My Sister

My Sister killed herself last fall, right before my parents visited for Thanksgiving.

There’s no mystery as to the “why” — that’s the easy part. She had adult-onset bipolar disorder, and was going with only minimal treatment. She was one of the unlucky 20% who lost the final battle to the disease.

Part of the problem was her abusive, psychopathic husband. He was systematically demeaning her, cutting her down and arguing with her in front of the children, and isolating her from the treatment she had been receiving. So you can’t really say that he put the knife in her, but he was terribly abusive toward someone who was in desperate trouble.

True to form, now he is closing off access to the children from my parents. They played a large part in helping with the family. Besides monetary support, mom would go and stay with them sometimes for a month, sleeping in their dining room, because she wanted to help my sister, and she loved being with the kids so much.

We’re encouraging Mom to talk to some attorneys in Mississippi about grandparent visitation, because Brian is cutting off access to the children.

I think it’s so ironic that here I am on this blog ranting about psychopaths, I am so sensitive to their presence in the numerous places I’ve worked, and meanwhile my sister ends up in an abusive marriage married to one.

Today for the first time, I think I saw her point of view. And for the first time, I don’t disagree with her decision as sharply as I have before. Here’s what she was facing:

+ A very difficult struggle with her mental illness for the rest of her life.

+ A nasty divorce from her abusive husband, in which she may have lost custody of the children because of her illness.

+ Being stuck in Mississippi forever because of child custody issues — basically, both parents would have to find work in the same state at the same time to get out of that place.

+ The spectre of physical abuse or possibly even murder from her increasingly abusive and threatening husband — which she mentioned in the last week of her life.

+ The difficulties of raising two young children when she was severely depressed.

+ A disintegrating relationship with her youngest daughter, again because of her mental state. She had been such a wonderful, loving mother, but under the stress of spousal abuse and severe depression, she saw her daughter acting out increasingly aggressively.

In the end, she probably thought that she had no options, and felt she couldn’t care for the kids even if she got to keep custody of them in a nasty divorce.

I think she was discounting a few things, such as the help she could have received from us, how much more effective she would have been outside the influence of her husband’s abuse, and finally, that alive she would have been around to see them and be with them whatever her circumstances.

I miss you, Beth. And I’m so sorry you got to the place you did. I wish you were still here, resting in Mom and Dad’s house while we thought through how to help you next.