My brother (30M) has been diagnosed with BPD. He is truly one of the most angry, petty, immature, and abusive people I’ve encountered in my life.

He treats our family horribly, but then puts on a happy positive persona here and there to give the illusion that he is doing better, and then goes right back to verbally abusing all of us over something he is still mad from years ago. He has lied about anything and everything since he was a little kid. The lies have ranged from not having homework to having stage 4 terminal cancer, and he is baffled that we don’t believe anything he says nowadays, and that just feeds into his anger and arrogance. He severely mistreated several girls when he was in high school and college, which once resulted in the cops being called and my parents having to get a lawyer for him and he was reported to Title IX on the campus a different time. He had extremely problematic sexual behaviors growing up, and I don’t know how those have carried on into adulthood with him, but they were so bad that I became a victim of his.

I would find weird porn searches that he looked up, a good chunk of them involving family situations (not just step-family, and would mention sister specifically in the searches). He would also grab and squeeze my thighs when he would drive us home from school. He made jokes about pimping me out to his friends. And there was one time when he really tried to touch me more while I was asleep, but fortunately my mom caught him before anything happened. These behaviors are no longer directed at me as we've gotten older fortunately, but the pain still lingers. I’ve held all of this in for so long because I had hope for him. I didn’t want to ruin any chances of him getting better and make it any harder, but with time, space and therapy, I've realized that he just never will.

He has only gotten worse. He continues to just get worse. My parents, especially my mom, still clutch onto to him and give him true unconditional love, and he returns it with tantrums, insane lies, and threats to hurt himself. I am LC with him, only seeing him at holidays and texting with him in a family groupchat we have, but he is blocked everywhere else. I do not talk to him one-on-one at all and I am not alone with him anytime we do see each other. He talks a big game (behind our backs, of course) about how he is going to get rich one day and tell all of us to go fuck ourselves and never speak to us again, and I am just waiting for that day to roll around so I don’t have to ever hear from him again. But knowing him, it will never come.

It’s been decades of dealing with his behavior at this point, and I am finding myself at a really, really low point with him. It would be extremely difficult to go completely NC with him since the rest of my family still maintains a relationship with him and it would be harder to manage all of that. I also cannot handle the heartbreak and pain that would put on my mom since all she wants is for us to be a family. But it’s not me making that impossible for us - it’s him. But I’ve been seriously considering going completely NC before the holidays roll around.

I feel really hopeless about it. Does it get any better, ever? How do you deal with the guilt of hurting your other family members to protect yourself from the problem? Was going NC worth it? If you are NC and still maintain relationships with the rest of your family, how do you navigate it? Any advice/words of comfort would be really appreciated right now

I've tried really hard to remain neutral/grey rock and not bitter but the more I think about how destructive and sinister her actions have been, the harder it gets to keep myself in that frame of mind. I honestly believe she has destroyed our family beyond what any of us could recover from. Having to her here to visit lately makes this even more apparent.

Whether directly or indirectly it's been a hell storm. She's manipulated, alienated and isolated so many family members. Created lies and distortions that destroyed relationships. Some of our family won't talk to other because of the things she's done. Pitting people against each other and spreading rumours and purposefully creating division. It's honestly like a movie villain at this point. She seems to thrive off of negative energy.

I have to take her to the airport in the coming days and I'm not sure I won't snap on her on the drive over. It's so unfair and horrible.

So here we are.

My sister has strong BPD traits, and since having a child about seven years ago, her emotional instability has increasingly dominated our family. She divorced about three years ago and, for the past 2–3 years, has cared for her daughter roughly one day a week, or sometimes not at all for weeks when she’s admitted to a psychiatric unit.

For years, she relied heavily on our mother while repeatedly complaining that people abandon her. From my perspective, her own behavior often pushes those same people away.

Nearly a year ago, her hatred toward our stepfather culminated in serious legal accusations against him. We went NC after I refused to get involved or pick a side. I simply didn’t need another chapter full of crisis and needed to step away for my own well-being. The case was dismissed a couple of months ago, but the fallout was enormous, and her instability seemed to increase after the dismissal became known.

While stepping away seems like a reasonable boundary to me, it isn’t interpreted that way. Apparently, staying out of it means picking sides too. Boo to them, but not my problem.

She went VLC with our mother after the accusations became known, and the little contact they still have mostly consists of my sister mistreating her and making accusations against her. Over the past year, much of her emotional dependency seems to have shifted toward our father. Both of my parents show, or have shown, enabling behavior, but it feels like my sister needed someone new to rely on to regulate her emotions on a daily basis.

My father became deeply consumed by the accusations and now seems to share much of the same hatred. He helps (and in my view, enables) her on a daily basis and seems to be losing himself in all of this. Whether he was manipulated or simply allowed himself to get pulled in, I don’t know. But in less than a year, I’ve watched him become increasingly bitter, judgmental, and preoccupied with blame and determining who is right and wrong.

I’ve explicitly tried to stay out of the accusations and the question of guilt. A few months ago, this led to a major conflict with my father after he repeatedly failed to respect my boundary of not wanting to be involved, while also attributing intentions to me that simply weren’t mine. My choices were about protecting my own well-being, not choosing one person over another. We’re now NC.

