Mental illness adult siblings

LaurelMac

I’m wondering if any other families are grappling with the added complexity of having a mentally ill sibling incapable of providing adequate care, but dependent financially on a parent with dementia.

I had to intervene 6 months ago and remove my mom from an abusive living situation with my brother. Mom had tried to get him to move out, but her dementia, made her unable to advocate for herself. I wasn’t able to access the house to provide support or access to medical care or helping with finances. We’re still trying to sort through the chaos. The whole experience has been like a slow motion trauma.

I think my mom is in stage 5 or 6 now. Even though she’s 90 years old, she talks about her own mom a lot and forgets she died 40 yrs ago. The combination of my brother’s mental illness and my mom’s dementia has been such a burden, I feel like I’m physically and mentally drained already, even though we may still have a long road ahead. I’d love to hear if anyone else has had competing need in their family and added complications to finding the right care situation.

Anonymousjpl123

Hi @LaurelMac that sounds unbelievably stressful. My first question is whether, if you haven’t already, you and your sibling(s) have discussed power of attorney. Your mom will soon need someone to make decisions, and the sooner you can clarify that the better. It’s super tricky. I have siblings and they are not at all involved, but are very supportive of me. Are there other sibs besides this brother? And if not siblings, maybe other family or friends who know you and your mom?

my thought is that putting together the pieces - starting with legal documents - is really important. Your brother may be really scared, and you may be stuck trying to find care for both of them. What will help is calling every resource you can think of. There are a lot of resources out there. You deserve and need help to get through this. I’m glad you found the site.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.