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19yr old teen pregnant out of control
I have raised my sister since she was 14 and now she is 19 and pregnant.. father is in jail. she has spent $25,000 and is broke. our parents died and i am her only family. she has a tramic brain injury, which basically means she shouldnt drink or do drugs, but she does. Her judgement is bad. She wont listen to me. she does not have a job and she dropped out of high school. She hangs out with random guys from online. (she once had a run in with a pimp) I dont want to kick her out, but i dont want to support her forever. But most of all i dont want her to think i approve and i dont want to help her kill her self. what should i do? I love her, but i am tired of this.
i work in law enforcement. im trying to have a family of my own.
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I agree with NinjaNeer.
You're enabling. Because she's incapable of doing anything but taking advantage.
If you could have her involuntarily committed, that would probably be your best bet. No idea if that's possible or if she'd be diagnosed with something that would let them keep her.
I also have to say something. You're in enforcement. A drug addled sister living at your place could tank your career under badly coincidental circumstances. As much as you obviously love your sister, your family and your life come before hers. It's no one's job to make her life work but hers, and maybe you should stop pulling her out of the hole and let her have the shovel she's so intent on using to dig herself deeper.
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Disclaimer: You probably won't like my advice.
First things first: you are an admirable person for taking charge like this. Your sister is so lucky to have you, and she should be appreciating what you have given her every day.
This will sound entirely counter-intuitive, but you are helping her kill herself. By not making her deal with the consequences of her actions, you are allowing her to act out. The best thing you could do for her right now is to kick her out of your house.
What? That sounds crazy! I know, I know. I've been through some rough stuff, and the only reason I got out of it as fast as I did was because my parents cut me off. The last few years, I've been dealing with mental health issues that have caused me to act in strange ways. I engaged in risky behaviours, I failed out of school, I got into debt. My parents could have stepped in, taken me home and supported me, sure. You know where I'd be if they had? The same place, if not worse. Because I was dropped on my butt and left to deal with the consequences (creditor calls, trying to support myself, losing contact with everyone) I had motivation to get out of the spiral I was in. I thank them every day for doing what they did. Now that things have improved, so long as I maintain a passing average in school, they are going to help me out with things again.
You need to do this to your sister. She needs to see what the consequences of doing drugs, sneaking around with strange men and not working are. She needs to see where her life is leading her. She needs to have a reason to change. If you could do drugs, not work, not go to therapy, get pregnant, and still come home to a nice house and loving family, would you change? No!
You've got to sit her down and tell her it's for her own good. She's not a child, and she's making very adult decisions. She needs to understand that with those decisions come consequences, and you're not going to be the one to deal with those anymore. Tell her that once she has proven to you that she's changed, you will help her out again, but not before then. Don't fall for "I promise I'll change!" or "I'm going to go get a job, I promise!". You've said yourself, she's a manipulative liar. You need to see results. You need to see her clean up. You need to see the clean drug tests, or her getting into therapy and benefiting from it.
You deserve to have a life. I understand that she's your sister and you love her and want to protect her, but your first priority should be your spouse and future children. She is at an age where she should be taking care of herself. It's wonderful that you want to help her, and you should, once she shows that she appreciates your help instead of throwing it back in your face.
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if theres any way that you could call someone and like take her away and give her hlep like rehab. she sounds like she really needs it make it sound like shes doing drugs and drinking and shes pregnant and wont stop she needs to trun around for this baby. if you know of anything that could do that do it.!
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Sit down and talk to her, Lay down some ground rules. Assuming you are the adult in this situation and the one who holds the responsibility in the house hold now would be a good time to let her know that she has a kid on the way. (mentally, Not physically) Remind her, She needs to start taking on responsibility as she is 19 years old and needs to start making her own decisions.
You are going to have to seriously sit her down, Explain to her that the road she is going down she isn't looking at jail time but she has a good chance of ending up dead if she doesn't start using her head. She is 19 years old, She has a kid on the way and the big one despite all the shit she put herself though and is doing...She STILL has a chance to fix it. I would recommend that she start seeing a psychiatrist and if she doesn't want to go then this is were you say "You need to go, You need to do this for you and your baby and if you don't want to help yourself then I am going to have no choice but to kick you out" It's brutal, It's to the point but if this is what you need to do, Then this is what you need to do to get her to go. If she does drugs and drink the first place I would be sending her is too rehab, This is a good place for people who drink and do drugs and there she has a chance to sober up. I'm not sure what computer she is using but if you HAVE too put password protection on it for set up the parental control and put a timer on the computer to how long she is allowed to use it. It's childish and you have to go that far but if that is what will help her learn then do it. She sounds like she has a lot of hard feelings bottled in, I would also recommend a therapist.
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Do you think your sister would be willingly ready to listen to you if you wanted to have a serious talk with her? If not, why not take her to a psychologist who can find ways to getting through to her if you cannot. This is a really tough decision having to watch out for her but it'll come to a point where you have helped as much as you can and she will have to make the decision for herself at one point. For now, try to get her as much help as you can. Hopefully, someone can break through to her. :)
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