Help me find some peace with my extremely mentally ill family (depression/codependency/addiction)

My (30M) mother (61F) has been chronically depressed her whole life. She takes a ton of medication and is best friends with her psychiatrist (60’s F). We’ve talked at length about their inappropriate and unethical relationship but it doesn’t change anything. She still hangs out with her psychiatrist platonically all while getting psychotherapy and prescriptions from her. I’ve met the psychiatrist on several occasions and it seems like she’s also very unwell and heavily medicated.

That aside, I have one, extremely mentally unwell brother who is 34 and uses intravenously (into his neck because all other veins collapsed) car-fentanyl (sp?), sells it, commits other crimes (charged for 3 different crimes in the past 2 months), is homeless, and has been this way along with being totally dependant on my mother since he was 14. He’s been to every rehab, been to jail, in the shelters, etc. and refuses any help because he has an enormous chip on his shoulder about the “system”.

My mom is codependent and even though he continues robbing her, and most recently (last week) stole another $2k from her bank account plus $400 cash from her dresser drawer, she does nothing but continues to feed him, give him money, and let him in her apartment.

He is not allowed on the property of her apartment as he disturbed the staff there and got a “no trespass” order yet my mom is secretly housing him there against this. I also work for the property management company so it makes it extra stressful knowing she is breaking the law in her apartment against my employers orders - or however you wanna put it. I work in the department that issued her the “no trespass” order and when that shit went down, my employer did their best to keep me shielded from it but it still got to me. Knowing she’s risking her housing and putting my job in an incredibly uncomfortable position, makes it very very difficult for me to stay completely removed and calm.

She also can’t work due to her mental and physical health and is relying on very little savings to get by so if she does get caught having my brother on the property and is evicted, I will have to house her in my 2 bedroom apartment with my toddler.

I stopped talking to my brother because of his abuse towards my mother a few years back but things are getting worse and my relationship with my mom is totally strained even though I’ve gone to counselling to help me with creating healthy boundaries with her.

Lately, the stress of my brother is causing her to tell me more often that she is either going to die, wants to die, or that she needs to be hospitalized. She’s said things like that since I can remember in childhood, has attempted suicide in front of my brother and me before, and has been hospitalized twice for her mental illness’. I am always supportive when she says these things to me and offer to drop everything to take her to get help but it never goes that far.

I don’t feel like I can handle the stress of having this shell of a mother in my life anymore, as selfish as it sounds. All our relationship has amounted to is her talking about how she’s going to die because of xyz illness or because of my brother yet she can’t break the cycle no matter what I say or do. I am completely helpless.

I have not abandoned my mother because she and my brother are my only blood relatives and they are both so incredibly sick that I feel obligated to stay close by in case something happens but this is starting to get the best of me. Any advice is welcome.

Tl;dr chronically mentally ill mother can’t break her codependency with my mentally ill brother even though it’s killing her. It has been like watching my family slowly die in front of me the past 20 years and all my relationship with my mother is about is how it’s killing her and how she wants to die. Don’t know where to go from here.

Submitted November 23, 2019 at 11:31PM

My (30M) mother (61F) has been chronically depressed her whole life. She takes a ton of medication and is best friends with her psychiatrist (60’s F). We’ve talked at length about their inappropriate and unethical relationship but it doesn’t change anything. She still hangs out with her psychiatrist platonically all while getting psychotherapy and prescriptions from her. I’ve met the psychiatrist on several occasions and it seems like she’s also very unwell and heavily medicated.That aside, I have one, extremely mentally unwell brother who is 34 and uses intravenously (into his neck because all other veins collapsed) car-fentanyl (sp?), sells it, commits other crimes (charged for 3 different crimes in the past 2 months), is homeless, and has been this way along with being totally dependant on my mother since he was 14. He’s been to every rehab, been to jail, in the shelters, etc. and refuses any help because he has an enormous chip on his shoulder about the “system”.My mom is codependent and even though he continues robbing her, and most recently (last week) stole another $2k from her bank account plus $400 cash from her dresser drawer, she does nothing but continues to feed him, give him money, and let him in her apartment.He is not allowed on the property of her apartment as he disturbed the staff there and got a “no trespass” order yet my mom is secretly housing him there against this. I also work for the property management company so it makes it extra stressful knowing she is breaking the law in her apartment against my employers orders - or however you wanna put it. I work in the department that issued her the “no trespass” order and when that shit went down, my employer did their best to keep me shielded from it but it still got to me. Knowing she’s risking her housing and putting my job in an incredibly uncomfortable position, makes it very very difficult for me to stay completely removed and calm.She also can’t work due to her mental and physical health and is relying on very little savings to get by so if she does get caught having my brother on the property and is evicted, I will have to house her in my 2 bedroom apartment with my toddler.I stopped talking to my brother because of his abuse towards my mother a few years back but things are getting worse and my relationship with my mom is totally strained even though I’ve gone to counselling to help me with creating healthy boundaries with her.Lately, the stress of my brother is causing her to tell me more often that she is either going to die, wants to die, or that she needs to be hospitalized. She’s said things like that since I can remember in childhood, has attempted suicide in front of my brother and me before, and has been hospitalized twice for her mental illness’. I am always supportive when she says these things to me and offer to drop everything to take her to get help but it never goes that far.I don’t feel like I can handle the stress of having this shell of a mother in my life anymore, as selfish as it sounds. All our relationship has amounted to is her talking about how she’s going to die because of xyz illness or because of my brother yet she can’t break the cycle no matter what I say or do. I am completely helpless.I have not abandoned my mother because she and my brother are my only blood relatives and they are both so incredibly sick that I feel obligated to stay close by in case something happens but this is starting to get the best of me. Any advice is welcome.Tl;dr chronically mentally ill mother can’t break her codependency with my mentally ill brother even though it’s killing her. It has been like watching my family slowly die in front of me the past 20 years and all my relationship with my mother is about is how it’s killing her and how she wants to die. Don’t know where to go from here.