Hello feelinghelpless and thanks for posting,

I am sorry to learn about your brother and the effect his cancer is having on your family. I can appreciate how difficult this must be. 

First of all, with your mum, as she has said she is considering suicide, I think you need to be sure that she has told her GP or mental health team (assuming she is known to one) how she is feeling so they can assess the risk of her coming to harm and arrange more care and input as necessary. This is really important.

Without their permission health professionals can't freely discuss anyone's care with a relative, but relatives can always make their concerns known, so if you are in any doubt that your mum hasn't asked for help, you could contact her GP and/or mental health care team yourself. You can also direct your mum to information and services for people who are thinking about killing themselves.  See the NHS website at this link . Give your mum some contacts , for example the Samaritans , so she has somewhere to turn to if she feels desperate. 

I am sorry if this will add to the strain you are already under, but I think you need to take your mum's depression and what she has said about suicide seriously and let the health professionals assess her state of mind and intentions - they have had training and you haven't. Doing this may help to reduce some of the emotional burden you are carrying about what is going on.

I am not sure what your brother's doctors have said about his disease, it sounds like it is advanced, perhaps he has been told his treatment isn't working. If so, this is a dreadful situation to be in that many people and their families would struggle to cope with emotionally.  It might help to take a look at our information about mental health and cancer  at this link. 

Cancer can trigger a range of emotions, anger is quite common, and sometimes people do pass on how they are feeling and put it to the people around them, often their nearest and dearest. This is a very challenging thing for family members to cope with. I don't think there is a right or wrong way to deal with it and I don't think you are a bad person for resenting your brother's behaviour - your reaction sounds very human and understandable. All any of us can ever do in situations like this is our best. 

Life isn't fair, but we all have to play the hand we are dealt, sadly you can't change what has happened to your brother.  But you can and should look after yourself and I do think you need to arrange some support, perhaps some counselling. I am not sure if you have seen your GP about your depression in the past or accessed mental health services, but these are both options now and they should be able to help you to find out what is available locally.  

You have to look after yourself and can only be responsible for your own behaviour. You might want to reach out to your brother again, but try not to take any accusations that come your way personally and guard against getting upset about them. 

I hope that you and other members of your family are able to support each other and that you have friends you can reach out to as well. 

Please give us a ring if you would like to talk anything over,  our number is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and we are here from 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday.

Best wishes, 

Julia

Hi Julia. Thank you for your reply. 
My mum has been her GP and has started antidepressants and is seeking counselling now. I call her everyday to offer support and to assure her that she is a great mum. She has severe health problems of her own and I need to make sure that she is well supported also.

His cancer is untreatable now and I know that he is going through hell. I think about him 24/7. He wouldn't less us visit him in hospital and stopped us seeing him when he was discharged and is now upset that we didn't see him even though we kept pestering him to please let us visit. It's this situation where we all feel that we cannot do anything right or anything to help. 
We have all been shut out and every small thing has been blown way out of proportion, in our eyes atleast. 

It's difficult because we weren't extremely close beforehand and he is using this to say that we do not care about him which isn't the case at all. 
 

I've told myself many times that this is the hand he has been dealt. I'm also upset because he had symptoms for a year and didn't seek help. He could have spoken to me as I'm in the medical profession. It's such a huge shame. 
 

I have a very suppprtive husband who has been in a similar situation and I am on medication for my depression. If I'm hurting then I feel terrible and if I forget about it for a moment then I also feel terrible and ashamed about this. 
 

I know this will haunt my parents for how ever many years they have left and this breaks my heart. Even though I am devastated for my poor brother, it is actually my parents that I feel worse for as they will be left with this. Maybe that makes me a bad person.  I just hope that I can keep having a positive impact on how their feeling. 
 

Many thanks x

Hello and thanks for getting back to us,

I really don’t think anyone would say you are a bad person and I am sure you provide more support to your parents than you credit yourself for.

Please try not to be hard on yourself if your mind strays away from the turmoil of your family, getting a few moments of relief is no bad thing. Your life has to go on and I expect you have your own commitments and many demands on your time, it is ok to attend to them.

We don’t know what lies in the future, your parents may prove to be more resilient than you fear. Try not to think in terms of certainties about what lies ahead and see what unfolds.  

Don’t forget you can call us if you want to have a chat on Freephone 0808 800 4040 , we are here weekdays from 9-5.

Make sure you have enough support and be kind to yourself,

Julia