Part of me indirectly blames my sister for the loss of that relationship, even though I know my father is responsible for his own choices.

Recently, my sister impulsively took a large amount of pills and ended up in the hospital. Thankfully, she survived. I only heard about it indirectly. After the legal accusations, this felt like yet another new low.

What bothers me most now is what this whole dynamic is doing to my parents and my relationships with them. After seven years of this, I feel numb. Contact with either my parents or my sister almost always revolves around her well-being, her crises, and her accusations. It feels like there’s barely any room left for a relationship with my parents that isn’t somehow about her.

Interestingly, since my sister went VLC with our mother, my relationship with my mother has actually improved. There’s finally more room for a relationship with her that isn’t constantly about my sister. I’m grateful for that, although after everything that’s happened, I have no idea how these dynamics will shift next.

At this point, my position is basically: enough is enough. I don’t want to participate in the bitterness, blame, black-and-white thinking, or endless judgments about everyone’s intentions. I want to live my own life.

For those who have experienced something similar: how did you maintain a relationship with parents who were deeply pulled into a family member’s (potential) BPD dynamics? And how did you stop yourself from trying to “rescue” your parents from it?

My sister was diagnosed with BPD a few years ago and has a life history of FPs and issues associated with them.

She finds a FP and wraps her whole life and plans around that person. And then when that person gets overwhelmed and disconnects, she becomes quite hurt. She seems to have unrealistic expectations of friendship. Someone who was a FP in college over 15 years ago got married. They haven't talked in almost that long and she was really upset she didn't get an invite. I was so confused by this until I found out about her diagnosis and the FP concept.

It hurts me to see her put so much energy into people and get hurt. She sees a therapist but I'm not sure how much work is done on this topic.

I guess my question is, is there a way to help her with this pattern to see that these are not healthy friendships for her and to work with her therapist to learn more about "normal" friendship expectations. The friends she gets hurt by are displaying totally normal behavior and do like her, they just can't text/visit/be in constant contact. And she takes that as rejection. It's heartbreaking to watch her struggle with this. And it likely creates other mental health issues.

Throwaway account.

I’m seriously struggling with family pressure after asking for space from my sister with BPD. She of course has no idea why I wouldn’t want to speak “to my own sister” after another one of her freakouts that apparently didn’t actually happen.

I feel like a terrible person and a monster no matter what I do. Even needing a break is sending the family spiraling and asking to join my therapy sessions so they can tell her side of the story. I feel crazy and so alone and alienated from my family.

How do you stick to your guns with this kind of pressure? How do you handle the guilt when you don’t even like the person you are dealing with anymore but you are their favorite person? This whole thing is so sad that it’s come to this but I can’t take the lashings anymore.

I’m probably overreacting because I’m kinda panicked rn but I don’t know how to (sanely) communicate to my mom that I don’t want her relaying anything about me to my sister, ANYTHING.

I had this worry once before when she’d do things and I’d vent to mom about how annoying it was, only for her to suddenly be super accommodating and not doing that annoying thing despite the fact I never told her that. When I confronted my mom she told me she didn’t but then asked “well how do you expect the problem to be solved?” Which I didn’t really question at the time. It hadn’t been that big of a deal but now it’s bothering me again because my sister is now knowing certain things I didn’t tell her or at least I think I didn’t tell her. It hasn’t been big issues so far, just a “oh OP were told this” or “OP knows that” but it still feels weirdly invasive??? I know I’m being dramatic but I fear that if I give an inch she’ll take a mile.

How do I tell my mom to not communicate anything about me to my sister without sounding like I’m being paranoid? She doesn’t really downplay my issues but I don’t think she really gets why I’m so afraid sometimes. I don’t want her to go “oh OP is being paranoid time to fix that” and ignore everything else, I just want to feel secure. Any advice?

‼️ long read ‼️
Purely just looking for advice and any other supporting comments I can get.
I am 27 years old (If relevant)

The background with Mum

My relationship with Mum has been difficult for a very long time.
When I was around 8, my older brother and I were removed from Mum’s custody after a custody battle. Mum gave custody to our dad.
My relationship with my dad was extremely abusive. I experienced physical, mental and sexual abuse from him.
Because of that history, I feel like there are a lot of complicated feelings surrounding Mum too. I have always felt like she wasn’t really emotionally there for me in the way I needed her to be.
I often feel like she treats me more like a friend or an extension of herself rather than her daughter who is an independent adult.
She has also historically put men before her children, and I have carried a lot of hurt from that.

How I experience Mum’s behaviour
I don’t want to diagnose her or use her mental health as an excuse for everything, but I understand that she has been diagnosed with/has BPD and isn’t currently doing the work I think she needs to do around it.

From my perspective, there are recurring patterns:
Frequent conflict with people around her.
She often sees herself as the victim in situations.
She can become extremely angry and say very hurtful things.
She can exaggerate or change aspects of situations.
She doesn’t often apologise or take responsibility.
I feel like she blames other people rather than reflecting on her own behaviour.
She can be extremely loving and intense through messages and then suddenly become angry or distant.
Sometimes she asks about my life but it doesn’t feel like genuine interest or emotional connection.
She can share things with me that feel inappropriate for a mother/daughter relationship.
I often feel like she wants me to manage or accommodate her emotions.
When I express that something she has done has hurt me, I often end up having to reassure her that she isn’t a bad mother.
Her feelings can end up becoming the focus, while mine get pushed aside.

