Oh, jan. How awful, all of it. I am sad because such sad things are happening in your life.

((((((ej))))))

ej, i'm so sorry to hear about all three of those things. i am sending big hugs across the atlantic to you.

(((((((((ej)))))))

Goddamn, it's a mean old world.

1. I'm glad you've come to terms with that situation.

2. Cars are fucking dangerous. I try and remember that every time I get in one. I almost lost my wife several years ago, and I've nearly died as well.

3. Alcohol is legal and other drugs aren't. I still can't get me head 'round that one.

'Tis the season, sorry to say. Not unlike the rest of the year.
i'd like to be unused to that level of drama enough to be a shock but it's not until the next ridiculously close bomb drop that shakes me. i heard of another death today.

And some people need a regular smack on the bottom or of the bottom to wake up. That's the only thing i've ever done to "help" someone off the floor: making them get up themselves, but offering to help should they try to.
i swear, walking away's the only thing i ever did where i know it helped and didn't enable. And i have provable results there.

Oh wow. Each of those three things are really tough to handle, let alone all three at once.

I'm sorry, Jan. *sends warm hugs*

{{{jan}}}

(((((((((((((jan)))))))))))

I wish there were something we could say or do to make things better. The world is a sad place sometimes, and that stinks.

Awww, eeejjj.

Oh, jan, I'm so sorry! (((((hugs)))))

That's rough, jan. I'm sending sympathies Englandward.

*hug*hug*hug*

Oh god, what an awful day...

as for the first, maybe being committed is the kick in the butt she needs to get herself back on track? Her rock bottom, so to speak? I think eth is really on the mark there.

For the third, well, he's back in meetings, at least, so that's the first step to regaining his soberity.

I'm just so so sorry about your coworker. There's really nothing else one can say. Is there a father in the picture for the kids? Or grandparents? I hope so.
If you send over food (I don't know if that's tradition in the UK, too), maybe send over some small toys for the kids with it? Or an age-appropirate book about dealing with the death of a parent?

hugs, honey. I'm so sorry. Sending light your way.

Triple whammy for sure. (((((EJ)))))

Oh (((Jan))), I'm so sorry. That's too much for anyone's plate.

Fuck geography. I really wish there was someway we Bunnies could be closer to give real support when shit like this happens.

Easy now star, you've put in your rounds. You're are always going to have to pay the piper for being a human being, but you have the brains and the heart and the muscle to get through this life, I believe in you.

Damn, ej, that is rough. :( Hard times always seem to come in waves like this, don't they? You can't have just one bad thing happen- here, have three.

*hugs* to you.

Hugs to my Jan, who I love!

(((Jan)))

Best hopes and regards from someone who hasn't been blessed enough to get to meet you in person. You shine.

Big hugs jan. That's a bad day for sure.

Oh, hell, Jan! I'm so sorry! You're going to black and blue from all the hugs, but please accept mine as well, honey.

But what exactly is happening with your sister? Why would she be committed? Has she tried to hurt herself?

Thanks everyone.

kellydamnit, taking food round isn't really traditional over here. There is a father (he's a partner in a City law firm, so there are no money worries for the family) but I don't know if he was involved in the crash, we just got the barest details. If he was killed or badly injured, I'll probably read about it in the legal press.

taz, my sister tried to kill herself last summer. Apparently a friend of hers was so concerned about her this week that she sent the police round. Although sis was behaving bizarrely, the police will do nothing if it's in your own home, only if you're acting weird in public.

Then her boss phoned me yesterday to say they'd had to send her home, she's unfit to work, she's been behaving irrationally. A neighbour got her to the doctor, she's been off her meds for months, not taken up the offer of counselling. The doctor (a locum, not her regular) wasn't concerned enough to have her sectioned under the Mental Health Act, even though she has a previous history of a suicide attempt. The boss called the police and got the same story, they won't help.

I feel I have to step back. I think she needs to be in hospital and it's possible if that happens that she'll lose her jobs (she has a weekend job), home and pets. But her life is completely unmanageable, and it won't help her if I step in and enable her. Once was ok, last summer, but twice, no. I can't do it (it's hard enough to pay my own bills, let alone hers as well). I think the catalyst for all this is that her ex-husband who just divorced her is remarrying this weekend.

So I feel guilty about that, but, although she's my sister, I don't love (or even like) her, so my sadness is more out of a sense of watching a car wreck that - perhaps - I could put a stop to, but knowing that if I do, the driver will just end up driving an even bigger car into a higher wall at some point in the future, after running me over first.

And yes, my friend is back in meetings, but he was saying what a lot of long-time sober people say who go back out drinking: AA hasn't worked for them, so what else is left for them? I hope he makes it. He was kind to me when I was in hospital a few years ago, he visited me a few times.

Sigh ...

But this weekend holds a trip to the kitteh sheltah to take the homeless meowbabs some food, so it's not all doom and gloom. And no I will not adopt another one, for a start they won't let you adopt close to Christmas, and secondly my two girls would rip my throat out in my sleep if I brought another cat in here. Then they'd probably make friends with it.

