u/jane_anon

My earlier post about my sister is unfortunately relevant again. Almost exactly a month later to the day, my little sister (17) ran away from home again. We’re still looking for her, the police were involved as soon as possible. She’s likely downtown looking for drugs. I feel like I’m gonna throw up, like genuinely throw up. I don’t know what to do, but I guess there’s nothing I can do. She’s blocked my number and she still hasn’t spoken to me. I’m just so angry and so worried, anything would help. Thank you so much for the support on my last post.

Hi, I’m new to this subreddit, this is a new account just to stay anonymous. My little sister (F17) and her addiction is starting to spiral out of control, and I (F20) need some community and support to manage my stress around it. TLDR at the end. Sorry for the long post, I just need to get this off my chest.

For some background, my sister and I have had a rocky relationship. She was diagnosed with low needs autism at a young age, and struggled with behavioural issues and empathy. She would physically hurt me for a lot of our childhood, and I never fought back because I wanted to be the good older sister. Things calmed down when she was around 10 and I was 13, and when I had mental health issues, was also diagnosed with autism, and a SH addiction in my mid teens, she never judged me.

When I moved out for university, things changed. I came back for the summer after my first year, and she started to act very resentful towards me. It got to the point where she started ignoring me, she would pretend I wasn’t in the room, and would ignore any attempts to talk to her. This lasted for two years, up until May of this year. She began talking to me again, and opened up about her struggles with substances, but she was very casual about it. She doesn’t know that she has a problem, but it is very apparent. We were okay until July 6th when she ran away from home to her friend/dealer’s house.

When she tried to step out of her room with her bag, intending to run away, I tried to stop her. I was pleading with her to just stay at home, that I won’t judge her use, and I just want to make sure she stays safe, and she started screaming at me at the top of her lungs. I couldn’t tell if she was high or not, but I’ve never seen her like this. She started shoving and hitting me, screaming at me to get out of her way. I got really scared and grabbed her arm in self defence, keeping it down so that she wouldn’t hurt me more. She began to scream at me to “get my hands off of her”, and when I let her go, she shoved me again so hard I almost fell down the stairs.

She ran out and I called my parents, who spent seven hours driving around and looking for her. We eventually found her at her friend’s house, and she agreed to come home in the morning. Ever since then, she’s gone back to ignoring me. I can’t overstate how much she acts like she hates my guts. I swear it’s because she thinks I put my hands on her. It feels so unfair, because I was just scared (I have PTSD from prior abuse) and I just held her arm down. She was the one who was assaulting me, and now she is mad at me for who knows what.

I just want to be a good big sister and keep her safe, but the drugs are changing her in such a scary way. Now she hates me and won’t even acknowledge me, and she’s only getting worse. My parents are trying to get her into rehab, but where we are located, we can’t bring her without her consent. I just want to have a relationship with her. I don’t want to cut my sister out of my life, even though she’s clearly trying to cut me out of hers. I’m so scared that she’s just slowly (or quickly) killing herself with the drugs, but I feel so helpless.

My mom tells me that I’m making it about myself and am acting selfish when I cried over my sister running away. Our whole family is just being torn apart.

So TLDR; my sister blames me for her problems despite her assaulting me, and I just don’t know how to help her.

Any advice, or just connection is greatly appreciated, I just feel so alone.