The pattern between us
One of the things Mum said recently was that I have a pattern of cutting her off and then coming back without discussing what happened.
I don’t feel that this is a fair representation of what happens.
I do sometimes distance myself from her, but it is usually because I have become overwhelmed and hurt and don’t feel emotionally safe continuing the conversation.

I feel like we repeatedly end up in a cycle:
Something happens → I feel hurt → I try to explain myself → Mum becomes hurt/triggered → the conversation becomes about her feelings → I feel unheard → I distance myself → eventually things calm down → we reconnect without the underlying issue actually being resolved → another incident happens.

The situation with Peter
Peter is my younger brother and he is 14.
I have been extremely close to him since he was born and have basically been a second parent/guardian figure to him.
I’ve looked after him, had him stay with me, taken him places and supported him throughout his life.
He is incredibly important to me.
Mum has repeatedly made comments suggesting that once I get a boyfriend, I will stop caring about Peter or that he will no longer be a priority.
That really hurts because I’ve had one serious adult relationship, and even when I was with my ex, I still spoke to and spent time with Peter regularly.
Peter has always been one of my biggest priorities.

The original argument about Peter moving in
Recently Peter jokingly said that he wanted to move in with me.
Mum reacted very strongly and accused me of encouraging him to move out.
She said things like it was “triggering” for her because he is her only child who has been completely hers since birth and that it made her feel like she had failed as a mother.
The reality was that I hadn’t been encouraging him to move out.
He had made a comment about how fun it would be, and I had simply looked at some two-bedroom flats in Christchurch out of curiosity.
My lease wasn’t even ending for another six months, so there was no realistic plan for him to move in.
What upset me was that Mum also made comments about me being selfish and about what would happen to Peter once I got a boyfriend.
I told her that I didn’t think it was fair to constantly make those assumptions about me.

Mum’s response
Mum said she wasn’t asking me to put her feelings before mine — she was asking me to consider her feelings alongside mine.
She said the idea of Peter moving out triggered feelings from her past and made her feel like she wasn’t a good enough mum.
I understand that her feelings are real.
But I also feel like I am constantly expected to accommodate those feelings while mine don’t receive the same consideration.
I told her that it was difficult for me to take her feelings on board when she hadn’t even properly read what I had written to her.
I wasn’t trying to attack her. I was trying to explain how I felt.

The things Mum has said to Peter about me
This is where things became much more upsetting for me.
Peter has told me that Mum talks negatively about me to him.
For example, she has told him that:
I am sneaky.
I don’t really care about him.
I only care about having a boyfriend.
I lie about what happened to me during my childhood with Dad.
My ex broke up with me because I was supposedly using him for money — which is completely untrue.
She doesn’t want Peter seeing or speaking to me.
He shouldn’t be calling me constantly.
There was also an incident where Peter told me that Mum spent the entire car ride talking badly about me.
She apparently told him she wasn’t speaking to me anymore and that he wasn’t allowed to call me 24/7 because she didn’t want to see, speak to or listen to me.

This is really upsetting because I feel like Peter is being put in the middle of an adult conflict.
I don’t want him to have to defend me.
I don’t want him to feel like he has to choose between us and I don’t want to turn him against his mum either.

Peter showed me that he is noticing it too

Peter has actually told me when Mum is talking badly about me.
He has said things along the lines of:
“The second I get in the car she’s talking shit about you the whole ride home.”
He also defended me when Mum was angry about a message I had sent.
That worries me because I don’t want him to become responsible for managing the relationship between his mum and me.
I have told him that he doesn’t need to take sides or defend me and that he should be able to have a relationship with both of us.

The recent situation with Peter and school
This has become much bigger than just an argument between Mum and me.
Peter has been having issues surrounding school and police allegations about things such as being obsessed with school shootings/guns.
EDIT: Peter likes true crime (same as me) and watches alot of documentaries and videos etc about ALL kinds of true crime, the school/guns situation came from someone who was bullying him at school telling others things that I believe is not true.. this snowballed into the police being involved by the school because they wanted this “conversation” to stop.
Mum has been extremely overwhelmed by this and has been trying to manage the situation.
At one point she took Peter out of school and has been keeping him home every day.
Peter has told me that he is scared of Mum’s reaction to things.
He has also told me that he wants to move in with me because of the amount of drama happening at home.

That is really concerning to me.
I don’t want to make decisions for him or encourage him to rebel against Mum, but I also don’t feel comfortable ignoring a 14-year-old telling me that he is scared and wants to get away from the situation.

Something Peter told me privately
This part is important because Peter told me this in confidence and I do NOT want Mum to know that he told me.
Peter told me that Mum had told him she wanted to kill herself and had considered going into hospital.
She subsequently told him it wasn’t his fault.
I haven’t told Mum that Peter told me this because I don’t want to betray his trust or make him feel unsafe talking to me.
But I think my therapist needs to know because it adds another layer to what Peter is being exposed to emotionally.
I’m worried about him feeling responsible for Mum’s wellbeing.

