Relinquish Your Power

with your parent. Some of us have amazing relationships with our siblings. It can look like a real friendship. You know, there is this understanding of who you are, there's this mutual support. And then there are others where perhaps you're dealing with some resentment and the relationship some undiagnosed mental health issues. Perhaps there has been situations where this person has always been enabled, or they have a codependent relationship with your parent. There are all sorts of things that

can happen to damage or destroy those sibling relationships. So today's letter we will be going through situations that involve a family member who has a mental health issue that is undiagnosed or diagnosed but certainly not being treated. There are many times where we may feel like, oh my gosh, you know, if this person was getting treatment, they would

be better. But I want to tell you that sometimes even when people are getting treatment, they're going to therapy, maybe even taken medication, you may not see those changes in the relationship. And that's not to discourage anyone from pushing a sibling or love one to do that. But people come to their own agreements in the treatment process, and sometimes those things that you have an issue with

aren't the things that they're treating. Sometimes people know that they have certain mental health things going on and they don't want the treatment. It's all a very complicated part of life. And in today's call, we will listen as a loved one talks about their relationship issues with a family member who is not getting help but truly needs it. Let's get into today's message.

or treatment, despite efforts on our family's behalf. Some diagnoses that come to mine are bipolar disorder, anxiety mania, depression, but more recently borderline personality disorder. I will add that I am a nurse practitioner, so I do have a general knowledge of mental illness and treatments available, although my knowledge and suggestions are not taken seriously by my family,

it seems, which is another thing. So my brother can be very verbally mentally abusive just whenever he's in a bad place, he'll reach out, and I seem to be his main target. He has a lot of resentment towards me for I guess not being mentally ill and deemed successful and healthy in his eyes. So I feel like

I'm constantly berated for it, and unprovoked at that. So there's been several times throughout the last two years that I the behavior is getting worse and I've had to block him as it was interfering with my relationship with my thank Beyonce now husband.

themselves as an overall personality. That is a very big thing for your brother to address. And without the proper therapist, he may have a hard time understanding what that actually means for his relationship. So when you say he has borderline personality disorder, I wonder how you treat him based on that label. Are you looking at the symptoms or are you looking at the label of what that means?

And when I say the label, I mean you know, we know that people who have this diagnosis they may be a little more self absorbed, They have chronic issues with relationships, gas lighting and lying and all of these sorts of things, and we attribute it to, oh, this person is borderline. They can't get any better, they can't learn anything, you know, with any diagnosis. Oh this person is anxious, Oh this person is that they have no agency. But let me tell you something. Your brother has a diagnosis,

and that diagnosis is not who he is. He still has some agency, And what I'm hearing is with that agency, he is choosing not to be in care. He's not getting any help with some of these things that he's been diagnosed as having. I wonder if a diagnosis can be accurate when you're in and out of care, when you have multiples, when you have bipolar disorder, anxiety, mania, depression,

and borderline, like, what is true of that? Has he even built a relationship with a therapist who might be able to say, you know, I'm noticing some attachment issues here. Now you know, formerly we may call that borderline, but what I'm seeing is an insecure attachment style. I'm noticing that sometimes you get really sad when people don't respond to you in a certain way, and it leads to this depression. Without him being in care, those connections cannot be made, and so all you may see on the

outside is all of the behaviors that are untreated. Here's the thing. You note that the mental illness is a caveat, which prompted me to think of a whole list of caveats we could come up with. You know, the caveat is he has mental illness, right, and I'm thinking other caveats. They suffer from mental illness, they suffer from addiction, they had a hard childhood, they're not as smart as me,

like any life circumstance. To some extent, we could say, oh, you know, this person is treating me this way because they didn't make the baseball team. This person is treating me this way because of whatever, right when, in actuality, to some extent, there is some choice in how they treat other people. Now, of course, we think about emotional regulation, we think about you know, factors of trauma, and all

of these things which will guide our choices. But ultimately, if it were true that people who had mental illness mistreat others, everyone with depression, anxiety, borderline, or bipolar would mistreat people. That is not the case. Your brother, in particular, separate from his diagnosis, is mistreating you. He's being verbally, mentally and emotionally abusive to you. Is mental health a factor there, Yeah, potentially, However, it's not like it has

