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How can I help a sibling in an abusive situation?

  • Posted on August 19, 2010 at 8:18 pm

Please bare with me, it’s complicated….My financially depleted 55 year old sister needs help and won’t see it. She lives 4 hours away (one way) from me and the rest of her family so it isn’t like I can see her daily, though I speak to her daily on the phone. She has limited physical mobility due to an auto injury to her leg and a chronic illness. She walks unsteadily on a cane and many days cannot even get out of bed. Her doctor has her on some very strong pain medications long term. While I don’t doubt that she needs them for her pain, I do worry that it is easier to just take the meds than to try and become more mobile and work through the pain to keep what mobility she has. However, that’s not the most pressing issue.
The real issue is the physical, verbal and emotional abuse that she suffers at the hands of her 33 year old homeless daughter who has moved back in with her. My sister is married and her husband lives with them. But when the abuse (and verbal stuff as well) starts, he is usually powerless over my niece. My niece is very strong physically and very quick tempered. My brother in law has scars from past altercations with her and is reluctant to get in between the flying fists. Compounding this issue is my niece’s alcoholic binges and drug use. More times than I can count she has stolen my sister’s pain meds for her own use. Mostly Lorcets and the like.
Now for the 4th time in a span of 6 months, my niece has viciously physically attacked my sister in a fit of anger. The last 2 times she has beaten her to the point of unconsciousness. Every time it has been after a drinking binge (and some form of drug use). No one can stop her once my niece starts and no one wants to call the police because they know they’ll get evicted.
Each and every time the day after, my niece denies it happened the way that my sister says it happened and that my sister caused her injuries to her own self, even though witnesses to the events say otherwise. When my nephew had the actual nerve to tell his sister that she was guilty of her brutality, she intimidated him to the point that he left his mother’s house and has cut off all communication with her or my niece out of what I suspect is fear.
I have begged my sister to make my niece leave and seek help, but there is always an excuse why she can’t. I have begged my sister to come stay with me, but she won’t leave because she fears what would happen if she leaves her home. Her husband is pretty much no help in this and has his own drinking issues.
Now for the kicker in all this, my niece who has 2 small children ages 5 & 6 who live with their dad after she abandoned them as infants to live the party life. He has full custodial rights but allows her to get them on the weekends. He believes that the children need their mother in their lives. But from my perspective, they are in grave danger of having their mother turn that uncontrolled rage on them. As it is now when they are there at my sister’s home, my sister has taken the physical abuse, but they (according to my sister) have only gotten the verbal abuse.
If my niece is even there and not leaving them with my sister while she is out “partying”, her way of parenting is to stick them in front of a TV the entire time, throw some fast food at them and put them to bed as soon as she possibly can force them down. The entire time she is either on the phone, on the computer or both, drinking alcoholic beverages and smoking in their presence, until the point of being passed out in the floor. My sister isn’t much better since all I ever hear her do is shout at them and threaten to “whip their butts”. It is all appalling!
My niece has recently gotten a job after being without one for almost 2 years. While my sister says she is doing well, I have my doubts. The first time a random drug test comes up, she’ll be out. Every time my sister tells her to leave, she manipulates her into feeling sorry for her “plight” and threatens that my sister will never see her grandkids again. This is one of the main reasons my sister won’t make her leave. She knows that if she kicks her out, then she will lose complete access to the children and lose any hope of ever getting custody of them again. She won’t go for treatment, or counseling, nor does my sister have any funds to pay for it or any way to force it. Nor will my sister seek any real professional counseling on how to deal with this.
I have advised my sister that she must think about what is in the best interest of herself and the children and that being in that situation is not what is best. I have considered calling the kids father myself to warn about what is going on, but I am not sure he’d be receptive of my input. I have reason to believe that my niece has made sure that I am painted as a liar and bad person just so he wouldn’t believe anything I’d have to say. Plus I fear that my crazy niece would be and do vindictive things to my sister for confiding in me, and to me or mi

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