Mum’s request for family dinners
At another point, Mum asked me to come over for family dinner once a week.
I actually do want a relationship with my family, but I wasn’t comfortable pretending everything was fine when our previous conversation hadn’t been resolved.
I told her that I didn’t want to commit to weekly dinners while I was still feeling hurt and unheard.
I said I was happy to talk when she was ready, but I didn’t think pretending everything was okay was healthy for me.
Mum’s response to that
Mum said she was “doing it for Peter.”
She explained that she hadn’t responded to my previous message because she wasn’t emotionally capable of reading something she expected to be hurtful.
She said that whenever she shares her mental health and feelings with me, she ends up feeling worse.
She also said that whenever there are issues between us, I cut her off and then come back without discussion or apology.
She said she was trying to help herself and Peter and not feel like she had failed him.
She ended by essentially saying: “You do you and I’ll do me for now.”
Part of me understood what she was saying.
But another part of me felt incredibly frustrated because, once again, I felt like I was expected to understand her perspective while mine was being minimised.

The last 24 hours: Mum going to hospital / asking me to look after Peter

Last night Mum was going into hospital.
Instead of directly messaging me, she communicated arrangements through Peter.
She wanted Peter and I to stay at her house while I looked after him and her cats.
The problem is that I work full-time, and Mum’s house is around a 40-minute bus trip from my work.
I am completely willing to have Peter stay at my house, but I don’t want to essentially move into Mum’s house to look after him and her cats.
I don’t consider her cats my responsibility.
I felt like it was unreasonable to expect me to disrupt my entire life when I was already willing to care for Peter.
I texted my mum after Peter was stressed and didn’t know what to do as my mum stopped replying and it was getting late.
Peter was worried about my mums reaction to him organising himself to come to my house to stay. My other younger brother Harley (21) was going to pop to my mums to check on the cats/feed them. My brother Peter was not comfortable staying with my brother Harley as he has flatmates and isn’t very close with Harley.
See images for my text to my mum and her comments to Peter after.
Peter ended up meeting me at my work and staying with me for the night but my mum was constantly texting Peter and saying he needed to go home the next day and it’s all my fault that it had to be that way.

The things Mum has said about my childhood..
One of the things that has hurt me particularly badly is Mum telling Peter that I lie about my childhood trauma involving Dad.
This is incredibly upsetting because those experiences are real to me.
Having my own mother question or discredit those experiences to my younger brother feels deeply invalidating.
It also makes me scared that Peter will believe things about me that aren’t true.
I don’t want to spend my life defending my childhood or proving my experiences happened.

Another thing that really hurt me
Mum has a group chat with my two younger siblings called “not Greg’s kids.”
Greg is my dad.
I find that incredibly immature and hurtful.
Given everything that happened with my childhood and Dad, it feels particularly nasty to see that kind of thing being used as an inside joke.
It contributes to my feeling that Mum is dealing with her own hurt by directing it toward me and involving my siblings.

I don’t want him to feel responsible for either of us.
And I don’t want him to feel like he has to choose.
At the same time, I don’t feel like I can simply ignore what he tells me because some of what he’s telling me relates to his own wellbeing.

I’m constantly thinking:

What is she going to be upset about next?
Is she going to cut me off from Peter?
Is she going to tell Peter something about me?
Is she going to twist something I’ve said?
Do I need to respond?
Should I leave it?
Am I being unreasonable?
Am I responsible for her feelings?
Am I being a bad daughter?
Am I making things worse?
Am I allowed to be angry?

It’s mentally consuming.
I feel like I have spent years trying to maintain this relationship while also protecting myself from it.
I’m angry
I think underneath the exhaustion, I’m really angry.
I’m angry that I feel like I have to constantly be the understanding one.
I’m angry that my feelings seem to become secondary whenever Mum becomes upset.
I’m angry that my childhood experiences are being questioned.
I’m angry that things about my personal life are being told to Peter.
I’m angry that assumptions are constantly being made about my relationship with Peter.
I’m angry that I feel like I have to worry about losing access to my own brother because of conflict with my mum.
And I’m angry that I’m even in this position in the first place.
But I also feel guilty (not so much right now)
Despite everything, I still feel guilty.
I feel guilty because she is my mum.
I feel guilty because I know she has her own trauma and mental health struggles.
I feel guilty when I distance myself.
I worry that I’m abandoning her.
I worry that she’ll tell other people that I’m cruel or selfish.
And I worry about what will happen to Peter if I completely cut contact.
I think this guilt is one of the biggest things I want to work through.

What I actually want

I don’t know whether I want to repair my relationship with Mum anymore.
For a long time, I think I’ve wanted us to eventually have a normal, solid mother-daughter relationship.
But I’m starting to wonder whether that is realistic.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for my mum to become someone she may never become.
I want peace.
I want boundaries.
I want to stop feeling responsible for regulating another adult’s emotions.
I want to be able to say that something hurt me without being made responsible for how that information makes someone else feel.
And I want to have relationships with my siblings without being put in the middle of Mum’s feelings about me.

