My brother's behaviour

emma_spaghetti

Pee wrote: »

Your brother is about 18/19, an adult and his behaviour is upsetting you but not your Mum. How do you get on with your brother? If you like him, get on with him, genuinely want to help him, be there for him, be someone he can talk to. If you have any issues that he has always been the favourite, he got to go to Uni and you didn't or anything at all along those lines, then I would remove yourself from the situation, because you are not going to help unless you are acting in his best interests and you have a huge capacity to hinder. I hope I am getting the wrong impression from your posts which seem quite detatched, I'm very sorry if they sound detatched simply because anything more emotional is too upsetting.


It is also possible that it is a nervous breakdown. Failing Uni exams is a big deal - although easily repaired.

No my brother and I aren't particularly close, mainly because of the way he is in general (he struggles to hold a proper conversation and is quite monotonous in his responses, staying up late making lots of noise and mess, not doing as he is told, swearing at my mum/taking her cigarettes and constantly taking money from her etc)- All along we thought he was a typical teenager but there are more and more signs indicating something else might not be quite right.
However, of course I want to be able to help him get better, as does my mum- I live with him and want us all to live happy and stress free in the same house, That's why I've been writing on the forum getting advice and ringing around support charities!

Just incase I didnt mention it before the random sentences only happened on Friday. That has never happened before and was the thing that triggered us to go to the hospital- I haven't seen him since so I don't know how he's been behaving since.

When he was younger he was diagnosed with dyspraxia and was still barely able to speak properly at the age of 5 when he went to school - My mum is now thinking maybe it was a misdiagnosis and he was infact autistic all along- But we will have to see what the GP suggests I suppose.

Thanks for all the support charity info as well, I will check some more out and see if they can offer any more guidance.

UKTigerlily

j-josie wrote: »

Hi Tigerlily, apologies for hijacking the thread but would you be able to tell me what support site you use? DD has had clinical depression since 15; at 17 psychiatrist said she displayed all signs of BPD but was too young to be formally diagnosed with this. Said if she still had same symptoms into her 20s then she would be classified as BPD.
We all feel she has BPD as the info we read on the subject describes her exactly! She is now 19 and at uni and would really benefit from a support site as she struggles from time to time (more often than not, she says, reading this over my shoulder:p).
We love her to bits and think she's done really well to get to uni but it would be great if she could get some more help.

Sure it's http://www.bpdworld.org/ if you PM me her name if she joins i'll make sure the gang support her, we're all friendly but of course it can be triggering anywhere with lots of BPD people so we'd keep an eye on her, there's lots of support like Support Workers, Therapists, Assessments etc x

System

UKTigerlily wrote: »

Sure it's http://www.bpdworld.org/ if you PM me her name if she joins i'll make sure the gang support her, we're all friendly but of course it can be triggering anywhere with lots of BPD people so we'd keep an eye on her, there's lots of support like Support Workers, Therapists, Assessments etc x

Thank you for this link, am a fellow BPD sufferer so its a great help

wolfehouse

i was given a list of questions (from our local mental health team) to ask to help you figure out if it's psychosis:
* have you had any trouble with your thinking/thoughts recently? do they seem speeded up or confused?
*have you been concerned about any unusal events recently, or thought that there were strange things happening around you, or to you? ( delusions)
*have you been as if something bad is happening to you, or that people have turned against you in some way? (paranoid feelings)
* have you experienced any strange or unpleasant experiences involving your senses, e.g. hearing things or seeing things that others do not (hallucinations)
*do you have problems watching tv or listening to radio? (ideas of reference with concentration)

if he will go to the gp that's great, or you could contact your local mental health team (ask nhs 24) but keep a list of observations because no one likes to give a label to things too early and the more info available the better.

missm29

Hi what a worrying time for you, haven't read all the replies but just wanted to say that my mother in law is in a care home for people with mental heath issues, they are free to come and go as they please, but appear to be drugged up, i've been there when the pills are dished out, everyone is in a zombie state. Knives are locked away in the kitchen and the coffee has to be locked away too, thought that was odd about the coffee, but have read that your brother drinks lots of coffee so thought i'd mention it. Perhaps the sword needs removing from the house too. Have you thought about contacting the council and speaking to the social workers for adults, the one we deal with is very helpful. I've been to reviews with my mother in law, usually every 6 months and she says all the right things, i'm the one that has to speak up and always take a list in with me, thankfully i have the care home that back up my comments and they see her far more than me. Keep a detailed record of your brothers behaviour and keep pestering until someone sits up and listens.

emma_spaghetti

So he's been to the doctor, who recommended he get some counselling and gave him some information....

This was two weeks ago now, and although the strange talking has stopped he's now really docile (playing games online for hours on end, taking about 10 seconds to answer a simple question and looking at you in a really sad sort of way, wandering around the house blankly with nothing to do).... I've also found he's been buying things on ebay (boats, yoyos, really odd things), and has been going over his overdraft paying for them, resulting in huge charges. When I asked him why the hell he bought a boat, and asked how he expected to pay for it with no job or money (£250 which hasn't been paid for), he agreed it was a "stupid idea" but said he thought it was a good idea at the time....

I've tried to convince him to go for the counselling that's been recommended but he tells me not to be so stupid and there's nothing wrong with him.

How do you help someone get better when they don't think there's anything wrong with them?

emma_spaghetti

The coffee has gone, as has the sword and we know for sure he hasn't been smoking weed, if that helps? He keeps going over his student overdraft and getting charged everytime, my mum is having to pay it off everytime which is quite draining. We've told him countless times to stop doing it, have tried cutting his card up but he goes back to the bank, gets a new one and uses it again and again like he has no control!

We would like to close his bank account just to stop him from breaking into it, but as he's 18 this obviously can't happen!

Dinah93

Your mum can stop paying off the money though, and if he cant pay the charges the bank will eventually close the account. It will damage his credit rating but I don't think him having access to credit is a good thing.

tizhimi

This sounds like exactly the same as what happened to my former friend. note the word former. He started suffering from weed pyhcosis (sp) and went MENTAL, we were his best friends and he threatened to throw a brick through our window. His house mates had left some washing in the machine (as you do) and he decided to teach them a lesson by making pasta sauce with the clothes. He started peeing in bottles and leaving them on his window sill. He pooed in bags and threw it out the window into the garden. Broke doors, slit the mattress of his house mate open. Oh yeah, and he threatened someone with a knife infront of a full crowd of friends, he got kicked out the uni society but not uni - they guy who was threatened didn't have the balls to go to the police and press charges.

He failed his first year three times all on different courses 'cos of the weed and then the drinking kicked in.

He evetually got taken away in the loony cart - then escaped to come "after us". We all went into hiding. I'm not joking, I went to the Union about it and my friend had to pick me up after my evening lecture- in the end I changed my evening modules because he was waiting outside to declare his undying love for me. Followed by hatred. Followed by love. Weird. The he reported me to the police for harassing him. As you do.

I moved house, changed my number and email and thank god never heard from him since.

He was an Asian lad and wasn't allowed to drink at home so I think the freedom of Uni just sent him mad. Literally. Sorry for the long post, I feel a lot better saying this 'cos I thought weed couldn't send you mad but obviously it can.