Hi Tessa

I saw an old post of yours from late last year about feeling stressed with so many mentally ill family members after googling ‘my whole family is mentally ill’.

I actually made an account just to respond to u. can relate a lot to what you’re going through and haven’t come across anyone else in a similar position.

First off I think you need to try hard to distance yourself from your family. Your Dad can and must cope with your mother who is his priority now that his kids are adults. It is not your job to shoulder everything, especially with your sisters. If you don’t take the drastic approach I am suggesting, you could end up seriously physically or mentally ill due to stress and won’t be your best self to attract the right life partner to start a new life with where u can avoid making the same mistakes and help any children u may have to develop tools to stave off mental illness as much as possible. your first duty is to make the most of your life.

I have a lot of mentally ill family members and the only relatively normal person is my Dad and of course my husband is totally normal. My sister-in-law killed herself, my brother wants to kill himself and is in and out of hospital and completely borderline, has anxiety and depression, is spoilt and dependant on parents and so strange and autistic he seems to be like an alien life form, mother is paralcoholic, anxious, histrionic narcissist, and mother-in-law has psychosis (rambles about past lives, sees supernatural activity, mixes up tenses and is somewhat autistic, highly dependant, limited empathy and delusional and depressive.)

To make matters worse, our parents were all raised in rich families with tonnes of servants where they were spoilt rotten in a foreign country and praised for having fair skin, but are now only middle class migrants in the western country we live in and struggle with severe entitlement, superiority/inferiority complex, maladjustment to western society, being narcissistic, spoilt, emotionally dysfunctional and as you can see from the 2 out of 4 kids being suicidal and unable to cope, both sets of parents severely lacking in parenting ability.

i have nobody to talk to because nobody can relate. Am pregnant and looking after a toddler but wonder about the future as everyone inn my family other than hubby is physically unable to do thinge due to age, stiffness, laziness, arthritis, depression, incompetence and selfishness.

They can’t even drive, except for my mum and mum in law but they only drive to their local shops and mum in law can’t even drive at night. They are both 60. They think driving is either scary or the job of servants and a huge imposition. My brother and father choose not to drive and have no licence.

I can’t believe my husband and I are the only well and healthy and independent people in the whole family but am grateful for our health.

If you ever need to chat, I’m here.