to cause these behaviors that you're seeing with him. So because he's not addressing his stuff because he is not getting treatment. This is the manifestation of who he is in your life to the point it is interfering with your relationship with your fiance. I recently read an article in a psychotherapy networker magazine just talking about how we can take a diagnosis and really start to see the

person from the lens of the diagnosis. So if they have generalized anxiety disorder, we push it to that, Oh, they're doing this because they're anxious. They're doing this, or this is how I have to treat them because they have depression, or this is how I have to treat this person because they are borderline, or this is the behavior they're able to exhibit in my life. I have to make space for that. When in actuality, there's choice

on both sides. You know, you get to choose what your boundaries are, and your brother, to some extent, gets to choose whether or not he wants treatment for his issues. When we come back for break, I'm hoping we'll hear more about the boundaries you're establishing in this relationship with your brother.

So at present, he is blocked. But the caveat is he does have mental illness and I am aware of that, which makes it really difficult for me to stick to and reinforce my boundaries for me to have a better life. I will say that his behavior has significantly affected my family in general, and to an extent, my growing family with my husband, to the point where my husband refuses to have anything to do with my brother and will barely tolerate my mother because of her enabling him.

yourself in harmful situations. I'm hearing that this mental illness is causing lots of toxicity in your relationship with your husband, to the point that he doesn't even want to be around your mother and your brother, and even in your relation relationship with your mother, I wonder what do you

need from your mother? You know much of this is focused on your brother, but now I'm hearing that because your mother is very codependent with your brother, I'm sure that there is something missing in her relationship with you. How do you address with your mom what your needs are in the relationship with her. Could it be that it would be hopeful for her to stay out of your interactions with your brother? How do you speak that to your mother? Mom, I understand you're trying to be hopeful,

and you love your son. I wouldn't have any other way for you. However, as my brother, things are very damaging between the two of us, so I would love it if you stayed out of it. Have you declared that to your mother? Have you set that boundary with her? Because I'm sure the level of guilt tripping that she's giving you is causing you to get back into this cycle of verbal emotional you know, abuse with your brother.

So part of it is you'll have to set boundaries not just with your brother, but also with your mother. Now you have two teammates, you have you know your dad, who is understanding of the situation, and you have your husband, so you do have some support for placing these boundaries with your brother. One of the things that I hear you saying over and over is he's mentally ill and he doesn't mean it. How do you know he doesn't

mean it? How do you know that? I think sometimes we assume that people don't want to hurt us when they're doing hurtful things. Right, It's like they're not trying to hurt me by cursing me out, Well, what are they trying to do by you know, like, what are they trying to do? I think that is the intention behind it. They are trying to hurt you. So we have to acknowledge and be honest with ourselves that sometimes people really are trying to hurt us, and they do

mean it. They want to see a sweat, they want to see a sad. Is the intention behind it pure? Absolutely not. Maybe it's because they're hurt, Maybe because they want to see some reaction out of us. But they are intending to do it. So giving your brother this level of escape from any responsibility isn't helpful for your

boundary setting process. If your goal here is to improve your boundaries in the relationship with your brother, you can offer him grace without giving him excuses for poor behavior. You can say, wow, my brother has had a really difficult time with mental health. Wow, he is not a point where he is ready to receive the help. I hope he gets the help that he needs. It doesn't mean that in the process of him dealing with this stuff, you have to be his primary target for abuse and

neglect of the relationship. Even if he gets help, you know, I spoke about this at the top of this Even if he gets help, it may not be helpful for what you need to see from him. His help might be him becoming employed, him having a better relationship with your mother. You can't even control what the help in his life could look like. He'll even determine not because once again, he has choice. So this idea that, oh, if he would just go to therapy, he would be

such a nicer person. I'll tell you what. One time I was talking to a person who has some mean tendencies. They too have these you know, emotional outbursts and they're verbally abusive, and you know, they can be really aggressive. And I was saying something about therapy and they revealed to me they've been going to therapy for two years. And I said, oh my gosh, this person has been going to therapy and they were making fun of the

therapy process. They had to go to therapy to get other supports and resources in their life, and I was just like, oh my gosh, Therapy is not a cure for people who don't want the help. Therapy is not a cure for people who don't want to make certain changes in their life. I've done therapy with folks who are mandated to go, and they're there because they want whatever service they have to go for. They don't want to be on probation or they don't you know, whatever,