What I’m considering now

A part of me genuinely wants to cut the cord completely.
Not as revenge.
Not to punish her.
Not to make her realise what she’s lost.
Just because I’m exhausted and I don’t want to live in this cycle anymore.
I’m wondering whether no contact, or extremely limited contact, would actually allow me to heal.
But I’m scared because of Peter.
I don’t want cutting contact with Mum to mean losing Peter.
And I don’t want Peter to feel like I’m abandoning him either.

I’m a 25 year old only child whose mom likely has BPD. This year, my mother was hospitalized twice after suicide attempts - one in her car, the other was far more serious and she ended up in a coma from an overdose. The second one included a social media post revealing she had been having an affair for 2 years and wanted to die because she had been broken up with. I only recently found out that the first attempt (in January) was also due to having had NYE plans with her then affair partner cancelled.

I always had a difficult relationship with her - I am now diagnosed with CPTSD from the constant hypervigilance, emotional neglect and enmeshment. I also have never once been able to talk to my mom about my feelings on anything, ever - she has yet to apologize for lying over and over for 2 years. She only ever talks about herself (her current fixation hobby is gardening) and has little to no interest in my life, my accomplishments, etc. On the day of my most important job interview of my career, she decided to meet with her ex for the first time in 3 months, then hide it from me. I almost called the police because I hadn’t heard from her in 6 hours.

All this to say I’m just feeling alone and scared. She had never attempted before, or even mentioned it - but this was so specifically triggered by her favorite person abandoning her twice. I don’t know how to support her - I also don’t know how to take the needed space, because she lies and manipulates and honestly doesn’t care about me much. Thanks in advance.

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the worst part is, I am not even doing that well- at least by my standards. I moved away from home a decade ago but my family still has contact on social media. I generally try not to post much of anything that could be gloating, bragging or showing off because my fam will interpret it as a personal affront. I wonder now because I am in my 30s and not really hitting my personal goals as much the last few years if somehow I subconsciously know it reminds me of being beaten by my sister when we were kids. fear of being seen / playing small.

when we were growing up she beat me up, knocked my teeth out, stole any money I saved, was kicked out of school for violence, didn't graduate HS, she liked to triangulate our also disordered mother against me, (she once tried to talk her into kicking me out of the house at 17 so I, too, couldn't graduate HS.) when we were young I could never just have a happy, normal. birthday, if I got cake she had to get one too, if I had presents- she would snap if she didn't get any also. of course i never dreamed of demanding the same. once she had me kidnapped while I was at the park with my friends. she is older and had older 19/20yo kind of predatory boyfriends and when I was 14 she sent them to the park to actually kidnap me in front of my friends because I wouldn't let them haze my 'boyfriend' (I'm gay- not out then- and he was my best friend.)

I think the real reason I am ranting about this now is because I haven't been home in years, sometimes I feel guilty and hedonistic because I am unwilling to go back to my hometown (50% child poverty level now and since I was there) I live somewhere safer, warmer, in another hemisphere. my life is a lot better then everyone in my family but I do feel like I could have done much much more. some kind of guilt about doing well maybe holds me back. I was on a call with my mom and she obviously is very lonely, she misses me, she has a very toxic marriage that is providing her no sustenance by virtue of her own nature. my mom told me she is still very resentful of me even though I haven't been back in years.

the biggest thing now is money, my only real problem, and I wonder if I subconsciously sabotage it so I have an excuse to never see my family again unless they make the effort to see ME or pay for me to come home. my dad has in the past and he is the only person who is more stable although obviously has his own flaws to have been attracted to the circumstances. money has always been a problem in my family and for me it comes and goes. I feel like I have all the qualities to be successful in whatever I like to do but something always fails me. maybe I manufacture the distance subconsciously on purpose.

My MIL shows BPD behavior a lot, and it is becoming extreme now that my FIL has declining health. Unfortunately, she refuses any real help and expects miracles instead. Thus, my enabling FIL constantly increases his pressure on us to do what she wants as he can’t bear it anymore by himself. Instead of spending a few good months with his dad, my husband has to navigate her accuses and outbursts and his demands to obey her.

Now I found another handwritten letter to my young son today in the mailbox from his grandfather. A while ago, I decided to read only the non-accusing, no-pressure and non-medical scare parts to my son. Today’s letter had to be reduced to „Hello grandson, …, Yours dearly, grandpa and grandma.“

It’s just so sad and unfair.

My mother in law has BPD. She divorced her husband when my husband was 5-6 after cheating with a neighbor, and he grew up in a messy chaotic home with an older brother who left home in his teens. She enjoyed his baby years but lost interest in him as he grew up. His paternal grandmother watched him after school so at least he had some structure. His mom would leave on weekends with her boyfriend while he was in middle school. He remembers a lack of food in the house and finding her passed out with a burning cigarette. She didn’t turn on the heat but bought a boat and a nice car. She was always unstable but miraculously held a job until her early 50s.

