stillmissing
06-16-2003, 01:15 PM
My sister is one for the books. She is a complete puzzle and I'm not sure what (if anything) I can do for her and my parents.
She has always had a low self-esteem (she graduated high school at a 3rd grade reading level) and was diagnosed a couple of years ago with manic-depression.
She has been on many different types of medication, none of which seem to be helping.
She got into a relationship with a guy and ended up having a son with this man. Needless to say he took off when she was expecting and when their son was 2 years old, they got back together and proceeded to have another child. She cannot take care of either of them, financially or physically (because she doesn't know how). My mother takes care of them because my sister is either too ill or too tired from her medication. I believe that these are just excuses. I think it's just easier for someone else to do it.
She has never worked for longer than 2 weeks at a time and her children were always sick in the hospital when they were younger. There was a point where I thought that she was displaying signs of Munchausen by Proxy. Of course no one in my family (especially my parents) wanted to believe me.
She checks herself into the psych ward every time she needs a 'vacation' from her children. That's what she tells people. She's taking a vacation. And it always seems to be around the time when someone else in the family has something going on. My father came home from the hospital a couple of months ago from having life saving surgery. Only a couple of weeks afterward she checked herself into the hospital....twice. Even her daughter, who is 4 says it was because my father was getting all of the attention and she was jealous. She has threatened many times to hurt herself, but she never does anything that would be considered 'serious'. She tried cutting her wrist with a paperclip once. One would think that if she truly wanted to hurt herself she would have used a knife or something sharper.
I am sure that my sister has some sort of disorder, but I don't believe it is as bad as she is telling everyone it is. She plays it for all it's worth.
My biggest question is, why can't her doctor see that she is just playing it up? Is it that doctors don't tend to look for that sort of thing?
My next question is, how can I get her to see that her brothers and sisters are sick of seeing her do this to our parents? It is absolutely disgusting to see her do this every time the focus is taken off her and put on someone else.
Do you think it would be wise to talk to her doctor and see what he/she thinks of the situation?
I'm just looking for a way to deal with it. All of my brothers and sisters are beginning to hate her because of what she's doing. Mainly because she seems to get a kick out of going to the hospital. I call it a white coat fascination.
She has always had a low self-esteem (she graduated high school at a 3rd grade reading level) and was diagnosed a couple of years ago with manic-depression.
She has been on many different types of medication, none of which seem to be helping.
She got into a relationship with a guy and ended up having a son with this man. Needless to say he took off when she was expecting and when their son was 2 years old, they got back together and proceeded to have another child. She cannot take care of either of them, financially or physically (because she doesn't know how). My mother takes care of them because my sister is either too ill or too tired from her medication. I believe that these are just excuses. I think it's just easier for someone else to do it.
She has never worked for longer than 2 weeks at a time and her children were always sick in the hospital when they were younger. There was a point where I thought that she was displaying signs of Munchausen by Proxy. Of course no one in my family (especially my parents) wanted to believe me.
She checks herself into the psych ward every time she needs a 'vacation' from her children. That's what she tells people. She's taking a vacation. And it always seems to be around the time when someone else in the family has something going on. My father came home from the hospital a couple of months ago from having life saving surgery. Only a couple of weeks afterward she checked herself into the hospital....twice. Even her daughter, who is 4 says it was because my father was getting all of the attention and she was jealous. She has threatened many times to hurt herself, but she never does anything that would be considered 'serious'. She tried cutting her wrist with a paperclip once. One would think that if she truly wanted to hurt herself she would have used a knife or something sharper.
I am sure that my sister has some sort of disorder, but I don't believe it is as bad as she is telling everyone it is. She plays it for all it's worth.
My biggest question is, why can't her doctor see that she is just playing it up? Is it that doctors don't tend to look for that sort of thing?
My next question is, how can I get her to see that her brothers and sisters are sick of seeing her do this to our parents? It is absolutely disgusting to see her do this every time the focus is taken off her and put on someone else.
Do you think it would be wise to talk to her doctor and see what he/she thinks of the situation?
I'm just looking for a way to deal with it. All of my brothers and sisters are beginning to hate her because of what she's doing. Mainly because she seems to get a kick out of going to the hospital. I call it a white coat fascination.