How do you grow up with a mentally ill brother?

What does it look like to grow up with a sibling and parent having a mental illness? Like me.

It started long before me when my parents were in high school in a suburb of Detroit, MI. They hated each other; however 20 years later met at a wedding and went out. They got married shortly later and not long after I came around. 14 months after I was born my brother came along as well. He was always a hyper child; I seemed very average in comparison. He was a bundle of energy, swinging from a telephone wire 10 feet off the ground at 3 years old. As I grew up, I was the one quietly witnessing everything from the sidelines. There were a lot of fights, sometimes I got into them for the attention, because my brother had certainly soaked up most of my parent's energy and attention.

When I was 10 things got so much worse. I was stabbed with a fork during a fight. My brother was sent away to a short term facility for the mentally ill. After receiving medications and counseling he was sent home, however nothing had changed. After blowing up one morning, he came after me with a 30lb huge sludge hammer and came within inches of smashing my skull in. He was sent to a different facility for the same amount of time. Again he was released after a change in meds and more counseling. I had a butcher knife held to my throat after being in another fight with him. The third time he was sent down state to a larger facility for over a year. My parents made the 3 hour drive to see him at least once a week, sometimes dragging me against my will.

After he was released from this facility things were never the same. He had been diagnosed with 4 things: Bipolar, Turrets, ADHD, and a rage disorder. During this time I had lost my grandma and family. I had been very much alone for about a year, I was 12 years old and trying to grow up. All the sudden I was being put back into the fights. Things are a bit of a blur because of my depression and suicide attempts. I was miserable being the loner at school, and miserable at home listening to the fights. Things were bad with my mother too. I was a hermit in my bedroom just waiting to escape.

During my senior year I got my driver's license and allowed to drive my dad's spare van. It was my first taste of freedom and happiness in a very long time. I started to come out of my depression and saw light at the end. I just wanted to graduate high school and get on with some sort of a life. I thought the best route to take was to do everything at once! I signed up for a community college and went part time; I worked part time, and partied part time. In hind sight, I'm glad I did it. I experienced a bit of everything, I got my own car. I stayed everywhere I could, but officially with my parents.