they want to maintain house or whatever it is. Some of those folks they take it, they use it as a tool and they really grow, and others it's just some thing to do with their time because they have to do it. So telling someone, hey, if you go to therapy, you know all these behavior issues you have, they will be resolved that is not true. You may need therapy to deal with the codependency in your family, to deal with the resentment that you likely have towards

your mother and your brother. Your mother is overparenting one child. I don't know if she's underparenting you, but she's certainly doing a lot for your brother. How do you feel about that? How does that impact the relationship with your mother. You're trying to figure out a way to place these boundaries with your brother, but it's going to be you placing these boundaries also with your mother, with your child in mind, with this idea that but your marriage is

now being impacted by your relationship with your brother. I'm sure your mental health is being challenged by having to always be in these chaotic dynamics with your mom, your brother, your brother, your mom. That impacts your mental health. So I know this is about your brother's mental health, but you have mental health as well. You have needs for your relationships, and that's as important as anybody else's needs mentioned in this letter. You are valued, you are important.

Your needs also need to be met in your relationships. Let's listen to this last part.

He's barely kept down a job or lived independently at all for that matter. But my mother will often try to mediate the relationship between my brother and I and guilt trip me by saying things like, well, you know that he's mentally ill and he doesn't mean it and all he needs is love from his sister. So there's also an immense amount of pressure on me to fix

him or support him or constantly communicate with him. But it's very one sided, like he'll never reach out to family members until he's having an episode, and then no one loves him, no one cares about him, woe is me, so on and so forth, and then the rest of the family are terrible. But most of the behavior is directed towards me. His younger sister for whatever reason, and

I'm just trying to simply live my life. But it seems like everything I do is in spite of him, and that he's personally affected by it in some way or it's a personal disc towards him. So I'm really struggling again to reinforce these boundaries just because of the simple fact that I am aware that he is mentally ill,

so that there's a gray area there. And then my mom her saying things like, oh, it's killing me you and him talking, especially now that I'm expecting with the first grandchild, so this is really affecting my relationship with my mom. So yeah, I'm just having a really difficult time,

and i don't know how to proceed. I have listened to a lot of your podcasts and read a good amount of your book, Drama Free, which I find is very helpful, especially the sibling chapter, but it seems there haven't been any examples thus far about any type of behavior from someone who is suffering from borderline personality disorder

or manic depressive disorder. I'll also add that you know I've suggested and set up appointments for him in the past, that he's never followed through with and you know, over and over again feel saying things to me like why won't you help me? And you know, it's just impossible to figure out what help looks like to him, and I just don't think it is achievable. So this is

an immensely stressful situation. You know, I'm trying to focus on my new career growth and my own growing family, and I just need a little bit of clarity surrounding this. So any insight or discussion from this would be really helpful.

of these things. I thought it was important to include that in the book because there are times where our mental health issues impact our relationships, particularly when we're not addressing the challenges we're having. We all have challenges, you know, it's not just your brother. You have your own stuff going on. And what's really hopeful is when you try to be aware of and work through yourself so that

it's not speeling over into your relationships with people. Also in that portion of the book, on page one seventeen, I talk specifically about personality issues and how those impact relationships with our loved ones. In families, there is this idea that you have to tolerate stuff because it is family, because it is your brother and he he has Because it is your brother and he has been diagnosed with depression,

you should tolerate it. Whatever that manifestation of his depressed episodes or his behaviors, his explosions, you should tolerate it because it's your brother. When in actuality, there has to be some allowance for people to say, enough is enough. This is now impacting my mental health. I'm going to be depressed because this person is mistreating me. I'm anxious about being around them. I am now avoiding them because of all of these things that are happening in our relationship.

