This has to be the hardest year of my life. Early 2016 my brother got diagnosed with depression, bipolar, schizophrenia and anxiety no one saw this coming. It happened over night our world got flipped upside down. In May 2016 my brother attempted suicide and was admitted to a behavior mental clinic. I will have to say seeing him there was the hardest thing. It didn’t even look like him I was so confused and mad at myself for not seen he needed help for being so caught up on other thing that I didn’t realize my brother was hurting so much. Scared of how our mom would take the news we kept it a secret for a couple of days we didn’t want her to know where he was or why he had been taken to the ER. After discussing what we should do we agreed she needed to know so it was my job to take her to see him. I didn’t know how to explain to her where he was so I just decided to have her see it and when she did it would be obvious what he had done.
Walking her up to the front of the door to the clinic she knew as soon as we got out of the elevator I saw her face change she was so confused sad and I knew I had lost her. I looked in her eyes to a blank stare it was it’s if she couldn’t hear me even though I was right in front of her I knew she just wanted to go in there and take my brother home with her. It took me a couple of minutes to get her to come back to snap out of it.
As we waited for my brother in the visitors patio she broke she started to cry and asked why we lied and I told her we didn’t want her to blame her self but it was too late she already did.
My mother has always been my back bone she’s the one who gives us strength and courage so to see her broken was even harder. I remember coming home that night and literally braking down with my dad I fell to my knees I didn’t understand how we had gotten here how would we fix it. How would we keep him safe and as I laid on my dad’s lap with tears in he’s eyes he looked at me and said not you too don’t break don’t give up I need you.
My mom was diagnosed with 2 brain tumors 2 years ago so she was in the middle of depression as well but after this she fell right into it along with my brother. I blamed myself for a sometime a couple of months the before my brothers suicide attempt I told him about my mom’s brain tumors I told him I need help taking care of her my mom had decided not to say anything to my brothers until we knew exactly what they were but with two kids work and helping her I became overwhelmed and decided to tell him what was going on.
I went from being the youngest the crazy little sister to being this person who had to show him you couldn’t give up being the one who showed him life is worth living to make him feel just how much we love him. Our life’s changed overnight I still wonder how we never saw this coming how he went from being happy to the person I saw in that behavior clinic. Having a family member who suffer with any kind of mental health problem affect the whole family I never thought I would be in this situation. If anyone is reading this is and is feeling alone you are not alone there is people fighting the same battle you are weather it’s for yourself or your own brother or family member you are not alone.