Rethink siblings

When my 89-year-old father died, in 2006, my life changed completely. He’d taken care of my older sister Barb, who had as yet undiagnosed schizophrenia, for over three decades. She had returned home at the age of 31, after living an independent, full and somewhat glamorous life.

It’s been a while now since there was any darkness weighing down the corners of my life. I’m enjoying the normal everyday aspects of university life, friendship and family visits, and I am flying high, feeling excited and intoxicated by a new relationship. I guess that because for the moment, it’s just me, it is only me that I see.

In my last post I told you it would get better - things had reached their worst for me and my sister following her latest hospital admission. I felt like it was important to be honest about how bad things could be but nothing stays the same for long, and thankfully we're all coming around.

It's summer time, and for a while now things have been really good. I just came back from Zante with my brother; we decided to go together. You know, it's odd how many people asked us why we had come on holiday together and not with our friends. People didn't understand why we would want to spend two weeks together on a party holiday.

Warning: This post discusses suicide and may trigger. Our blogger was going through a period of stress after her sister’s attempted suicide, and has since had time to recover, but she felt that sharing her feelings at the time and explaining in her next post how things have now improved might help others dealing with the same thing.