Couldn't you have her put under observation? i have no idea how it works there. i mean, you have done more than a lot for her but it's the only thing that might make it less of a bloody trainwreck, which means less splatter effect on you and anyone concerned. i don't know how hospitalization work there but since they usually work with social services here it usually helps take over that caretaker role.

Eth, she could only be put under observation if she's sectioned (committed) and that's not going to happen unless she freaks out in the street and the police are called, or if her doctor thinks she needs it. At the moment the locum doctor doesn't want to get involved. It will need her to do something dramatic/drastic to be committed to hospital.

It's very sad. This is the first time since she was 17 that she's had to live alone (she's 51 now) and she's finding it too difficult. Emotionally she's a child (her house is filled with stuffed toys, Spongebob stuff, ornaments, teddies) and she can't deal with real life.

In the past she was always insulated from having to handle all the day-to-day things such as paying bills, putting fuel in the car, walking the dogs, shopping, laundry, etc., because whichever man was in her life always did everything. That was one of the conditions of her relationships, that she was waited on hand and foot. It's too much for her to try to do all that real-life stuff herself.

When I visited her in June the last time she was ill and took her to the supermarket, it was the first time in her entire life that she'd done a 'big shop'. I couldn't believe it, I mean, everybody I know does a big shop once a month or so to stock up on toilet paper, cat food, breakfast cereal, all the non-perishables, don't they? But it was all new and baffling to her because in the past her cupboards had always been replenished as if by magic while she sat on the sofa watching TV.

It's made her depressed, but she was much better once she started taking the meds. She told me a couple of months ago that she felt better and was going to stop taking them, and I thought I'd managed to talk her out of it, but obviously not. It was reported back to me yesterday that she'd clearly not been taking her meds for some months because there were several unopened boxes in the house.

And the loser boyfriend is back on the scene, apparently. The one who has no job, no home, doesn't drive, takes drugs, has a couple of ex-wives and several kids he doesn't see or support (and he's not even 30 yet). Yes, the one that the police had to remove from her house in June.

She has some hard life lessons to learn, and I fear there will be a big fall for her to hit her rock bottom.

I'm sorry.

Well, yeah, that's just a sad mess. At this point there's nothing you can do as far as I can tell. It's just so frustrating that she stopped the meds... I don't know why that is such a common occurrence.

I've said it before, but your parents didn't do her any favors with their spoiling and preferential treatment. Odd as it is, and even with the terrible struggle you had to go through, their emotional abuse of you actually ended up working in your favor (relative to your sister, anyway).

So sorry to hear this, essexjan. The situation between you and your sister is not unlike many I know, here. It's not easy to help, and it's not easy to stand aside.

I think I've said that there are times when my brother's illness and needs so overrun my life, it feels like I'm the one that is sick. It's common for that to happen to caregivers in families, but I'm actually pretty fortunate that my brother is generally able to care for himself physically, and contribute in our household routine, and that we have the means to meet his expenses and needs. So many people we know are supporting bed-ridden invalids with serious medical problems, that our situation is a comparative lark.

What I have come to understand in these last two years since becoming his sole caretaker, is that it's as easy, or easier, to do too much, as to do only what he needs. In fact, he's physically slow, and clumsy, partly because of his medications. So he breaks things often, not because he is careless, but simply because he is big and physically powerful, but has impaired fine motor control in his hands because of his meds. So, in my impatience, I've too often just swept aside his clumsy efforts at this task, or another, thinking it was easier and faster to do this or that, myself.

But in the long run, we're less effective, and he's less well off, when I do that. Hard as it is sometimes, I've learned to stand back, grit my teeth, let him do things his way, and fix the problems he creates. Like last summer, when he accidently rammed the lawnmower's handle into an outside faucet, setting off a 30 gallon/minute stream of water into our back yard. I had to cut the main water valve, go get a replacement stem valve, and spend 3 hours draining the copper pipe, and sweating on the new valve. I could have mowed the yard six times in the time it took me to do that, and not gotten wet and dirty. I put a metal pipe guard around that faucet to protect it against future intrusions, but I didn't try to suggest he not mow again.

He needs to do things like mow the yard, as much as your sister needs to learn how to shop. But my brother will always be prone to breaking things with the mower, and it sounds like your sister may never learn to shop well, or pick men.

You may be wise to distance yourself from your sister, but you may also realize that, for her, there's really no "bottom." She can't 12 step herself into life competence, any more than my brother can, I think. Off her meds, she probably can't even make an informed choice about her own medical care or needs.

So sorry for you, and for her. There, but for grace, go we.

However, strange as it seems to say now, given the many years I knew that I would one day be likely to assume this responsibility, and dreaded it, that it hasn't turned out to be so bad as I thought it might, all those years. In fact, for us, it has turned out to be what Robert Frost said in his poem, "The Death of The Hired Man":

'Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.'

But in having to go, and having to take in, there's a point where mutual resignation can become mutual commitment. We're partners now, in this endeavor to remain sane and healthy, and we have to backstop one another, and make allowances. I, for his clumsy, powerful hands, and he, for my impatience and perfectionism.

We get along, having to.

Jan, you have such a big heart. It hurts me to read about this because I know how much it's hurting you.

Take care.