<p>You have to get your parents on board with not continuing to support him, or even to communicate with him until psychiatric help is underway. It is so, so hard, but try to get them to see that he needs urgent mental health treatment, and that their loving support is actually thwarting that step completely. They may need a visit with a therapist to come to this understanding. I know how difficult their generation particularly is with this.</p>
<p>It is likely that he will need the committment, and the process to apply for disability can start then also. At the very least he is “in the system” with initiation of treatment, and you have some more tools to work with.</p>
<p>Every emotion you are experienecing is normal. Hang in there.</p>
<p>I have a disabled sister who was near suicide many years ago… to make a very long story, very short one of my other sibs bought a home (small in a low cost area) in which my mentally ill sister lives. It has the features necs. to my disabled sister needs to have her live happily. My other sib is paying quite a bit of money ($1000/mo), but will end up with the real estate instead of throwing money away on rent. The helpful sib hopes that our sister will have a place to live and that in the end there could be a profit on the RE.</p>
<p>It did take several years for the mentally ill sister to be well enough to do the procedure to get DIS-SSI & medicare and we have all had to realize that she is one of those people and that is life. But mom & dad feel good that she has a safe place to live, there is little hassle, though there is some concern her kids may try to get at the house when she dies, as she refers to it as “hers” and considers herself an owner…and my other sib lets her do that to cope. The sister does not like ot feel like a charity case, we just hope it does not turn around and bite the noble/helful sib.</p>
<p>Of course it sounds wrong that only one sib is doing that, but one person owns the land, one person has all the control, one person has the profit, and that sib likes to buy small rental homes; Sib is just forgoing rent.</p>
<p>Maybe your parents can realize that your brother is sick, so if he was needing blood pressure pills they would do what they could to help him get meds, they should be willing to help him get meds and treatment and whatever else for treating the mental illness. He is not in his right mind, others are not helping by being manipulated (of course that is easy to say!) Can any one help him get SSI??</p>
<p>I have thought of a house for him, but with being paranoid, I don’t think that would work at this time. Today my father told my brother that we had found a couple of apartment complexes that we thought were nice. His response was that he wasn’t moving to another apartment, he would rather live in his car. I am ready to say, go ahead and live in the car; maybe he would agree to seek counseling after a stay in his car. </p>
<p>Of course as he is telling my father this, he says he needs money for rent for the 12 days he has left in his current apartment. It seems he hasn’t been to work since Saturday; nothing new here, he does this every few weeks. I don’t know if he doesn’t have the money at all for rent or if he just hasn’t gotten his pay check yet. He will sign his check over to my father to cover some of the rent, but I am sure he doesn’t have enough.</p>
<p>So he can’t stay where he is, he says he won’t move, so do we let him stay in his car? Of course it he does that, the apartment will throw his stuff on the street. I am not sure he will allow us to come in and move at least the furniture. We have never been allowed in his apartment.</p>
<p>If I could figure out how to get SSI for him without his help, I would do it myself. We have someone that offered to help him with the application, but my brother refused, surprise surprise!</p>
<p>Snowball, there are too many people pandering to the desires of a perhaps mentally ill man and nobody is helping him. Until your parents get with a maaningful program there is little you can do to help and should not be involved if they won’t cooperate. You can not protect your parents if they choose to enable him. This is all too typical with one family member negatively impacting more than they should be able to. You don’t need to suffer too.</p>
<p>If only they would dole out money easily, but they don’t. </p>
<p>Suggest your parents get professional help in dealing with him. It’s much easier for a stranger to tell them what they need to do.</p>
<p>It’s the National Alliance for Mental Illness. It has a consumer-oriented approach, with local chapters in every state, plus national leadership to keep it all together. It’s helped many people.</p>
<p>What you’re trying to figure out is very complicated, but faced by many. So don’t reinvent the wheel…find out how other families in the same situation are handling things, emotionally, financially and so on.</p>
<p>Thanks for the above link; I will look it over after dinner. I am involves as I can’t stand seeing my parents aging and having such a hardship. If it were up to me, I would buy my brother a one way out of the country and let him fend for himself. I know my parents enable him and they know they do, but my brother has beat into my father’s head that he is in this bind because of my father. When I hear my father say it is his fault with that sadness in his voice, I just want to cry. My father is a loving man; no one that knows him would believe that my brother’s issues are his fault, but my father thinks it is.</p>
<p>If you could get your parents to go to a support group (in the guise of finding out how to help brother more effectively) it might help. They could see that they really aren’t so different from “those” people after all, that other people’s grown kids can have problems without it being all the parents’ fault, and hear from other parents what worked for them.</p>
<p>It’s very hard to get families of challenging individuals to change their behavior. It’s usually easier to change the person than the family members he interacts with, but the change never lasts unless you change the context too. People (especially parents) have so much guilt, anxiety and fear for their loved ones that even an unpleasant situation that’s familiar can be preferable to situation that’s arguably better but where the family feels they have less control. (And I don’t mean control in a bad way, but ability to intervene to prevent dire things from happening). </p>
<p>Hearing directly from other families who have let go and had things work out OK–that both parent and son survived–could really benefit.</p>
<p>I have tried to get my parents to a support group or counseling, but they are dragging their feet. My mother told me yesterday that she might have done so 5 years ago but she feels it is too late. I of course said it was never too late, but I don’t think she was listening. If they could get over the stigma of being bad parents, I think a support group would be good for them. I should add the guilt is good old fashion jewish guilt, so I am not sure they will every not feel guilty, maybe just better about their decisions!</p>
<p>I really do appreciate all the advice given and I am listening. I hope I don’t come off as I feel nothing will work. The above advice and family stories are helping me put my thoughts and ideas together for when I talk to my parents as well as my brother’s children.</p>
<p>To get them started on a support group, they might feel safer reading online, at first. Less embarrassing to them, not that they have anything to be embarrassed about. I noticed a support group link on that NAMI website.
What I’m looking for is the equivalent of Al-Anon which is for the families of alcoholics, not the alcoholics themselves. It addresses the difference between being an enabler and taking loving responsibility for family members.
One thing to consider is that your sensibility about this, as a brother, will differ from what your parents will put up with.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.emotionsanonymous.org/[/url]”>http://www.emotionsanonymous.org/</a> This is more for the patient than the family member, but it is a good start. Your parents will need a lot of support as they deal with their own emotional struggles as a consequence of the challenges that they face with your brother. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Sometimes, it’s all in who you ask. You contact your local mental health agency and ask them if they have a list of apartments and/or group homes for adults. If they do, get the list, and contact those agencies that sponsor the apartments or homes. You can talk to them about the situation without even mentioning your brother’s name. They can and most times will help you with the steps to helping him find a safe place to live where he won’t have to be alone, (either room mates, or “staff” on the same property who are there to make sure all is well). Most likely they will meet with him on his territory and talk with him about their living situations, and ask him if he would like to visit. It’s much more friendlier this way. During the visits he will be able to tour the home/apt., and talk with others who live there. I wish you blessings, and hope it all works out for you and your family.</p>
<p>One more thing…most of these apartments/homes can help with applying for disability. All they need is a signed disclosure from your brother. So, if he likes their representative and is willing to give it a try, then it will be a part of his “admission” information.</p>