u/vitamin-rich

My (25F) sister (21F) has been dating this girl (21F) for 6 months

The partner has been nothing but nice to me. I could tell at first she might have anxious, shy tendencies but she’s a very sweet girl to me and the rest of my fam.

She will call my sister all hours of the night so she can be calmed down after a panic attack. She has apparently been institutionalised before, and recently went to the emergency room because of a suspected heart attack (chest pain, turned out to be anxiety). Any conversation they have by themselves seems to be around mental illness and I’ve heard this partner say previously that everyone is mentally “ill” and it’s just a matter of severity and type.

Ever since they met, my sister has increasingly referred to herself as having anxiety, depression, OCD, and ADHD in varying capacities. In no way am I doubting any of these. If she is going through something and she wants help, i want her to get help that she requires. I tell her she should get assessed by a professional to get help if she would want to explore treatment options. She adamantly refuses. I tell her you can suspect you have illnesses (of course, I get sometimes it’s these suspicions that lead to a diagnosis and I think it is a good skill to have to be able to recognise symptoms and listen to your body/mind when sometimes others might not) but I think it can be dangerous to believe you have an illness that is not assessed or diagnosed.

It seems like a case of self-diagnosis and maybe trying to align with herself with her partner, or a certain identity before having proof. Things like ADHD are more common these days and whether u believe that’s overdiagnosis or not, at the end of the day I feel like it can be harmful to self diagnose and make that your whole identity. It doesn’t help that my sister says all her friends have ADHD (not sure if they are diagnosed or medicated or not)

I’ve been too scared to tell her this because I’m wondering if I’m just too close minded to trust her and I don’t want to scare her away from trusting me.

Should I be worried? Am I right to encourage her to get a formal diagnosis/ professional’s opinion? Or am I just being an asshole. And if I’m right to be worried, how do I best go about this?

TLDR: should I be worried about my sister’s mental health declining due to her mentally ill partner?

Based in Sydney, Australia

Did my cert 3 last year and currently employed at a private path provider in Sydney. I really love the work itself, I do. It’s super rewarding and I could see myself in the industry long term…

Here’s the dilemma:

- It seems my company (and most other private path companies) do not allow much room for salary growth. I get something like a dollar increase in hourly wage after a year, then the next pay jump isn’t for 5 years
- I am in my 20s, am super motivated with a strong work ethic and while I have the energy I want to be constantly upskilling and making more money. It doesn’t feel like I’ve got much opportunity here at this company

My friends are in jobs where they’re basically guaranteed year to year pay increases for doing the same job (insurance, finance, nursing, etc) so it’s got me thinking

What are my options here for maybe lateral transfer within the company/ or should I look into other companies? Or maybe wait til I’ve got more experience to do that.

I’m also about to finish a science degree and maybe would be open to path lab careers but not sure where to start asking (without raising eyebrows haha)