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Fiona's story

I was 4 years old when my older sister’s mental health problems started and it wouldn’t be until years later that she would finally receive a diagnosis of a personality disorder. Everyone had thought she was just a “naughty” child, but things escalated to the point that my 10-year-old sister seriously attacked my parents. 

Up until this point, no one had been involved, but social services finally started to pay attention. However, they mainly blamed my parents for her behaviour and their involvement didn’t seem to make anything improve.

At just 4 years old, I was observing something that didn’t make any sense to me at all and it was a very scary time. What I felt made it worse, was that my parents, in their need to protect me from what was going on, thought it would be better to act like nothing was happening; but being kept in the dark only added to my confusion and I didn’t have anything to explain my sister’s often aggressive behaviour. A few years later, and my parents couldn’t handle my sister themselves anymore and she was taken to a home. My understanding was completely stretched – why had she left? Why did she act this way? With this lack of understanding, I spent years struggling to form any sort of relationship with her, resenting her for the pain her problems had caused.

As for me, I started to have my own troubles at school, and badly bullied, I started to see a school counsellor. Things were so hard and I felt that I had to hide it from my parents as they would say I was messing up, trying to get attention and spilling the family secrets because we weren’t supposed to tell anyone about what was going on. All of this secrecy just made things worse.

My mother’s attention was  completely taken up with what was happening with my sister, and there was little time for me and my other siblings. I felt upset that I wasn’t getting any time with my mother and began to misbehave, because I saw this as the way my sister was getting all of her time. I didn’t know how else to get some of her attention for myself, but I would just get into more trouble and my actions only met with disapproval. These feelings of jealousy, guilt and sadness were very difficult to cope with and I later took another course of counselling to try and untangle all of these complicated emotions I had toward my family.

Looking back, I wish I’d known about my sister’s illness and why she was behaving in that way early on so that I could realise she was not a bad person, she was ill. It was when she was older and was able to control her aggressive side that I learnt through deep, frank conversations what she had been going through. It was only then that I got to know the woman inside. She told me she was scared of herself and what she was capable of doing. She was terrified of having children and passing on her problems. She was sorry for the hurt she had caused.

I was grateful that I had managed to start talking to my sister and understand how she had been feeling, but sadly, at 27 years old, she took an overdose and ended her life. I received the news with a mixed sensation of sadness and relief, because she could finally be free of the terrible pain she had been feeling.  When I reached my own 27th birthday, it felt so strange that I was carrying on, and to pass her final birthday and continue on felt strange and ever so sad that she had died so young.

Sometimes deaths bring families closer together, but her death pulled our family apart. All of us had felt the reverberations of her illness through our lives in different ways, whether father, mother, brother or sister and it had affected us all too in different ways. My brother  used self-harm and drink to try and deal with the feelings.  I got myself referred for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and with just 6 sessions, I never believed it could help as much as it did. I still have my bad days, but 3 years after the counselling, I’m generally ok. You can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but with time and learning, you can get there.

We all have things to cope with, but despite all of the negative feelings I have, it isn’t hate that I have toward my family, but love and that’s what makes it so hard. I’m looking to the future now and I have begun to come to terms with all that has happened in the past. People need understanding, knowledge and to know they are not alone. Mental illness can affect anyone and with time and talking I found out there was so much more to my sister than the demons that she wrestled with, and learning this meant I was able to see beyond her problems and really get to know my sister for the person she was.  

Coping with bereavement by suicide

It can be very distressing to cope with the loss of a brother or sister by suicide. Rethink Siblings have factsheets which looks at the support that is available to siblings and their families: