager ). I wanted to know why the two people that still talk to her had turned their backs on her. She just said she didn’t know. This is typical for a “Jesse episode”. She is a self-proclaimed former addict and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression, and split personality “features”. She is my baby sister (10 years between us) and I love her but, it is very difficult to believe her. She has a troubled past which includes being admitted several times against her will for suicidal threats, violence, stealing from family, and the list just kind of goes on.
I’m brushing over the rest but, we talked for about an hour and a half. I kept driving the point that she needs to be medicated. I told her we (her family) loved her and want her to be happy and healthy. Some of what I said hit her hard and made her cry but in the end she said she knew that I was just speaking the truth. I also said I hoped she wasn’t just telling me the things I wanted to hear, she promised she wasn’t blowing smoke. I drove her home and before she got out of the car, she hugged me and started crying and said she loved me. I told her she was my baby sister and that I loved her too. She promised to call me in a few days to let me know what she has doing as far as getting set up with a doctor or program and getting medicated for her disorders. I told her I hoped I did hear from her otherwise I'd know she wasn’t doing what she said she was going to do – try to get better.
This is not the first time I’ve seen her hit rock bottom, nor was it the first time I left a situation with her feeling hopeful. But the hopeful situations later turned to disappointment and sadness. I can only hope something I said struck a nerve and ignited something inside her, prompting change. I don’t know if what I said was helpful, right, worth my time, damaging, or just wrong…I’m not a professional, I just don’t know. I do know that even help from the professionals hasn’t been enough to stick. It’s so…frustrating to feel like there is nothing you can do. I literally lose sleep wondering if there is more I can do, if somehow I am just not doing the right thing or if I just haven’t given it my all. I know you can’t change someone, they have to want it, but when they are ill…then what? I feel it’s a burden I bear alone but I know others have loved ones with a mental illness or even an addiction, so I’m not alone. It just feels that way.
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| Baby Jesse and me, circa 1990 |
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