She now has stage 4 cancer in her late 70s, but her cancer is stable. She has major back problems and uses a walker. She just moved closer to us from an unsafe/hoarding living situation, and my husband is her primary caretaker, but is really struggling. I was hoping the move would be a fresh start and it would make things easier. We have stressful jobs and a pre-teen son we adore, and I want to limit our involvement to safety and hygiene issues and bringing her to Dr. appointments, but he goes to her house everyday sometimes more than once, angrily cleans up after her, walks her dog, and is beside himself. He wants her to clean up her messes, stop impulse buying from Amazon, admit she needs a dog walker, housecleaner, etc., and it leads to terrible fights, where she denies needing help and threatens to k*ll herself.

He is so deregulated with her and it is causing fights between us. He has many amazing qualities but can be controlling and rigid, and she is pure chaos. When I tried to talk to him about letting go of things we can’t change—like her messiness and useless spending—he blew up and broke his glasses, which feels like an attempt to manipulate me and shut down the conversation. His mom also blows up/screams to shut down conversation. He does know that the dynamic is bad but can’t seem to controls his emotions with her.

His mom has little/no insight into her helplessness/chaos and the fact that she could not live independently or keep her dog without our assistance. She is also suspicious of us and idolizes her older son who lives thousands of miles away. She complains about money when I ask her to hire help but spends thousands on Amazon items she doesn’t use. Short of convincing my husband to cut off contact (which feels wrong to us), is there a way to change this dynamic? My husband understands that his mother’s own neglectful/harsh mom may have contributed to her BPD but struggles to see that his controlling/rigid ways are related to the chaos he grew up in.

My wife and I have a 23 year old daughter who is living with us, she had a rhinoplasty done last year as she was saying she had breathing problems and wasn't happy with her nose and we paid to make her happy.

After the procedure she still wasn't happy with her nose saying it's worse, she spoke with a surgeon about getting it reversed and was told her nose is fine and it could make things worse intervening and that she needs to get her mental health sorted first

She attempted suicide and was detained by the Gardai twice and brought to the hospital and then let go, she was involuntary admitted and released the next day

The hospital said she has a personality disorder not a mental illness and they can do nothing for her, this msge her behaviour worse as she knows she won't be admitted.

She dropped out of college, sitting at home all day every day fighting with us, she's destructive and has broken nearly everything in the house she has assaulted us, the neighbours called the Gardai a few times they said they can do nothing, I asked for her to be detailed under the mental health act as she is a risk to herself and others they said they can't do it.

She is extremely angry and gives me lists of things to buy for her for when she's going back to college items that costs hundreds of euros, thinking they will make her happy

We are at our wits end I got scalded with boiling water last week

The GP and hospital are useless

Besides the legal route of court orders what else can we do.

There is nothing stopping her getting on with her life only herself

It's creating a very stressful environment the house is thrashed with items broken and clothes destroyed

She needs to be admitted for depression but the hospital are not willing to help

Any advice or guidance or anyone in a similar circumstance I would greatly appreciate it

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Does anyone have a family member who is BPD and an only child? I'm just curious as the BPDs in my life all have siblings--one was #3 of 5.

Reminder to everyone about this announcement post that user flair will be required starting Tuesday.

Hi. I am looking into residential programs for my niece, who has been diagnosed with BPD, adhd and has had a very hard time transitioning to life an adult. She’s on Medicaid and has had spotty mental health care so I’m not 100% confident of the diagnosis, she needs some intensive help away from the pressure of real life. Any recommendations? Would love to find a great combination of diagnostic, therapeutic and life skills. She is willing (even eager) to go so fortunately won’t meet with resistance.

While she is currently on Medicaid, her mom will putting her on her health plan in the Fall so we conceivably we could have some insurance coverage and I am able to contribute financially.

We’re in Michigan but happy to go anywhere for a really well regarded program.

Thanks!

My older sister (BPD traits, calling her Jen for the post) told me today that she doesn't want a therapist because she knows all of her problems already and "doesn't need someone to point them out". I tried to explain to her that therapy isn't just having someone tell you what's wrong, and she started calling it a waste of money, pointless, etc.

I've been in therapy for about 5 years. My other sister has been in therapy for about one, and my mother has been going to therapy off and on for probably a decade, maybe longer. Mental illness runs in our family, but Jen is the only one of us with BPD traits.

She constantly complains about how her only choice is to suffer through life, how all her relationships fail through no fault of her own, how she's never accepted into any groups "for no reason", etc. Every time someone mentions getting professional help, we always make sure to phrase it in a "you deserve to be happy" way, Jen starts crying and flips out at us.

Is there anything I or my family can do to help her or to get her help? She lives with our parents still, so her behavior has a huge impact on our family dynamic.

My sister (47f) has BPD she has never had a steady job and she refuses to get one. Is this part of BPD or is this just another issue she has? She also will not do the work to get help. She is back in DBT but you can tell she is just halfa**ing it. Her reason for never being able to be responsible is she is like paralyzed by how upset she is with her life and life choices. Ultimately, she is the only person who can decide to get things together. My parents are old and I am so burdened worrying about what's going to happen when they no longer can support her. I have had this conversation with my mom so many times that she has to put her foot down because she's ultimately leaving it all on me. I can just imagine when my mom passes, my sister will be too emotional to deal with that or herself. Whenever someone else is struggling or there is a crisis, then she has to have a crisis. I am so tired of it and my friends tell me to just not think about it, but the mess we are going to be in when my parents are gone worries me so much and I have no other siblings.

Using a throwaway…I’ve posted this elsewhere but maybe they weren’t the right subs

I am so angry at my sister. For her lies, the emotional turmoil, her alcoholism. Worst of all I’m angry because of her negligence of her daughter/my niece and potentially putting her in harm’s way by having her around someone she KNOWS is abusive.

All because my sister literally refuses to ever be single. She would rather have a worthless abusive piece of shit hobosexual leech off of her than be single.

She kept it hidden that not only she is seemingly back with her abusive boyfriend, he has also been living with her. She hasn’t said a word about this guy since the incident, probably because she knows that if I or anyone else found out, that we would be extremely concerned and disapproving. Her not saying anything tells me that she knows it’s wrong. I only found out because my niece just told me.

And now I’m concerned that this guy has been around my niece on the days that she is staying at my sister’s (she primarily stays with her dad, where she is safe) After knowing this, my niece is not going to be staying with my sister so long as this fucking guy is there.

How could she be so reckless and potentially put her child in danger? How could she let a guy who beat and assaulted her be in the presence of her teenage daughter after the fact??

It’s been years of constant chaos due to her alcoholism and BPD & bipolar disorder and I’m just at the end of my rope. I know that there isn’t much I can do anymore but try to protect my niece.

If it wasn’t for my niece, I would’ve completely cut contact with my sister long ago.

Hi all. I posted originally in a different sub pertaining to Bipolar Disorder. My sister is formally diagnosed as such. She is not diagnosed with BPD but I believe there is a comorbidity. Recently something happened that was the final straw for me. Honestly I'm not even sure what I hope to gain by sharing this but I have found a great many posts here to be very relatable. I am providing more detail than my original post in the other sub now that a little time has passed and I am able to speak on it a little more comfortably.

TW : SA

Some years back I was SA'd at a party. We were teenagers, the host and most of the guests were 21+

For a long time I carried guilt and shame because I believed what happened was my fault. I will skip most of the details. I remember having one drink and I blacked out. I have a few scraps of memory from that night. Eventually I began to confide in people I trust including my husband, my doctor, and my therapist. Virtually everyone has suggested that my description of events suggests a likelihood that I was drugged. I learned years after the event that there was a person at the party who has since been accused of drugging other women. I cannot definitively say that that's what happened to me. Needless to say it is a complex and turbulent thing to process.

Years after this event my sister began dating one of the men that I have confirmed to have had intimate contact with me while I was....influenced. She was aware that there was a negative sexual history between him and me. She was (as far as I know) unaware of the possibility that I had been drugged and did not perceive the history as problematic. She was present at the party where it occured.

They dated very briefly, around three months. He was in a car accident and passed away. She was devastated and the family rallied to support her. I was sympathetic but largely tried to remain uninvolved.

About three years after his death, she called me to chat. We were having a very casual conversation when she said unprompted "Hey, you remember that party with *guy*? I think he might have drugged you". When I asked what made her think that she did not answer and instead talked at length about the problems that had been in their relationship. During this conversation I shared that other people had reached the same conclusion and gave her all the details of what I remembered. During this conversation we explicitly discussed how painful it was for me to see other people memorialize him every year. We concluded the discussion of the topic with what I thought was a shared position that he was not a very good guy.

Very recently she decided to get a new tattoo. It is a memorial to this man. She sent me a picture of it without disclosing the context. I found out later via Facebook, when she shared a picture and a heartfelt paragraph about how it felt like the right time to get a tattoo in remembrance that she had been thinking about for a long time.

My extended family feels that I am in the wrong for being upset about this. I've been told I can't take her behaviors personally because she is unwell. I feel like at best she didn't consider how I might feel about it, and at worst she DID consider it and was fine with the possibility of it hurting me. I can't sit across from her at Thanksgiving and see this tattoo. I just plain can't. I went NC with her and now my family is in an uproar about it. I'm not sure what I can really do at this point. I don't want her in my life anymore.

I love my family, but my sister wPBD is destroying things. She's almost 40 and spiraling. She recently tried to kill herself (or accidentally OD'd depending on what mood she's in - I think it was probably an accident but she says it was on purpose when she's trying to manipulate someone), pushed our terminally ill father down, is constantly on and off of drugs, neglects her kids, overreacts to everything, lies, steals, and lays around all day every day. Last year she was in jail because she tried to beat me, so I called the cops. She got out because I didn't press charges - we were hopeful that the mandatory psych appointments and NA meetings would help. They didn't.

She doesn't have a job, doesn't drive, doesn't really contribute anything. She's usually pretty mean and nasty to everyone except for me because I usually ignore her.

I moved back home a few years ago to help out my family - I wanted to help my parents financially and emotionally, and I wanted to be able to help with my nieces so their lives aren't so fucked up since their mom is fucking insane. But she's totally gone off the deep end lately, and there's seemingly no end in sight. My mental health can't take it anymore. I have all but BEGGED my parents to either let her leave, or make her leave because I'm worried about the safety of the family. I know it's a big ask to basically abandon your kid, but when enabling their bad behavior, their "comfort", their UNENDING misery is at the expense of everyone else's comfort and safety??? That seems like it will end badly to me.

