A Frantic Appeal

Hi. I’m not a “battle weary parent.” But I am battle weary. I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I found this forum online and from what I have seen browsing through the threads, I think (or at least hope) someone here could help me or offer some advice.

I’d like to remain as anonymous as possible, but I am a girl and 18 years old and this is my story.

My cousins, both female, aged 20 and 16, have emotional and psychological problems that my aunt and uncle refuse to address or help.

It’s been going on for years and Cousin2, I’ll call her A, the 16 year old, would lie and manipulate everyone in the family: her parents, my parents, myself, and our grandmother being the most vulnerable to her lies. She would come to my house and paint Cousin1, called M, to be a horrible person. M had her issues with drugs and alcohol and outright defiance of her parents, but A would tell everyone lies to make it seem much worse. She would tell us M had gotten an abortion, or that she had drunk so much alcohol she miscarried some random guy’s baby, or that she smoked pot and snuck out at night, and that she had slept with a dozen guys, and because we thought she had no reason to lie, because we thought she was a victim, we believed her. She would tell us things that were nowhere near true in order to make us distrust and avoid her sister, M. She had us all in the palm of her hand as she played the sweet little innocent victim. A has to be at the center of everyone’s attention, has to be the one everyone pities and showeres with reassurances and praise.

Then things calmed down as M matured and grew out of her defiant stage. She now has a full time job as a nanny and is better than ever. She still lives at home.

A on the other hand, has fallen off the deep end. About a month ago, M called from Tennessee (she and my uncle were driving back home from a trip) and said A was home alone and wasn’t answering her phone. She asked if I would go pick her up and take her to my house until their mom got off work at 10pm. I went with my mother (who has terminal throat cancer) and my older brother (aged 21). What we found was horrific. All the doors were unlocked, the dogs were running loose, cigarette butts littered the house, half-empty cups of alcohol were everywhere, and the house reeked of marijuana. A was nowhere to be found. We searched the whole house. My mom calls M back and says A is gone. About 5 minutes later, A comes walking up the driveway with 4 boys, carrying a huge, nearly empty jug of rum. The boys run off as soon as they see us, but A breaks down and starts crying hysterically, saying we don’t know how hard it is to be her, how we don’t know what it’s like. She says her parents have sworn her to secrecy and she can’t tell my mother anything because her parents told her that all this drama with M has made my mother’s illness worse and that if A says anything, it will kill my mother. Mom says this isn’t true, but A becomes more hysterical to the point of screaming. She says her boyfriend and all those boys use her for sex and they’re the only people she has and the only people who understand.

She then tells us that her father beats her and she has the pictures to prove it. Mom immediately calls M and asks for help. Help comes in the form of my uncle’s sister-in-law, Mo. Mo arrives and hears A saying her dad beats her and that she can’t stay here anymore. A throws a lamp across the room and breaks it and attempts to break a glass-topped coffee table but is unsuccessful. A then begins to say “Why do you think I don’t like to be touched?” and hints that the abuse is sexual, but before she can confess to her father raping her, my aunt walks in calm as calm be with the mail, and watches as A raises her hand to strike my mother (who just got off a round of chemo and is terribly weak). A does not hit her, but Aunt does nothing, instead she watches with interest before going through the mail.

A bangs her phone against the wall and breaks her case, all the while yelling that she needs to leave, that her friends are waiting for her, that she might as well kill herself now and get it over with. She calls M and her father and shouts at her father that she knows he’s been cheating on her mother and things to that extent, calling him foul names and screaming that she hates him.

It is almost 11pm by this point and Aunt lets A leave the house and run of into the dark to meet up with the boys from before, even though she is drunk and hysterical and screaming. We learn later in the evening that she had taken twice her prescribed dosage of Xanax right before drinking and smoking. We leave shortly after, and I have not seen or spoken to A since. I don’t understand how she could behave like that and it scared me. I’ve known for a while that I can’t trust her, but she was so dangerous that night, so uncontrollable.

The accusations of her father beating her and sexually abusing her have been proven to be 100% false; the pictures of the bruises were downloaded from the internet or were pictures she took of her skateboard injuries. She lied about her own father abusing her.

Aunt and Uncle took her to a psychologist in a mental institution to have her evaluated, but nothing came of it. She’s begged to switch schools because she has no friends, but that’s because she uses her friends and then moves on to more, and she’s run out of them.

She is also a thief. I’m her cousin and she has stolen rings, necklaces, earrings, clothing, and many other things from me. She stole the ring my mother gave me for my 16[SUP]th[/SUP] birthday and then flaunted it in pictures on Facebook.

I’m leaving for college in a month and am worried about my cousins, my mother, and my family. It is suspected that Aunt has undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder and that A might have it, too. She’ll be depressed one day and then manic the next. I don’t know what to do. My mother has talked to them until her throat bleeds, but they won’t listen. My uncles parents staged an intervention two days ago, and as a result Aunt quit her job, came home drinking, and said they had to sell the house and would be homeless. A promptly took the bottle from her mother, took her keys and purse too and drove off in the car even though she only has a permit and no license. She came back hours later.

I don’t know what to do. There have been other episodes, but they are all very similar to the one I mentioned. They won’t get help. My aunt says nothing is wrong and if she does says she’ll get help, she never follows through. If she takes M or A to therapy, they lie and say whatever the therapist wants to hear. Aunt blames everyone but herself and refuses to get help for her daughters, or herself (and she desperately needs it). They come over to my house and stay until 2 or 3 in the morning all crying and begging for help, and when my parents try to help, when they make rules and give advice, my aunt and uncle don’t follow through. My parents keep wasting their time trying to help even though it’s obvious that my aunt and uncle don’t want or can’t accept help.

We can’t celebrate holidays as a family anymore because my other aunt and uncle and other two cousins won’t go anywhere near them. My graduation party was cancelled because my parents didn’t want to invite both sets of aunts and uncles because of the tension that it would cause and they didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. It felt like I was being punished for my cousins’ behavior.

I don’t know what to do and I need help before one of my cousins breaks apart the family for good, or one of them ends up dead. Please help me. Thanks in advance for and and all help you can offer me.

(I’m sorry if this is the wrong place to post this.)
 

JJJ

Active Member
The next time you witness you cousin doing all that drama including the suicide threats, raising her hand to someone, or breaking things, call 911 and tell them you have a pyschiatric emergency and you need police assistance to contain your cousin and transport to ER for an evaluation for an involuntary committment.

Since she is under 18, you could also call 1-800-422-4453 and report that your cousin is being abused/neglected -- not her allegations but that her mother is providing her with alcohol, allowing her to drive drunk without a license, and is not getting her treatment for her psychiatric issues. You can make that call anonymously.
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
Yes, it is time for someone to take a stand! Aunt and cousin both need help! Offer a shoulder to the other cousin, i bet you do not know even 10% of what she has endured.
 
Top