So to begin with, I’m the 20 year old son of parents who are currently struggling to cope with a very irrational, rebellious, mean 15 year old daughter (my sister) and I am asking on their behalf for advice. There are many parts to this story that make it so difficult to dealt with, and I will try to lay everything out so that you guys may try and help me help my parents through this.
I’ll start with my parents. My mother has been diagnosed with progressive bulbar palsy which is a motor neuron disease akin to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and has had it for approximately 8 years. She has lost a considerable amount of her ability to speak, eat, and move. Communicating with her is becoming very difficult, and she has also lost a lot of her vibrance and strength as a mother (she will forever be the best mother though). This has effectively made my dad the sole leader of the household, and has removed any sort of mother figure for my sisters. My dad is military and has always been a great role model for me. He is the strongest and most resilient man that I know, but this situation has taken such a toll on him that he has started taking antidepressants just to cope with everything that is going on. That is very unsettling for me. He also has not revealed that to my sisters.
Now to my sister. She is a middle child (15), with the youngest being 10 and the oldest being me (20). I’ll first outline her theft problems. She has been stealing things from people close to her since she was very young (~8) and it has remained unchanged since. It is usually little things like clothes or change, but occasionally she will steal high dollar items such as jewelry, technology, and straight up money. One of the most recent items that was stolen was an iPhone from one of her friend’s mothers. They tracked the phone back to our house using Find my iPhone, but then allowed her to keep it. My father has not allowed her to have a cell phone due to her not proving to him that he can trust her on social media and messaging. He was very upset that this mother had made a decision about his daughter for him and addressed this with the mother, but in the end still allowed her to keep the phone. (In comparison, I did not have a cell phone until I was 17 and I paid for it myself, that may not be relevant though) Eventually it was found that she was posting very mean things about our family on social media (mainly about visiting our grandparents for christmas) and it was found that her boyfriend is very into illegal drugs. After being approached about this, she cursed out me and my girlfriend for suggesting that her boyfriend used drugs (which was very apparent and was found to be 100% true) then proceeded to lash out at our entire family (including grandparents) while at our grandparents. The device was still not taken away. The device was finally told to be returned to the friend’s mother after a separate incident that I don’t remember. She has cracked the phone and has refused to pay the mother for the damages, and my father refuses to pay them as well as it isn’t his problem. This friend has since called my sister immature and unthankful, and needless to say they are no longer friends (this is actually another story, but it can be omitted). She has consistently stole money from my father, which he will approach her about and she will return, but she has told him that she feels no remorse or wrongdoing from stealing it.
Next is her complete lack of respect… for anyone, including herself. She refuses to show my father any respect at all, so their conversations are now limited arguments and talking in passing. My dad tries his hardest to maintain open communication as he realizes that it is very important if they want to beat this, but she will not engage him. She habitually disobeys any “orders” from my parents (be home on time, do chores, etc). This has been chalked up to being in the rebellious teenager phase, but it has been a 7 year phase and counting. She consistently takes advantage of my mother’s illness by getting anything she wants out of her. If she wants access to the computer, she bypasses all of the locks my dad and I have placed on their computer and the internet by having my mom log her into my parent’s computer (which has full permissions). She consistently bypasses my dad’s commands to stay home by asking my mother if she can leave without telling her that my father had said otherwise. She has destroyed their computer which I had given to them when I upgraded by smashing the keyboard up and scratching the screen (it’s a laptop). She spends 99% of her time in her room watching TV. She will purposely not show up for dinner, go straight to her room, then snack on junk food all night as “she doesn’t eat leftovers”. She has called my dad “stupid” and “dumb” multiple times and often tells him to “shut up”. She has come home on drugs and had a severe reaction causing her to lose her ability to walk and talk. These drugs were supplied by the aforementioned boyfriend. During this incident, she refused to let my father take her to the hospital, so he called the police. They arrived and informed my dad that in this situation she has no rights and he may physically remove her from the house and take her to the hospital. She spent two days in the hospital with my dad there the whole time. My dad then called the school with the names of the people that she was with when this happened, one of them was expelled, potentially opening the gap between them even more. She refuses to search for a job and claims the reasoning as poor social skills. Due to this, she is consistently request money from my parents. She also has no respect for me, and we have a horrible relationship that she shows no effort in wanting to fix. This makes it very hard for meet even want to attempt to repair any relationship with her, as I have to consistently watch her run over my parents as well.
Our house is based on Christian values, but these are not forced upon us. My parents are aware that I do not practice Christianity in my every day life and they are fine with that. But my sister sees them as oppressive people trying to force religion down her throat. She changes religions frequently and is currently practicing Wicca. My dad does not appreciate having Wiccan altars and pentagrams drawn around our house, but she continues to stoke the fire with this religion. She claims to actively practice this religion, but knows little more that what she reads about it on tumblr. Even through all of this, my dad still accepts it and lets her continue unabated. She does the same thing with her sexuality.
One of the most recent events that has really bothered my father is a camera that my younger sister had found and was looking through. It contained multiple nude photos of herself and videos of her and one of her female friends roleplaying cunnilingus. My dad has not said anything about this to her, and is afraid to confiscate the camera due to it effectively containing child pornography. He has brought this up the the friend’s parents and they will be discussing it with their child.
I have barely broke the surface about the true situation and status of my household, but this is just getting so long. If you want to ask about specifics, you can and I’ll probably have the answer since my father needs someone to confide in about all of these events, and I am that person. I really just want to help my family because right now my dad is just counting down the days until she is 18, literally it’s on a whiteboard on the refrigerator. He is lost and has no idea what to do. They are currently doing individual and family counseling, but so far it has been ineffective. There is a lot more to this story, but like I said, this is getting far too long.
TL;DR: Middle child sister is a thief, disrespectful, and rebellious. Mom has ALS. Dad is losing his mind. Need help.
Submitted June 08, 2015 at 09:44PM by turnbelt http://ift.tt/1MivaZD Parenting
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