# my cousin is totally crazy ! please help me and her !!



## FoXS (Nov 4, 2009)

Hey folks,

today i shall tell you about my cousin. 
She is 35 years old, lives alone and she is really mad ! 
i am searching for help because the situation has become so extreme and i am overstrained.

She has been given away from my aunt when she was a baby and got adopted by a different family. 
When she grew up with her family, she developed borderline personality, and had to take heavy antidepressants. 
she always felt disowned by us, her real family, and her adopted family too. always lonely, angry and sad. 
when she was in the middle twenties, she found us and her real mother. 
she seemed to get better and moved to us and started a new life, even got a boyfriend.

but then her illness came again. she developed the typical signs of her borderline illness: 
- she wasnt able to keep stable relationships, always felt like being lied to
- when she could trust somebody, she really clinged on that person and called several times a day. 
- when she felt being forsaken, she terrorized us with letters and calls again and insulted us. 
- she started to do self-distructing actions.

we didnt have much contact to her then for several years. 
but since june, she keeps terrorizing me via email. 
she writes me about 30 emails a day, like every half an hour !!!

the problem is, that she developed extreme schizophrenia: 
- she hears voices which insult her for being too weak, too lazy, for having done something. 
- her voices are one old man and one woman. and the problem is: SHE DOES NOT BELIEVE THAT THE VOICES ARE ONLY IN HER HEAD.
- so she feels being hunted (persecution mania). she hears those people in her head describing what she is doing, so she feels like somebody is watching her every time. she is convinced that somebody is playing the voices for her off a tape or a record, somebody who has hidden a stereo in her room to make her hear it !
- when she is outside, she feels like she sees the same people and cars everywhere. when somebody looks at her, she gets the impression that this person is talking to her, she imagines those people talking to her or about her, and then she starts a fight with a stranger. sometimes she runs through the town, being in panic, crying. 
- she feels like people who are next to her talk about her, and those voices which she hears in her head insult them, and so she gets angry towards everybody. 
- when she writes me those hundreds of emails, she repeats the same sentences all the time ("they should prepare themselves for something... i know that they are trying to make me mad...") over and over again !

now PLEEEEEASE tell me what i shall do!! because 
- its really annoying and 
- at the same time, i am really sad for her, i want her to get better !

so what shall i do ? i know her address. 
shall i 
- visit her and have a look myself? or shall i better 
- go to the police or a psychiatrist, and tell anybody to pick on her? 
i mean, she really needs help. 
i tried to help her via email but it doesnt work, she is just getting worse and worse.

thanks for your answers !!


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## insaticiable (Feb 23, 2010)

FoXS said:


> Hey folks,
> 
> today i shall tell you about my cousin.
> She is 35 years old, lives alone and she is really mad !
> ...


Wow FoXS, I am really sad and disheartened to read all of this and to hear that you have found yourself in the middle of such a predicament. I also had to respond because I am a sufferer of Borderline Personality Disorder myself, and personally KNOW the devastation that it can cause the sufferer themselves, and to their loved ones. The good news is...is that BPD can be treated with a very effective form of therapy called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which was introduced by Marsha Linehan in 1991 for the treatment of people with this condition.

What I don't seem to understand is how your cousin went from dealing with Borderline Personality to extreme paranoid Schizophrenia. I've never heard of such a case, but I suppose it can exist. It sounds like your cousin is really deteriorating and needs help ASAP. I think the best thing you can do is NOT to go and visit her, as she will cling onto you like crazy, but instead try to seek help for her from a professional, whether it be through a psychiatrist or your local psychiatric hospital. I believe she needs to be hospitalized as an inpatient so that she can receive the best and upmost care, and also be monitored on a daily basis, at least until she stabilizes a little bit. This is a very difficult situation, and I can certainly sympathize with you. Is it possible that you can gather several family members and go and look for help for her? I feel like if you undertook such a responsibility on your own, that it would wear you down inevitably. If you can contact a psychiatrist in your area, and let them know what's going on, and ask for their immediate advice on what to do, that would be a huge step. I really wish you the best of luck FoXS, and please feel free to respond back to my post if you have any further questions or comments.


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## FoXS (Nov 4, 2009)

hey, sorry that i didnt answer before. i was thinking about it and read your answer every day several times. 
so i am really happy that you answered. : - )



insaticiable said:


> Is it possible that you can gather several family members and go and look for help for her? I feel like if you undertook such a responsibility on your own, that it would wear you down inevitably.


unfortunately, no. the sad thing is, she doesnt have contact to ther rest of the family. because they all say: its not worth to have contact with her, she is mad. the reason is, that she for example, when she had her issues and felt not important for us, she called my father's and my aunt's companies and told their bosses bad things about them. so they have avoided contact to my cousin, i am the only one she speaks to.


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## insaticiable (Feb 23, 2010)

FoXS said:


> unfortunately, no. the sad thing is, she doesnt have contact to ther rest of the family. because they all say: its not worth to have contact with her, she is mad. the reason is, that she for example, when she had her issues and felt not important for us, she called my father's and my aunt's companies and told their bosses bad things about them. so they have avoided contact to my cousin, i am the only one she speaks to.


I see. This is sad, but I can see where your family is coming from. Your cousin basically exploited your family, and they have a right to be upset or frustrated with her. I don't know if your cousin still exhibits BPD symptoms, but if she does, please, try to educate your family on this illness, and let them know that borderlines will do anything to avoid abandonment...so in a way, what she did was NOT intentional, it was part of her illness and a way for her to gain control over your family. To hold some kind of power over them. She is sick. They need to know that. If she does get committed to the hospital, your family will have to step in and begin to be present in her life, as a social support system is crucial. This is all after she becomes stable though, however.


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## insaticiable (Feb 23, 2010)

woops, sorry, posted twice.


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## FoXS (Nov 4, 2009)

hey insatiable, it got worse. my cousin wrote me another 50 emails and she told me that the person who owns her apartment has thrown her out for always fighting with the neighbors, and that she will have to live on the road now and that she wants to kill herself. what shall i do??


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