In March, 2020, my brother had a psychotic mania. This was when corona had just started so we had to stay home. Throughout my life, my brother has always had a mental health issue I recognized but it was never validated until a year ago when my parents told me he was officially diagnosed by a psychiatrist. Up until then, there were only monthly panick attacks and suicidal attempts. I didnt think it could get worse….until it did.
On that day, those 3 torturous days, my parents and I were stuck at home with my brother going into his first psychotic mania. At first, my dad tried to control it. It didnt work. He began hallucinating, muttering to himself, having delusions, and before i knew it my brother was gone. When people say the ees are a window to your soul i guess its true because in those days i looked in my brothers eyes and saw nothing but insanity. I couldnt sleep at night hearing him mutter on about enlightment and the philisophical purpose of life. I couldnt watch hmi scribble algorithms anymore. I was shaking. Everytime i woke up i woke up shivering -as if i was naked in Alaska. Soon it escalalted more. He imagined that he was getting trillions of dollars and everyday that amount increased. He kept sending messages to a guy that didnt exist and out of mania, was so happy he could get rich while doing nothing. He threatened to want to kill my parents through shouts and screams. He was in his room drenched in his own sweat lying on the floor unable to gasp for air. I walk into the room to try to help and he takes my hand and put it to his neck to tell me “slit my throat i dont want to be alive anymore”. with that crazy look in his eyes i ball up and cry in my room with my dog. He was guilty for his actions one minute, the next he told us he loved us, the next, he said he hated us and finally he wanted to kill us. On the third day, during night, it reached its peak. He went into the kitchen and started talking to himself. With a knife in his hand he debated killing himself.
It was at that moment that i thought i no longer had a brother. I was alone forever. I prepared the funeral in my head and sobbed until i couldnt feel anymore. I escaped the insanity by going to the roof of my building. If it were not for that i woud have gone insane too. There was no reasoning with him. Reason was gone. His whole brain was fked up in that moment and i wondered how i hadnt shattered into pieces yet. My mom ended up having heart pulputations, gasping for air.
My dad finally tricked him into going to see the psychiatrist he loved but instead admitted him into the psychiatric hospital. It was days after that. The house was empty. I missed my brother. When i went to visit him in that hospital i thought i would see the brother i knew. Instead, he was still faded. The meds kept him groggy but i just wondered how this could be happening. I felt so alone.
Luckily, he got better in a week with all the meds. But i was still terrified at every moment that if he stopped taking a medicine we would return to hysteria. It is November, and still that fear haunts me. i dont want to love anymore becasue it means that there is something to lose. I dont want to be happy anymore because i feel like after all that has happened i dont deserve it and i dont want it. And guess what….my brother is trying to get better but his depression weighs him down. It is as if even though i got him back, he is not here to stay.