Expert: Crystal - 9/4/2008

Question
plesae help me this is a serious post.
my mother is a 38 year old house wife she has five kids i am the oldes one and i am leaving in 2 months to the marine corps. i dont want to leave my little brothers and sister in this broken home. My family looks perfect from the outside nice house nice cars but the inside of my house is ruined its filthy dirty theres trash everywhere my family is in horrible debt my mom pretty much just sits around now that all of us kids are older and my dad works 16 hours a day 6 days a week. all my mom does is yells at my dad he tied to manage her pain killer intake but when he doesnt give them to her she threatens him with divorce. shes always angry shes exremyly bipolar ive had to call the medics 3 times to come pick her up cause she starts convulsing. SHE denies denies that she has a problem. i tried to confront her but she threatend to kick me out of the house. she doctor hops and buys the pills online. PLease please if god could please send me something i dont know what to do. My family is broken in debt and miserable shes not the same old mother anymore and im scared she will hurt one of my sicbling or herself. and at the rate she intakes the meds im scared she will kill herself. but on days when she has no medication she just lays in bed please help me ill do anyhting to fix my family... the reaon i signed up for the marine corps wwas to get out of this but now i relize if i dont do something for my little brothers and sister no one will. but i dont want to put my mom in jail my family would shun me. please help me. please


Answer
Anthony,

This is a huge burden for you to bare. What does your dad say? Can you kids go stay with family or friends? You can't just turn the cheek and there is a possibility that the authorities know since she has been picked up by ambulance three times already. You need to go to your dad and tell him what you know and that there has to be a way to get her into treatment for it. She needs detox and inpatient therapy to change this and that is the only route you can take to save you, her and your family. You can only handle what you can handle. Go to your dad or another adult you can trust because your siblings are suffering too and maybe they just don't show it because they are scared. Treatment may just give you back your mom.