The thing with mental health issues is we do have have to look at it. We should have that grace towards you know, someone having you know, maybe depression or anxiety, and we need to deal with the behavior. One day, I was on my way home from work, and there was a guy at the light asking for change, but he was doing it very aggressively. He was yelling in people cars. He was like waving his hands like he was going to fight people, you know. He was tapping

on people windows. And I said, whoa, this is more than people typically sign up for when they stop at a light. And so I called the police and the first thing I said was, there is someone at the light. I believe he has a mental health issue. I want that to be clear. This is a mental health call. But he is being aggressive about asking people for money and for change. I wanted them to know that because I wanted them to keep it in mind and also

come see about this situation. I don't want you to ignore the situation because he has a mental health issue. I want you to still address it, but I want you to do that with the thought of, oh my gosh, this is not just a person being violent. There is something here that maybe we need to say. There's a particular way we need to address the situation. We don't need to be on guard in certain ways. We need to know that this person is dealing with some things

and their mental health is not being managed. That is the way that you walk into that situation. You don't ignore the situation. That's not helping all of these folks who are having their windows tapped on and being yelled at. That's not helpful. So when we think about, oh my gosh, this person has, you know, this challenge and I have to have grace for it, or I have to deal with it, or I have to be in relationship with them, we have to think about what that relationship can look

like with a person who is not receiving treatment. What can that relationship look like when the person may be receiving treatment and they still aren't improving, You get to decide that. That's where your boundaries come into play. So with your brother, it might be, hey, you're blocked, but maybe every three months, I'll give you a call. I'll call you every three months just to check on you. It could also look like I am block you and you can just call me in you know, yell at

me whenever you want to. Or it could look like maybe if you don't seem calm when I answer the phone, I will say that, hey, you're not calm, let me give you a callback. There are all sorts of things you can do in this relationship if you want to have it, and really it's about figuring out what thing could work that will cause you the least amount of emotional frustration, because right now you're in a situation where you're completely in or you're completely out. So I'm blocking

you or I'm all in the relationship. Perhaps what you want is to do a little dance around having some sort of connection or contact and really trying to manage what that connection in contact can look like. If you know that he sporadically calls and has these outbursts, then it might be appropriate to some extent to say, hey, you just can't freely call me, and you can place boundaries around what that could look like. You know, that could be again you blocking him, It could be you know,

you calling him on some sort of periodic basis. You could even say something like, you know, every Sunday we'll talk. You figure out what that looks like and what could be hopeful for you. In the relationship with your mother, there also needs to be some boundaries placed. You need to talk to her about what can and what cannot happen. You know, the truth of it is, your brother may change tomorrow he might not change. He might change in a year, he might change in five years. We don't know.

And what you're dealing with is what's happening today, what happened last week, what happened one month ago. Until you see some changes and you see those things done consistently, I don't know if it makes sense for you to continue to put yourself in these situations where you're feeling this level of emotional damage. I know it's your brother, but it sounds like you are very clear, like, ough, this is having a significant impact on my life. It's

having a significant impact on my relationship. And guess what, when you have this baby, it's going to have a significant impact on your relationship with your child because you'll be parenting with this spirit that you have now. So if you want to feel better about this situation, it may not be waiting for your brother to go to therapy and get help and you know all of this support, it's going to be you making some changes in the relationship.

You need to hear this. Giving someone a resource is help, pointing them in the right direction, Offering them a book, suggesting things Europy, those are all ways to help. Your job is not to cure them. Sometimes we think that the cure for their issue is us doing something to make them better, but just setting something in their lap, offering them the tools is the help that is a resource. You do not have the power to make them do

anything with the resources you offer. I know that's hard, and I know it's particularly hard when it is family, because there is this idea that you are powerful enough to overcome this thing with them, and the demonstration of oh my gosh, maybe I'm not power enough. Is the frustration, the resentment, the boundary issues, the panic, the anxiety that you start to experience having to deal with a peron who does not want your help, they don't want resources.

You can still be in relationship with them, but it's important for you to figure out how to be in relationships with people who are not ready to change. You need to hear. This is an iHeart production hosted by Mendra Glover to WOP. Our executive producer is Joe L. Baldique. Our senior producer and editor is Mia don Taylor. Send us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and

relationships that you need to hear. This at iHeartMedia dot com right now I'm really interested in hearing more stories from parents who are strange from their children, also people who are having marriage issues. I don't know about you, but I feel like I am in this space and life where I'm I'm hearing more and more about, you know, marriages and women initiating divorce. So I am really interested in hearing more about some of your marriage issues and

self sabotage. What are you struggling with. What are some of the things that you find really hard to do, What are your barriers, what are your blocks? I'd love to hear more on three things estrangement, marriage issues, and self sabotage.