She's Not Crazy She's My Sister

Sorry to leave you hanging for so long about my mother’s hospital security task force. The simple truth is that in my family believe it or not I am not the crazy sister. I hardly ever mention her in my blogs out of respect for my mom.  I have one sister, she is older, she is also adopted and she is crazy. I use the word crazy because my sister isn’t a pathetic bag lady wearing a tinfoil crown crazy; my sister is an Anna Nicole Smith crazy. My sister is drag queen make up, maroon hair, clothes from the junior dept, chain smoking, over accessorized, techno colored tornado, crazy.  She doesn’t walk through the door she “arrives”.  The door swings open she strides in wearing 5 inch clunky heals, tight aqua colored jeans, purple fringed top that doesn’t cover her muffin top. She thrown her black garbage bags filled with laundry on my floor, her over sized hot pink fuzzy pocket book on my kitchen table and yells. “KIDS AUNTIE IS HERE! COME GIVE ME HUGS & KISSES!”

My sister can be hilarious, wonderful, and her life is always more interesting and than anything on TV. My sister mainly suffers from Bipolar disorder, with severe dual diagnoses that I will not share. A lot of people with Bi Polar live happy and calm lives.  My sister is not one of those people. A calm and peaceful life would bore her to the point of insanity (pardon my word usage). My sister is 44 years old and has been in and out of treatment since she was 16. By now she has been to every mental hospital, institution, program, or treatment center in the Metro West area and most of the ones on Cape Cod. 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Bipolar I will give you my quick explanation. People with Bipolar have a cyclical pattern of the highest-highs (mania) and the lowest lows (depression). With medication the patient’s moods can be easily stabilized. The problem for my sister is that once she is stabilized she thinks that she is cured and she stops taking her medication. Also I have learned from her that the mania is the best feeling in the world. She describes it as a constant state of euphoria will an unlimited amount of energy. I picture feeling manic as being at my goal weight, looking like Selma Hayak straight from the Oscars, being able to happily get all of my errands, cleanining, shopping, and completing all of my house projects, then going to the spa with the girls, coming home refreshed to a perfect meal waiting on the table along with 3 dozen roses from my husband and straight A report cards for my kids, and a night of passion with my husband for dessert. I can see how mania is fun, but sadly for my sister’s mania starts as a Coen bother’s movie and ends in a hospital emergency room.

My sister’s cycle is the same. She comes out of the hospital balanced happy and sane (as possible). She usually comes out of the hospital with an inappropriate loser-boy toy-cling on. If not she quickly finds one on the outside. Her boyfriends are always the same. Imagine a soap opera where the same character keeps being played by different actors.  This is my sister’s boyfriend. He is a high school educated alcoholic, drug addict, who lives in a group home of halfway house, who has no money and is too “idiotic” to get steady employment. He instantly becomes dependant on my sister for financial support and transportation (she has a trust fund and a car). He ends up being emotionally and physically abusive and my sister does everything in her power to hide his flaws from us.

My sister meets her dream man and we here how wonderful he is and about all of his great plans to turn his life around. Within the first or two they are living together and engaged with in 2 to 3 months. Side note: my sister has been engaged around 17 times; her first proposal was while she was still in high school. Only one proposal was from another woman and my sister has only received 3 engagement rings. After the engagement my sister starts getting agitated because my family doesn’t react in the way that she wants. But seriously after the 4^th or 5^th engagement we know that the relationship is going to burst into flames in a few months and all how many engagement parties does a person expect? We had opened our houses and hearts to a parade of loser idiots and we decided as a family to stop the charade and get real. My sister’s life is Groundhogs day over and over again we all know how the story plays out, even my kids know how the story plays out the sad part is that my sister doesn’t. They get engaged, she gets mad at us, and she starts to act peculiar like she is hiding something. Then she starts to ask for money, and finding herself in ridiculous situations and demand our help and support. For example Jerk X has a court appointment in Brocton, I was going to drive him there after I pack my meds with my case manager in Hyannis, but he took my car (with his suspended license) and now I think that he is in Providence RI with his cousin. I tried to call but he hung up on me. He sounded too drunk to drive anyway. I need you to come pick me up, take me to my appointment, go get my car and take him to court. I am not kidding.  When I refuse she screams profanities at me and hangs up.

The profane phone calls start to get more wild and frequent. This drama ends 3 ways. 1. She comes to admit that boyfriend is beating her up. Gets depressed and eventually gets talked into a hospital. 2. Boy friend dumps her and she tries to hurt herself and ends up in hospital. 3. She gets involved with police and gets put into hospital. She eventually gets out and starts again.

Right now she is in the hospital, she opted for number 3. Police involvement.  But not before she called my mother who was in theory dying in the hospital to threaten her life. Then my sister called the hospital security and informed them that she would be coming in to kill my mother. That part isn’t funny.