Anyone else have mentally ill family members? It makes you realize

>>16729632

Having a named disorder isn't an excuse to treat other people like shit. This is a super hard concept for people with mental illness, it seems, since they so often think because they have depression or whatever they can casually disregard the feelings of others. Nah. Fuck that. I tolerate my family members with disorders but only as far as family obligation demands. I feel no need to suffer unduly for their failure to cope with life.

Crazy people don't usually think they're crazy. Doesn't matter if they've been held in an institution, or that a professional told them they have something wrong with them. That's the disorder, they don't understand it. And apparently you don't understand it either.

>>16729799
Can you really be so detached from reality that even the thought that there may be things outside of your perception does not occur to you? I think about the way I appear to others all the time, and I think about behaviors I need to change. I find it hard to believe crazy people lack this capacity, I think they just experience exaggerated emotions and then as I said are too proud to admit they have a problem

>>16729832
>Can you really be so detached from reality

But some mentally ill folks ARE detached from reality, and severely so.

It's like you're describing my father and my sister. I know how you feel anon, been putting up with their shit for more than 20 years now. They feel entitled to being treated like royalty but hey, you can go die for all they care.

>>16729832
>Can you really be so detached from reality that

Yes. I've been in the mental hospital twice, and while I wasn't too severe, I got to see some of the severe cases. The answer is yes.

There was a woman that grabbed my arms and made me dance, and told me that God told her I would become a gospel singer and do charity work in Ethiopia. She had been fasting for weeks because God told her to, and was somehow surviving on juice alone. Every night, she banged against the walls/drawers in her room and sang at the top of her lungs until she was sedated.

When you're psychotic, you can be incredibly delusional.

>>16729899
Well yeah but thing is these people are not so severe that they have to be put in a mental hospital and be sedated.

>>16729832
>I find it hard to believe crazy people lack this capacity
Oh, they certainly lack this capacity.
It's not even on their radar, introspection does not even occur to some, or their defensive posture explains it away.

I'm pretty sure my sister is bipolar or something, at the very least. She has an absolutely insane inferiority/persecution complex, by which she's constantly convinced people go out of their way to treat her like shit, while simultaneously seeming to go out of her way to destroy her relationships with every single person she's close to.

I have the patience of a saint and a pretty high bullshit threshold, but she's literally the only person whose instability can drive me to screaming point. She's never had herself tested, and won't commit to the idea when it's been previously suggested.
I know what you mean, OP. It's not easy.

it's not scientific but I take a hot bath every day, it relaxes me a little, helps me cope with the people around me. my skin does get dry so I have to apply lotion and I do get ear infections from time to time so invest in a pair of wax ear plugs if you're gonna do this

My entire family on my mother's side are batshit insane. Bipolar, schizophrenia, hightened depression, pretty much everything under the sun. This has gone hand in hand with serious drug problems due to these mental health issues, and most of them (male and female) have ended up in jail.

I feel a bit for my mother. Her and her siblings were dumped into an orphanage by her unstable parents and my mum got put into an asylum - this was the late 50s/early 60s so it wasn't a fun place. She was awful to me when I was younger and used to beat the shit out of me because she had anger blackouts where rage would fill her and she wouldn't remember. I went to live with my father when I was 16 and our relationship improved.

She's okay now I'm not living with her and I can just hang up the phone when she's angry. She will still go on her tantrums and call me to say hurtful and spiteful things, I just learn not to take it to heart anymore.

Oh yes, you aren't alone. My mother is schizoaffective and histrionic. It's definitely been a battle. While I love her and she can be loving sometimes she does have an evil side to her that shows up often. On the level of a sociopath. She often disregards the consequences her behavior has on our family.

>>16729995
As a result, I'm irreparably fucked up. It was my destiny since birth. My whole being is altered by it.

>>16729632

There are a couple bipolar people in my family and my mother in law and sister in law are both diagnosed bipolar/bpd spectrum.

You already know what to do - cut them out. They will drain you of all your resources and be a constant source of chaos in your life. It is sad, and I know it will take years of them doing bad things to you, but you have to just let them go.

>>16729914
God are you talking about my sister? The description fits so perfectly it's scary.

>>16730054

All bipolar people function pretty much the same way, it is how they keep their victims in line.

It make take a couple years, but eventually they will start slipping into schizo land. That is when they start accusing people of stealing from them or generally sabotaging their life.

>>16730067
Oh mine already does that... Not everyday but it has happened a lot of time already. She's been this way ever since I can remember though, like even in grade school she was already like this.

>>16730054
It's fucking rough, man. She's my sister so I love her, but she makes it so hard to sometimes.

She's moving away to live with family in the US in November, which I'm in two minds over. On one hand she'll be somewhere I know she'll fit in better, but on the other hand I'm scared she'll continue exactly as she has here and fuck her life up irreparably without the safety net of my parents around to fall back on.
Mentally ill relatives make everything so hard.

>>16730072

One of my aunts is almost 60 and has never held a job for more than six months save for when she was on her medication. She always accuses her bosses of sexually harassing her, coworkers of theft, etc. so she has to quit.

It is pretty rare that they go full schizophrenic, that is usually due to them having a bunch of enablers who are validating their delusions.

>>16730078
Sometimes I'm scared I'll end up the same. Everyone of my father's side of the family is this way too.
I know I'm not entirely sane tbqh, I've been depressive since middle school with really bad anxiety and I've had panic attacks where I really thought I had gone crazy. But at least I am conscious of it and working on it and there has been huge improvements this last year thanks to my field of study.
One of my biggest fear though is to lose my sanity since it looks like it runs in the family and end up like them, or even worse.

>>16730124
Holy shit anon, I think we might be each other. I've been depressive and had insane anxiety for about the same amount of time. Having crazy relatives definitely doesn't help. I know exactly how you feel, man.

>>16730155
But I'm a grill anon, maybe you're my male equivalent on the other side of the world.
Honestly I'm mad that I have to go through all of this because of them when my time could be put to a better use, I feel like I could have been doing so much more with my life if it wasn't for them. I'm doing good even with all this shit so I just feel like I wasted so much potential and it's frustrating.

My mom died of brain cancer and my father lost it and developed schizophrenia a few years later.
I don't have grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles first or second cousins. My father has been homeless for the past 4 years when I ran out of money trying to help him get back on his feet. My mother was my best friend growing up, my dad and I have never been close.
On top of that, I'm scared that if I grow close to someone and start a family with them that I will develop a mental illness and be a burden to them.

UUUGGGGHHHHH

On a positive note, that fear helped me to remain sober for the past 5 months =)