Struggling with sisters angry behaviour towards family

[Lyall]

Apologies that this will probably be long, as it's about 25 years of this. I live on the other side of the world to my family and work a busy job, so the time difference and distance help me keep boundaries.

I suspect my early 40s sister has BPD as well as her other mental health issues. She fits every criteria. It's hard to know what she has been diagnosed with as she won't share anything. She has previously been sectioned with psychosis a few years ago after having her son. She now doesn't believe she was ever ill and was misdiagnosed. She feels she was sectioned because she was tired, stressed about being a new mum and that dad forced her into the hospital after she accused him of hitting mum. She accuses our dad of being violent to mum whilst we were growing up and that he's now emotionally abusive and a narcissist. I've never seen that and neither has the rest of our family.

She feels we are all denying 'everything that happened' and that she's the only one that won't hide it anymore. It has led me to questioning my own memories and checking what happened with my mum, dad and brother. I can't say that she didn't experience things differently and she probably had less attention being the healthy fun middle child, whilst my brother and I had health problems.

Many of the things she remembers, or thinks are happening now, have very boring non abuse explanations, but she's just stuck on what she believes happened. For instance, in her head, a dropped plate while drying up was actually thrown at mum. Me having a panic attack as a teenager after being bullied at school, and my dad trying to calm me down was him causing me to be like that.

Her behaviour has led to problems with other family members after she started accusing them of things which were demonstrably not true. This has affected mum and her siblings relationships the most.

Her moods have always been very felt by her and can change in minutes, lasting hours or days. She has always been impulsive and lived beyond her means, with my parents having to help her out financially a couple of times a year at least since university. She struggled to finish her degree and some bad things happened to her, that she won't talk about, and that's when everything started to go downhill. (She now denies that anything bad happened and that all her problems are from our childhood and from her psych hospital admission).

She is a single parent with a school age son which means it is harder for my parents not to step in with money for bills and they have often paid rent for her. She accuses them of stalking her and her son when they ask how she is and how her day has been. My parents live a 3 1/2 hour drive away so are really not involved day to day, but like to video chat with their daughter and grandson once a week.

It's not always like this and there are times when communication is relatively normal, until she is stressed about work, relationships or money. Then every conversation leads to all kinds of misunderstandings, angry accusations and temporary blocking on social media.

At present she's just angry. At everything and everyone. She's having a hard time at her new job and says she being bullied, but I don't know how much is her over-reacting to things. She shaved all her hair off last week after getting annoyed with it, so it's not surprising people would pass comment. She lost her last job after confrontations with her senior, and did not heed their warnings about her behaviour. She was really upset at the time, but now is doubling down on it being everyone else that has the problem with her.

She always had good friends through school and uni and they really care for her. She doesn't treat them with the anger and contempt we get. They have all gone on to have steady jobs and partners, and in comparing herself to them and the rest of our family she does feel bad about her life and choices. They ring us when she's starting to behave differently.

She refuses to believe that she needs to see someone and get help, as she doesn't think she's ill. It's everyone else treating her badly and making her angry. She did have a mental health support worker last year, but it seemed that gave her new ideas, like her conviction about dad being a narcissist after they told her to read up on it. I bit my tongue back then as I wondered if they were meaning she could be!

I would take the low contact route and leave her to it, but I'm worried about my nephew. He's a nice kid and I think her moods are affecting him. I video called yesterday to wish him a happy 6th birthday and he showed me his toys and we chatted about my pets. He went to get dressed and my sister then went on a rant about everything that's going on for her, including getting angry when I wouldn't agree with her about family things or that I have just coffee in the morning instead of eating a proper breakfast. That lead to a rant about me being irresponsible and dangerous in my job.

My nephew came down again and wrote her a tiny note which said 'stop being mean'. He had sneaked it to her, and she hadn't realised what it said till she looked at it in view of the phone camera and shouted that she wasn't being mean. He replied that she was. He shouldn't have to try and modify her behaviour. Before now I haven't felt that she would harm him, and I still don't think she would intentionally, but nevertheless is doing so.

So now I'm going around in circles in my head about what to do next. Contacting the mental health team about her will blow everything up and I'll be the next bad person in her life. My mum thinks we let this episode pass as it usually does and don't antagonise her. They haven't seen her since Christmas, but they would normally look after him over school holidays and go down for my nephews birthday.  My dad goes with what mum thinks, but is obviously very hurt. My brother and I feel things are getting worse overall and she's more often angry and paranoid than not. He has his own family to prioritise and if she won't get help he will go pretty much no contact.

I just wish everything wasn't seen as an attack and criticism of her. She absolutely hates being the one with problems and feeling like we're talking about her. It's so hard to know what is mental illness or BPD, and how much is bad choices she is making.

