Boundary led to no contact by BPDsibling

[lost and found]

Has anybody else had the BPD person in their life cut them off because they set a boundary or just stopped responding the same way to hostility, manipulation, etc. ?

Here's my experience when I finally stopped walking on eggshells to avoid my sister's tantrums. I live out of state and was visiting my family. 45 minutes before we were to leave for the airport, while the whole family is together, my kids are getting to spend a last few minutes with their grandmother, my sister wants to talk to me.  We go outside and she starts getting accusatory over something that happened months ago.  Well, I've been in therapy for awhile now, and I had just about had it with jumping through hoops every time I had contact with her. So I told her that while I would like to help her all I can, there are limits to what I am able to do, and that right now I was going to spend that last few minutes of my trip saying goodbye to my mother and other family members. If she would like to join us in having a pleasant goodbye she was welcome to do so, but in any case I was going back inside. She has barely spoken to me since. The funny thing was, when I told my therapist about this incident she predicted that I wouldn't be hearing much from my sister anymore. She said my sister just found out she couldn't manipulate me anymore, and suspected that she would be moving on to greener pastures, which appears to be true.

This was the first time I ever said I'm not participating and walked away. I was upset for awhile, but in retrospect this is much calmer and probably healthier for everyone concerned, including sis. Having a little contact with her was often like just drinking a little poison - won't kill you, but you'll never get better either. Has anyone else had no contact happen to them, and how are you feeling about it?

[Sitara]

Yup, I told my mom that I wanted her to be more respectful and that if she couldn't meet me halfway our relationship was not going to work. She's always had the mentality of "I know you're going to hurt me so I'll hurt you first." So she responded by not contacting me unless she wanted to give something to my kids like presents.  Now when she contacts me she makes it clear she's only interested in the kids. 

How do I feel about it? Terrible because my own mother doesn't want anything to do with me.  But it's better this way, I've been working on healing myself and I'm starting to be able to smile and enjoy just being me once in awhile.  Distance has helped. I wanted her to either want to change or to not deal with her, so I did get one of the options I wanted.  I think of my realistic options, this is probably the best.

[Verbena]

Yes--and no.  Once I made it clear that I was not going to take part of DD28's drama anymore, she pulled back.  We still have contact, but it's superficial for the most part. 

My DD likes the "idea" that we have a meaningful relationship, but I can't say we really do.  I am very careful what I say to her knowing her inclination to over-react or start trouble.  She conveniently doesn't mention any of the chaos she creates and I don't ask.  But is it still happening?  Yes, I definitely think so and there's most likely a lot more of it than I even know. 

I wonder if her husband, who claims there is no BPD, is starting to accept that he is wrong.  He would have to eat a lot of crow if he ever decided to approach us about getting her help.  He's her problem now, and I do feel sorry for him. 

To answer your question, yes I had almost no contact for several months last year resulting from communication I had with someone over DD's BPD behavior coupled with my increasing distance from the drama.  You did the right thing in walking away from trouble with  your sister.  If this results in much less communication from her, that's not a bad thing for you.  If less contact gives you some peace, then this is a good thing.  Just be prepared for her painting you black and waging distortion campaigns.  Those two little tricks seem to come with the territory. 

[lost and found]

Thanks Sitara and Verbena - yes, distance has been better! Not the ideal, not what I dreamed of, but better than the ongoing invitation to fight that was the reality of our relationship. I moved a while ago, putting a lot of physical distance between me and my family, and now I work on having more psychological distance. I think both are healthy moves.

Sitara, I can relate to that "best defense is a good offense" stance of your mother's, my sister uses that a lot. This is not the first time she's cut me out, basically saying "I know you are going to dump me so I'm dumping you first", put as confrontationally as possible. In the past I always gave her some cooling off time and than soothed her until she would talk to me again. I'm not going to do that anymore. I suppose it might be a shock to her that I've changed, but she is very abusive in the way she shoves people away - I am just one of many she has done this to - and if she hadn't been my sister I never would have tried so hard with her.

Verbena, you are right about the painting black and the distortions. I know via the grapevine that she's been doing this, and has plenty of times before. Maybe I've been lucky in that most extended family don't really seem to take her seriously. I think she has blasted enough people with irrational anger that they take everything she says with a grain of salt.

I think I'm finding that letting go of the dream of a happy, supportive family harder than letting go of the actual people. The reality of these relationships has been painful, so talking to them less has been pretty peaceful.

Best of luck and peace to you both.