Help request: venting out, comfort in

[labelleizzy]

My sister-in-law is in a pretty strapped situation right now. She's got a month old brand new baby. The father of the baby has turned out to be a pretty s***** person: untrustworthy and abusive enough that the cops actually put a Stay Away order on him. Her 18-year-old has moved out, and is now sending her abusive messages. She has depression and other issues that have put her on disability. And she's overwhelmed. Because of course her landlord wants to sell the house she's been living in, now in this covid-drenched pandemic hellscape.

*Measured breathing*

I want to help and don't know really sure how to. I know what I would do in her shoes. I actually DID a lot of the things I would recommend to her, when I was her age.

Our life experience is really similar on multiple axes, main difference being I didn't have kids (thank goodness, and no offense to anyone with kids or who wanted kids) Life is easier without having to wrangle, raise and educate kids... And my body being what it is, I'm even more glad that I didn't.

Okay.

Here's where I say the things I can't say elsewhere, and especially not to her.
I feel like she's been bullied all her life. By her birth family, by men she hoped to build a life with. Her mom was bullied by HER birth family. Her mom is COWED. Her dad is an *asshole*, to put it bluntly. (Yes it's personal. No I'm not getting into it, except to say that he fucked up, so it's on him to fix it, it's emphatically Not My Job.)

I wanna help. But I just fuckin' feel sorry for her (and for her mom) and wanna wave my magic wand and Fix It All. But I know she has to build it herself.

My focus is to A) hold my own boundaries. B) encourage her to make conscious choices. C) encourage her to discover healthy boundaries and healthy relationships and seek them out.

I haven't priested like this in a long time. I'm out of the habit (haha) and I'm going to need to practice balancing my own needs and not overextending myself, with offering the kinds of help I can afford to offer.

Not sure what I'm asking for, except maybe support and validation of any of y'all have worked before with women struggling in an abusive situation who feel overwhelmed and trapped.

At least she's not living with the current asshole. But she was still trying to propitiate him with her baby name choice, so ... *Throws hands up in the air*

Comments

[noelfigart]

O.M.G.

I so very much see you and empathize with you.

[armiphlage]

*hugs*

[labelleizzy]

Thanks, I needed that.

[neuro42]

*offers hugs*

That sounds like a terrible situation with no easy solutions and that sucks a lot.

[labelleizzy]

Yeah. All the solutions are going to be a lot of work.

But she sent us baby photos today not her and the little girl, and I think she's chosen the name finally!

Good news of any kind helps fight worry and/or despair.

[tarasacon]

So much sympathy. *hugs* I’m here to listen whenever you need to vent out.

I put in a lot of work on my boundaries, especially culling my codependent/helper issues, only to have some of them weaken and scramble as various life things happened the last few years. Something I have used recently to help me rein in my impulse/need to Help And Fix is to measure my own spoons and budget my needs and wants. Fairly often this is enough to make it clear to me that I don’t have room for fixing other people’s challenges, not without costing myself steps towards keeping my life on a good trajectory. Ymmv.

as a former nanny & as someone who has their own brain weasels...

[tarasacon]

New parents always need easy food, diapers, help cleaning, and short breaks from the baby so they can shower. Depressed new parents might also benefit from a set person or persons checking in and encouraging/ coaxing basic self and baby care, but only if the check-ins aren’t stimulating her brain weasels into avoidance/ dysfunction. I don’t know if she’s self-aware enough to tell you whether checking in helps or hinders.

Postnatal depression is a very very real thing, especially if she’s already navigating depression and has had to alter her meds for pregnancy and nursing, and especially with abuse and unstable housing in the mix. Does she have a therapist she trusts? Is the therapist available for status checks a few days a week? This is my #1 concern.

Depression/overwhelm can also make it really hard to figure out what “help” would look like. She might benefit from you, or someone, making a list of possible actions people can take. I’m thinking things like:

-let me ramble an out of order to-do list, then order it for me
-help me list what I need from a new place to live, and write it down for me
-using above list, cull rental listings in my area and offer me 3 choices from them
-call rental place and make appointment for me to view the apartment
-make packing supplies appear
-drop off 2 meals a week
-help me make a grocery list so people can have groceries delivered
-keep me company by phone for an hour, X days a week

Then when she gets the baffling question “What can I do to help?” she has a shortcut for answering.

I hope that these ideas offer a jumping off place for figuring out what you are reasonably able to offer.

re: abusive situation

[tarasacon]

I also strongly recommend calling an abuse hotline and asking for help educating yourself about steps she can take, where the dangers are, and what behaviors you can expect from her. This will help you set reasonable expectations, and know which advice for her is actually good advice and what she might not be able to hear.

It can be really bloody hard to see how bad abuse has gotten from inside a situation, and even harder to translate that into “...and so contact should be severed.” (Speaking from personal experience, minus the baby, but with my housing being entangled with his family.)

He’s her baby daddy. Wise or not, she cared enough for that to happen. Naming your baby is one of the things that parents usually do together. She was trying for that bit of “normal.”

[cinnamaldehyde]

That's a tough place for your sister-in-law to be in, and certainly anyone would be overwhelmed in her place.

And it's a tough place for you to be in. I so feel wanting to Fix It All for someone, and every praise for knowing even if you did, it wouldn't, because coming from within and being built yourself and all of those things you know need to happen to make it Really Better, through experience and wisdom.

Your focuses seem good, reasonable, and helpful for everyone involved. Also, venting out and comforting in is such a wonderful practice. I hope it's been helpful for you *hugs offered*

[cjsmith]

Oh wow, that is a big pile of a lot. I'm catching up sequentially & am hoping she's at least taking some positive steps. Enormous hugs to you -- keeping boundaries is so hard when someone's that overwhelmed and that stuck. Hugs, hugs, hugs.