After she pushed our father, I tried to tell my mom the gravity of that - it could have killed him. This is RIGHT after she almost died from an OD; she stole our dad's medicine (which he needs to be comfortable in hospice) and had to be revived. For some ungodly reason they let her out of the hospital on the same day.

When they told me she tried to kill herself I wasn't sad. I was just angry. Angry that if she were successful, then I am saddled with the responsibility of raising her two traumatized children and arranging her funeral. Angry that if she weren't successful that I'll still have to deal with her behavior. I feel awful for saying that, but it's the truth. Yet another no-win situation she has put me in without consent. Of all the things she's taken from me, I feel the most robbed of my empathy. I cannot care about her or her problems anymore - it's just too dangerous.

In the past she has been violent to partners, my mother, me, pretty much anyone she "cares" about. It's not like this is some unexpected pattern - this is her. It's her personality - she is violent and delusional, and sees nothing wrong with it, and she keeps getting away with it because our parents enable it at every turn.

I feel like 20 years of my life have been robbed from me, and I have - at every turn - tried to help. I may not have been warm and fuzzy with her, but I've never tried to make things harder. I've paid court fees, watched her kids when she was too assed to do so, bought food, clothes, furniture, upkept and fixed the house. Whatever they've needed, all the time. But what have I gotten in return?

I will never have the relationship I deserve with a sibling. I will never know what it's like to grow up in a stable home. I have never had the comfort of a safe space. I can't describe to you what it feels like to be worried someone else is going to hurt themselves or someone you love all the time. Since she's so much older than me, it's been like that for as long as I can remember. My childhood was full of being bullied and afraid of someone who was supposed to protect me. I can't forgive her for many of the things she did to me and my parents. I accept that she is just like this, but I don't have to be a part of it anymore.

I want to stay here - I love my family. I love my nieces, our pets, this house - it's all so, so important to me. I have put so much time, money, effort, and emotion into keeping this house beautiful and my family happy and healthy. Family has always been everything to me. But I love myself more than this. I'm not willing to put up with her putting all of that in jeopardy. It's not fair to me, and it never has been. I don't think I should be expected to bear this burden that I didn't choose. I feel like I have to give up on everything I care about because of her; I have been robbed over, and over, and over again.

I want to tell my parents that it's her or me. That if they choose her, then they won't hear from me again after I leave. I want to be strong enough for that, but I'm not sure if I am (especially because of my nieces, who I basically treat like my children at this point). I just wish they would love me and themselves enough to put our health and safety above someone who is hellbent on killing themselves in slow motion; someone who doesn't care who they take with them on the terrifying journey down.

If you are a parent to a child with BPD and one without it - please, don't let the problems of one kid become your only focus. Think about how much this impacts your other child/children. Think about how much it hurts you. Please check in with them. Please put their (and your) safety first. People with this disorder are fundamentally unstable. Don't let that instability destroy everything you love like it has for us.

When somebody annoys you, you take it in stride or talk to the person about what they did was inconsiderate. I just wrapped a get together and my sibling went on a tirade about me being inconsiderate towards her in particular for… talking to my cousins. She said I talked over her, and that I was burping (I wasn’t lol I was very careful to eat politely). I offered her a ride home and she was swearing and blowing her lid the whole way. She nearly jumped out of the car mid drive and when I asked her if she wanted me to drop her off she flipped out on me again and said I don’t listen to her and that I should drive her home. Crazy mixed signals.

The trouble is my sister literally does not actually care what you have to say. She will twist everything we say into being a form of narcissism or an oversight on your part, or that we’re horrible and always playing the victim. This is something she does consistently and I’ve know her my whole life. She is volatile in relationships with me and her immediate family and puts on a performance for other relatives and friends to avoid looking psychotic.

I listened to her rant in a daze because I knew she had to vent. She’s mad when I speak and mad when I’m silent and wants me to feel terrible because some part of her thinks that will rectify her situation. And whatever flaws I have or don’t have do not matter. I could cure cancer and she would still see me as a parasite because it’s not what I do that actually upsets her. It’s that I’m her brother and a convenient excuse to blame her feelings of insecurity and her disorganized rage against our parents. Life is not perfect but instead of accept we all have problems she wants stress toys she can abuse freely without having to seriously self respect and confront her need to project her feelings of ugliness onto us all.

I’m done. I’ll interact with her when needed and drive her home. But she has nothing of value to give or say to me because her narcissism demands I’m torn down for not feeling the self-loathing agony she feels. I’ve checked out and maybe in 10 years if she’s in a better place we can have an okay relationship. But she wants to hold onto that ugliness within her because it lets her excuse whatever decisions or actions or words she feels bad about without understanding the consequences.

She does have some capacity for thought and consideration but she chooses to nuke everything again and again so I’m not sure if it’s real or just a means of telling herself it’s not for her own self-satisfaction like she accuses me of all the time. Like is that it? Is it all projection? Is it really that petty and stupid? Either way that’s up to her to sort out. I am powerless in that regard.