[ClaireB75]

wow I could have written this! The same issues in my family all from one member who remembers the past differently. Things were terrible according to them. Even down to the dropped plates - an accident - being turned into our mother throwing them around the kitchen screaming and crying. Every little thing becomes something massive. Once she said an uncle accidentally brushed his hand over her lower back area when he said goodbye to us and within two years, it had turned into full on abuse in her head.
I've realized there is no helping them. They will never admit it is them. They see only good in themselves with a few dark instances of dreadful shame which they then have to cover with more gaslighting and lies.
Sadly, if you report her and she isn't a direct harm to herself or others (not psychological but real physical harm) then i fear it could do more damage than good. It is most likely nothing will be done and she will just be livid. You will become a lifelong target and she will never forget.
Others might have better advice, but I just wanted to say that I am sorry and how familiar your story is.

[TelHill]

Am so sorry about your nephew being in that situation. I am a middle aged woman with a dBPD mother. I'm responding because I believe I was in the same boat as your nephew when I was his age.

My mother is not the charming, love bombing type outside of our FOO. (Even with us it's few and far between.) . She'd ridicule me at large extended evidence family gatherings as a kid. I'd cry and she'd laugh at me. People would reach out to me but it ran short of anything happening to help me. We were invited to fewer of these things as time went on.

This was in the 1960s/1970s when mental torture (not hyperbole) to your own child was a reportable offense, or even spoken about in public. Times are vastly different now.

It can be if enough of your relatives come together as a team to first to stage an intervention about her illness and the anguish it's causing her son.  You might speak with other family members about expectations you have (going to individual therapy for her and also for her son, for example. Her son sounds ready to tell an authority figure about being abused).  Having him pass a note about her being mean is heartbreaking. I hope you still have that video as proof to show as needed.

You may want to have a plan to report her to the authorities for child abuse if nothing works out to help your nephew. Am hoping his individual time with a social worker or counselor would alert authorities for next steps.

Not finding help for herself as a single woman is one thing. That's her choice. Subjecting a child to abuse in plain sight calls for community involvement and action.

[Methuen]

Contacting the mental health team about her will blow everything up and I'll be the next bad person in her life. My mum thinks we let this episode pass as it usually does and don't antagonise her. They haven't seen her since Christmas, but they would normally look after him over school holidays and go down for my nephews birthday.  My dad goes with what mum thinks, but is obviously very hurt. My brother and I feel things are getting worse overall and she's more often angry and paranoid than not. He has his own family to prioritise and if she won't get help he will go pretty much no contact.

If he gives her the ultimatum that she get help or he goes no contact, it will be the latter in all likelihood.  Ultimatums don't have a record of working with pwBPD. 

You already know contacting the mental health team would blow everything up and escalate the situation. 

In an ideal world, the key would be de-escalating her emotions, but not many of us have figured that out yet with our pwBPD, or we wouldn't be here.

You know the nuances of the situation and the personalities the best. 

It's a tricky situation for everyone, but especially your nephew.  How old is your nephew?  Is his safety a concern?  It sounds like he's old enough to write messages, and to recognize his mother's behavior is "off".  He knows he doesn't like the way she was talking to you, and it bothered him enough he tried to address it with her.  Interesting.

It sounds like your sister has 100% custody of your nephew.  Is the father in his life?  If not, does the boy have any stable family or close contacts nearby (it sounds like your parents live 3 1/2 hrs away)? Does he have attachments to anyone geographically close to him, other than his mother? Is he old enough to call someone for help or if he needed some space from her?

If you have a T, it would be worthwhile to have a conversation with that person about the concerns you've posted here.  You could also make an anonymous phone calls with local expertise to do some fact finding. Explain the hypothetical situation, but without revealing any names or identifying information, just to get info to help you through a decision making process, because these things can be complex, and have repercussions in all kinds of directions.

Over a number of years on these boards, I have observed many stories from distraught family members like yourself (grandparents, aunts/uncles) because the pwBPD has cut family off from contact with the child, because of something the pwBPD perceives the family member did to them which angered them.  They retaliate by cutting off all contact with the child. That situation isn't good for anyone, but especially not the child, because now they have no access to stable family members who care for them outside of the parent, so nobody knows what is going on.

This situation is not something I am personally familiar with, but have read plenty of these stories on these boards, so proceed with caution and eyes open whatever you and the family decide to do. 

On the other hand, if you have reason to believe the child's safety is an issue, that is different. Then there is a duty to report.


 

[TelHill]

Again, it's unusual for a 6 year old to pass a note like that to his mom. It's very concerning to me. I would confront my mother for being mean many times from ages 3 to today. It's been unbearable and strange for me to chide my own mother for poor behavior. I know I was my mother's parent rather than the other way around.

Your sister exhibits paranoia and lost her last job due to behavioral issues. You never know, but that's usually a sign of things to come. It's a pattern that repeats. That's a very tough burden for a child to bear, in my opinion. A child needs stability to thrive.

Lyall, it's up to you what you want to do. It's a complex situation and more like choosing the lesser of a few evils. Their will be pain for your nephew no matter if you take action or do nothing..

Without a minor in her care,  I'd suggest going low to no contact in the hopes she'd seek help when she's reached a bottom or the lowest point in her life.

I hope things work out.