Family Communication Case Study

The purpose of this paper is to show the communication climate between my two

family members.The two family members I am going to be doing my paper on is my

brother Carlos and my sister Alex. Carlos can be very supportive at most times, he can

also be clever, but he also tends to be a bit stubborn. If anybody needs help with

something, or they need a shoulder to cry on, Carlos will be there for them. He knows just

what to say and is able to make someone laugh when they don't even feel like smiling.

Alex is a very dependable person, she will not ever let you down and keeps her word

whenever she makes a promise to someone. The downside to all of this is that she stresses

so much over other people and puts them before herself which causes her to have metal

breakdowns every once in awhile. Carlos and Alex have only known each other for two

years; because two years ago, she was adopted into our family. A little after her sixteenth

birthday. The relationship between Carlos and Alex are stronger than one would think if

one of the siblings were adopted. They both get along better than Carlos and I ever did. I

personally can't really tell what made those two close in a matter of a few months, but I do

believe it was the fact that Carlos lived with our father when my parents got divorced

when I was 8 and I lived with my mother. Carlos and I weren't reunited until my our

mother got remarried and Carlos wanted to come live with our mother instead. Shortly

there after since our mother couldn't have children anymore, she decided to adopt Alex.

When she first came to live with us she didn't really talk to anyone except Carlos, since

they had both experienced a similar life prior to the adoption. If one didn't know any

better, they would probably think Carlos and Alex were faternal twins since they act so

much alike and they think so much alike as well. The two are just about inseperable. The

spend the majority of their day together until it is time to do homework and off to bed.

Alex had a performance in her theatre class a few months after she started going to

the same school I did. It was Romeo And Juliet. She had the lead of Juliet and she had

been practicing for months on her part. The only person out of all of family that really

spent time helping her practice her lines was Carlos. Alex was really freaked out come

opening night of the play. My mom,stepdad, and I kept telling her not to be nervous and

that she would be fine, Carlos kept telling her, go ahead and be nervous and to put all that

nervous energy into her part. This was also the time though that she was still a little iffy

with our family. It wasn't until than that she realized that Carlos was there to help her. She

had come to recognition to Carlos and his help.

Carlos had been in a bit of a depression for a little while before he graduated from

high school. All he did for weeks on end though was sit around the house and mope, he

didn't go out with his friends like he normally did, and he would hardly ever eat. At that

point he also started fighting with everybody in the house. Even the smallest thing would

set him off on a angry rampage to where he would throw things in his room and punch a

hole in the wall. It wasn't very pretty, at all. The entire family tried getting him to calm

down and out of his rut, but his wall that he had up just wouldn't budge. It wasn't until I

ended up in the hopsital after a seizure did he snap out of his mood for a little while. When

my stepdad, mom, Alex were sitting next to my bed in the room, Carlos came barging in

and started throwing all sorts of questions asking if I was ok and such. He even started

crying. Alex asked him what the matter was and why was he being so emotional. Carlos

told her that since I had been in the hospital so much prior to than and that he had seen me

have so many seizures lately, he felt helpless and was mad at himself that he couldn't do

anything to help or even stop my seizures. He went on to say that his friends had also been

giving him hell about the epileptic fits they saw me having at school. They thought it was

kind of funny that my body convulsed the way it did and didn't think of it as a big deal

since they saw me shrug it off like it was nothing. It had made him mad hearing that they

thought it was funny that I was having such horrible seizures. At that point Alex saw him

starting to heave heavier sobs and hugged him and just patted him on the back, and kept

telling him that everything was going to be alright. Alex had acknowledged Carlos feelings

and comforted the best that she could.

Alex had also sprialed down into a bit of a rut herself when she first came to live

with us. The entire family tried figuring out what was wrong with her so we could all

figure out how to help her. Her wall that was up though just wouldn't budge. We all heard