I am the oldest child (19F), and yesterday my 16M brother just told me he found our sister, 10F, crying in her room at 2 am. He said he saw 4 cuts on her forearm. She had claimed it was our cat’s fault, but ultimately said she had been cutting herself and that she had attempted to kill herself last year. He said that our parents have been nitpicky with her, always expecting perfection. Apparently, our dad has been yelling at her a lot, and our mom doesn’t respect her boundaries (room privacy, etc.). While I do live at home for university, I spend a lot of time in my room in the basement doing school work. According to my brother, my sister didn’t want to tell me because she didn’t want to worry me, and she knew I was busy. She also thought that since my brother and I were able to handle ourselves, she should be able to as well. I feel insanely guilty for never noticing. But I also have conflicting feelings about the entire situation.
Our parents are not perfect, but they do their best when it comes to raising their kids. They want us to strive for perfection in all extracurriculars and studies, so that we can have the opportunities they never had. And while yes, there is a lot of pressure to be successful, I know that our parents do it out of love for us. Among my siblings and me, my sister is on the more sensitive side, same like I was growing up. I eventually learnt to push through, and I know that my sister will too. I didn’t know that from her perspective, it was this bad because from what I see it all seemed normal to me. I don’t want to sound insensitive but I do think she needs to toughen up a bit, however, I understand this thought of mine is rooted in the way my parents treated me growing where they always told me to “toughen up”. My brother now full on thinks our parents are complete assholes and I feel like everything is crumbling apart around me. My sister doesn’t know I know, my parents are oblivious and I feel completely helpless. I don’t know what to do
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This child needs help, and needs to get into counseling ASAP.
Talk to your parents. It sounds like you are not confident they will do anything. They may have a fear of counselors or something. Help they learn what they need. Or get help to convince them.
If they do not respond, call the school counselor or psychologist. You might even go in and talk to someone at the school yourself. Ask them for help and support.
School personnel are mandatory reporters. If a child is in danger of harm they must act. That likely means getting this kid some help. If that fails they will call CPS and force the help.
If she goes to counseling the worst that can happen is feeling to shy to talk about it. If she does not go, there are many things that are far worse. You want to know that you have done everything you can to get her some help.
You need to get her help immediately. I’m so sorry, OP. You and your entire family are in my thoughts while you guys navigate these rough waters.
This is a sad read. I hope you can get her the help she needs as soon as possible.
I’m also sorry you had such a rough upbringing. It can be really challenging to have parents with high expectations. I struggled with that as well.
The thing is though, no 10-year-old should be struggling with such big feelings simply due to their parents being a little strict. There is either more to the story or she has mental health problems. No 10-year-old should have to push through in order to learn to survive. This is a point of their life when they should feel safe and secure.
Please try to keep that in mind when you are balancing your own feelings against what she is currently experiencing.
Good luck to you all and I’m sorry again that this is happening.
So if your parents won’t do anything, I do still suggest telling them but of course you know your situation best, but if you need a different route does your sisters school have a couple counsellors on staff?
Idk if this is what you need, but this is what has happened in my experience where I’m from.
If you call tomorrow morning just before school starts, or better yet go in person and ask them to talk to your sister that day, tell them what you’ve written here.
You’re 16 and they’re the adult trained to handle situations like this, you do not need this all on your shoulders, if your parents won’t help other adults have jobs literally meant for this type of thing.
If they talk to your sister and she feels comfortable being honest about what she’s struggling with, they’re going to make a call to your parents, and most likely they’ll want to meet with them without your sister to tell them, and if your sister is feeling suicidal and she’s not getting help at home, school administrators will also likely be informed and in the meeting, where they’ll hand over resources to your parents and threaten to call MCFD (cps in the us) if they don’t actually get your sister help, where I am they even have therapists and psychologists that come to schools when a child isn’t getting help at home. They also obviously check in with the child individually to make sure they’re getting help, and if they aren’t then the ministry intervenes. They don’t remove the child, but it’s more like ‘this is your last chance to get your child help before we’re bringing you to court for neglect and you’ll be forced or they’ll be removed.’
Idk how it works where you are, but I’m sure there’s some sort of system in place similar to the one I’ve described. I had ocd and ptsd growing up, and I got a lot of help from my schools counsellors, they helped me identify abuse and neglect, and feel comfortable asking for help. And I did get help, I was placed in foster care but that was something I wanted, and my mom was a lot worse than what you’ve described your parents as, so that probably won’t happen. But if your sister can’t get help at home, and your parents don’t seem to care, go to her school and see if they can help.
Family counselling might also help.