Sisters

The last year has been a challenging and worrying time for our family. It all started with a serious accident. After an evening of drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis, my brother Victor ell down a flight of stairs near his parents' house at around four o'clock in the morning. He only managed to drag himself home hours later. He had sustained multiple injuries, including a fractured vertebra and serious knee injuries. These required immediate surgery, and the subsequent rehabilitation period kept him in bed even longer. For my brother, who was always active and passionate about cycling, this time was particularly difficult.

When asked how the accident had happened, he initially said he couldn't remember. Later he said he hoped he hadn't done it on purpose, but he wasn't sure. After he was able to walk again, he stayed with friends in Rome for a few months and then came back. 

Then we spent a holiday together as a family – parents, siblings and the partner of a brother. It was the first time in months that I saw my brother for a longer period. He seemed distant and hardly spoke to us. He only opened up to me sometimes. 

One evening I found him crying in the garden. He said he felt like a stranger in his own family and no longer recognised the people who had raised him. He hadn't been able to sleep that first night. He told me that he had written a letter that he wanted to read to all of us, but was afraid that its contents would hurt us. In the end, he only read it to me. 

Among other things, it said that he hoped our parents had never poisoned his food because he always got sick when he was at home. I tried to reassure him and asked if he wouldn't want to seek professional help. But he said his friends and cannabis were his therapy. ‘Our parents would do better to seek help themselves,’ he said.

He was hardly ever seen at home, only coming home to sleep and otherwise constantly on the move. Our parents hardly saw him. When he recently wanted to travel to another city, we arranged to meet at the train station in my city because he had to change trains there. I noticed something was wrong as soon as I arrived at the station. He was wearing a hoodie and a cap pulled down over his face and just said, ‘Come on, we'll just go straight ahead, don't turn around.’ His gaze was strange.

When I asked when his train was leaving, he said he might take it tomorrow after all. I invited him to my place, and there he asked my partner if he could check his mobile phone because he thought it had been hacked, and he needed an untraceable SIM card. His behaviour was erratic, his thoughts seemed confused, and he trembled slightly.

I asked him if he wouldn't mind talking to a psychologist. He refused and argued that he would overburden the psychologist and only ‘break his sick shit’ with him. He just said it was quite normal for him to be confused because he was at a turning point in his life. He finally wanted to move out of the family home and be independent, but had not yet made it financially.

The situation continued to deteriorate and our parents finally convinced him to see a psychiatrist. After several appointments, it turned out that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. This diagnosis helped us to better understand many of his behaviours, even though it was very painful to accept. 

Unfortunately, he refused any further support and moved out of the family home. Since then, he has only sporadically contacted us and written that he is fine and wants to take care of himself. We hope that he will soon be ready to accept professional help. As a family, we want to show him that we are there for him without pressurizing him. It is important that he gets the time and space he needs to make independent decisions and gradually move in the right direction, even if that road may be a long one.