I’m a 24F and the older sister of an 8 year old sister. We don’t live together in fact I live an hour away. She lives with my mum and grandma and atm my brother (19M)
Today, while our mum was taking my brother to an appointment, my sister refused to get ready to go with them. Mum said she couldn’t wait and left her home with our grandma. Straight away my sister had a meltdown, later she called me crying and heavily breathing. She kept saying, “If mum doesn’t come home in 20 minutes, I’m going to kill myself. I mean it. I’ll really do it.” She repeated it over and over.
I stayed on the phone and tried to calm her down by talking about her pets, asking if she’d eaten, showing her old photos and trying to distract her through her iPad. Eventually, she settled enough to stop fully crying.
Our family has a history of domestic violence. Our mum is an alcoholic and occasional drug user. She’s not in treatment and has no plans to change. Our grandma, who was left to watch my sister today, clearly has undiagnosed or early dementia and our dad’s not in the picture.
I’ve already deleted YouTube off my sister’s iPad before because I worry about what she’s exposed to. She also sometimes hears things in the background when mum watches her shows. But still, this isn’t something a child should be saying.
She’s currently on a waitlist to see the school psychologist, but I don’t know what else I can do.
TLDR:
Today 8 year sister, who lives in a household with addiction and dementia, threatened to kill herself when left alone with our grandma. I was able to calm her down over the phone but I’m terrified and unsure how to help or protect her. What steps can I take next?
Comments
Not qualified to offer any official advice, but you’re on reddit so i guess you can’t expect any either.
Your sister is 8. I would hiiiighly doubt she has any concept of actual suicide- she’s likely mimicing and parroting what she’s seen other people do. On tv, movies, on youtube, or others fighting. She knows its a dramatic thing to say, to show strength behind her demands.. and it works! It gets some form of reaction/attention from people.. in this case, you.
I know she is your sister and you’re right to be concerned. However, you are not the parent and you should not feel the need to fix/correct her- that is on the parent. Your little sister is being very dramatic and using language she should not know- it’s a learned response. Let your mom and professionals deal with it.
You’ve done a lot already.. i would not suggest parentifying yourself by assuming responsibility for parenting your little sibling.
Call social services and tell them exactly what you’ve told us
This is very concerning. That must have been a very scary call to get. Well done for talking her through it. Your sister and family need outside support. Not sure where in the world you are but if you’re in the UK then social services would be a good place to start. If you know the GP practice she is listed with you could contact also them – while they can’t discuss your sister’s medical history with you, you can talk to them about your concerns regarding her and the family situation and ask them to check up on your sister and the family. Get yourself some support too.
Tell her if she is afraid of harming herself you’ll call the police and/or paramedics to help her. My kiddo is a couple years older and started making similar suicidal/self harm threats (stemming from a real place of anxiety) and we told him we have to take those threats seriously and if he did it again we’d have to take hi to the hospital. So the next time he did it, I took him to the ER which was actually pretty helpful. But the NEXT time (which happened months later) he made a self harm I told him if he was in imminent danger I’d call the police right then to help him, and he quickly backtracked.
Her threats need to be taken seriously for what’s underneath them — clearly some anxiety or depression or an undiagnosed neurodivergence. But they also need to understand that those threats will be taken as seriously as they should be taken.
Do you know if your sister is suspected or has a diagnosis for ADHD or something else that may cause impulsive reactions during strong emotions? Threats of suicide, while always should be taken seriously, but especially this young can be a hallmark of ADHD. I’ve seen in many many many times working in school. That as well as violent threats that are a little off (like a 4 year old telling someone he’s going to get a car and run a peer over because he wouldn’t give him the toy he wanted–I mean it is a threat but not a very likely to be acted on.) Unfortunately your sister’s reaction is complicated by the home environment and exposure to a lot of inappropriate things, and concerns about the caregivers in her life, so I think it’s good to be concerned.
While you’re waiting for services, it’s really hard. I think you did an amazing job of staying calm but also helping her regulate. It’s so hard to be long distance. I also understand wanting to be careful so that you maintain ties, if you’re worried your mom might cut you off if she thinks you reported something. I do think it’s probably a good idea to make a report though. You can ask to remain anonymous. There may be some cover because she is acting out at school, so your mom may assume any report was done by the school.