Christopher*, 32, noted the birthday of his grandfather immediately, with his brother, something is wrong. They had not seen each other for a couple of months. And without point and comma, the brother told the coffee of sleepless weeks and numerous projects that he is handling currently in the study. He will also stop to chatter as he sits without a direct interlocutor in a table and all other guests of a festival listening to the speech of the uncle.
“I immediately noticed that something was wrong,” recalls Christopher. At the end of the family party, he speaks to his brother and explains to him carefully, his concern. Not always it is so positive, but the brother is taking his concerns and goes after a few days in a clinic.
There, Christopher’s suspicions are confirmed: His brother is in the midst of a mania, the counterpart to Depression. He desperately needs professional help. Christopher saved him possibly from something worse.
Parents, children and siblings with suffering
A mental illness is almost always true also for the family. The parents, the children, and also the brothers and sisters. In the lives of people you often play a large role, sometimes the most important contact person, or – as Christopher – first responders in crises.
There are millions of brothers and sisters in Germany, but as a helper and Support, they are often overlooked. Clinics and therapy facilities, with conversation and offers of help almost exclusively to the mother and the father, rarely do you see the one with affected siblings. These definitely have the need for assistance.
“And yet in the middle” is one of the first studies that describes, in Germany, the Situation of siblings of the mentally Ill. The psychologist Rita Schmid of the University of Regensburg and their colleagues refer to siblings in the study from 2004 even as the “forgotten members”: “Therapeutic decisions are usually taken without your evaluation and opinion, although you know the disease and its disease course is often the longest,” write the study authors. Not least, such decisions would often have an impact on the lives of the healthy sibling.
Of handlers ignored
A study from Austria with the title “neglected injustice” confirmed the finding. While eight out of ten parents of schizophrenia Sufferers to invited groups for Relatives in a psychiatric hospital, received only four out of ten siblings this invitation. The siblings were a “subjective, highly impacted group”, which should be given more attention, said the study authors.
Also Reinhard Peukert, a Professor Emeritus and still a researcher in the field of community psychiatry, to strengthen the role of siblings. He knows the Problem from personal experience: As a young adult, his brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. For years, Peukert stand by his side and accompanied him. “There were a lot of sad and depressing experiences, yet, it was for me a huge profit, to be his brother,” said Peukert. The disease got his interests and even his choice of career influenced.
The brother took years later, the life. Until today, Peukert will not let go of the topic. He has accompanied decades of research projects that deal with the topic. In his investigations he reported siblings, not overlooked, sometimes only, but of the practitioners in clinics downright disrespected feel.
Also Christopher has never spoken with a therapist of his brother, although this was already several times in clinics. He would be quite willing to do so. He seems to be, although often only as a silent observer, but for the sick brother, he is an important support.
A healthy voice in the room
“To have the siblings in Treatment meetings, for all Parties,” says psychologist Thomas Bock, University hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf. The conversations were not as one might think of complicated, but easier. “Brothers and sisters, catalyze,” says Bock. “It has a healthy voice in the room, which makes it clear, what are the usual conflicts of family, and what is added by the disease.”
Between the siblings, the conversations show up in such a Family is also often valuable solidarity and agreement. Most Bock invites you to another talk, only the patient and his siblings: “These conversations are often based, and the relief – for both sides.”
The health researcher, Jacqueline Sin, of the University of London therefore goes a step further. She is convinced that an organized support of the siblings also helps the Affected, and therefore calls for a kind of psychological training for siblings.
Exhausted or depressed due to illness of the other
Reinhard Peukert want that sibling back to get. To this end, he founded a sibling network, the self-help forum also offers an Online. “We want to bring the experience of siblings is stronger to the Public and to the social consciousness,” he explains. More self-help groups are to emerge from the network, because so far, there are full of them nationwide, only a Hand.
Many of the affected siblings in need of urgent conversations and exchanges, as the disease of the other also brings its own mental Constitution begins to falter, as a further study of the Regensburg psychologist Rita Schmid revealed: Two out of three people suffer from such mental problems if the brother or the sister mentally ill. Many suffered from sleep disorders, exhausted, or depressed.
The reasons are many and varied: Depending on how intensive the relationship is, the companions lose a sibling, sometimes an important life. Are you afraid of the other, sometimes you feel ashamed or be angry. Many of the shock sits deep.
Three of the four mental disorders begin before the age of 25. Years of age, i.e. in Childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood. The siblings are often at a similar age, in which the effects of the disease expressed most strongly. Especially young siblings, explanations for what is happening with your brother or sister in need. Young children are looking for the debt. I was too forceful when you Play with the brother? I annoyed the nurse.
Older siblings feel, however, is often for a different reason guilty because they are healthy. Researchers speak of the so-called survival guilt because of this feeling that sometimes occurs when people survive accidents or disasters in which others have died. You may ask: Why my sister, why my brother, why not me?
Christopher was well-informed, as his brother fell ill, he had self-studied in psychology. The mental plight of his brother, he was able to recognize immediately and act correctly.
*Name changed by the editors