Submitted by ottersarecool98 t3_yiia26 in relationship_advice
TLDR: Sister is manipulative and abusive resulting in destroying relationships, doesn’t want help resulting in family not knowing what to do.
Sorry if this post is in the wrong format or area I’m just running out of options on what to do. For context myself (22M), my mum (54F) and my sister live together in Australia, my sister (20F) has had drug and alcohol problems for many years, coupled with bipolar and other mental health problems. This has led to her destroying many relationships with our family and friends in which not only is she isolated and becoming alone, it’s destroying my mum and our family through stress. She doesn’t see that she is causing these problems though, and constantly blames anyone but herself for her own actions. This is often with family because they are the people trying to help her, she sees this as them trying to attack her which results in her often screaming, and blaming them for all her problems.
This is only amplified in her relationships, she has had several main boyfriends which have all resulted in them being the worst people ever and even to the point that she calls them abusive. When in several circumstances I have seen her use manipulation and seen her hit them to get what she wants. This often being drugs or alcohol, and if they don’t get her it, they are horrible people. This only gets worse when they try to leave her in which she will call anyone she knows crying including the boyfriends themselves, screaming and yelling for them to come back or they don’t love her. This will often escalate to her drunkingly walking down the street, breaking things and falling over hurting herself.
All of this has resulted in my mum being the most stressed she has been in her life, she has lost significant weight and is suffering mentally, it has affected me as well but not too such an extent. The police have been called Atleast a dozen times and she has been hospitalised many times, resulting in her being put in mental wards, which she often uses to post on social media to gain attention. She never voluntarily stays long at these places and has even smashed her head against the wall to get released when it seems like she’s actually getting help.
The worst part is she is a manipulator that lies to get what she wants and will lie straight to anyones face and manipulate anyone she can to get out of getting help. When mum brings up getting help or looking for work so she can move out, my sister will either lie and maybe even pretend to get better to not get kicked out. This has happened Atleast 5 times and always ends in her back where she started on drugs and manipulating people.
We don’t know what to do now, and we’ve ran out of a lot of options, kicking her out would only result in her hurting herself and blaming us as far as I see. I’m just posting this i guess to see what our options are or some opinions, hopefully reddit can help us.
Specifically our question would be how do we help our sister to help herself?
hisimpendingbaldness t1_iuiskl4 wrote
You can't, sorry to say. She will only get better when she wants to and goes to rehab. Until then there isn't much you can do for her.
Obvious stuff, don't give her any money or rides to her friends. You can offer to pay for and take her to rehab but don't give her the money for her to pay for it. You give that to the rehab place yourself.