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