BPDFamily.com

whenever my mom's illness gets worse, and shes in the hospital, my father and sister no longer bully me. my father acknowledges me and is civil. validates me. we had an incident where she almost died and the family dynamics changed. my sister began to validate me by acknowledging how overbearing and abusive mom is. however when mom health becomes stable, and back home, my father is incredibly mean and cruel to me again. constantly saying how he's sick of me, that i'm a burden and a nutcase. my sister nit picks as well. she turns on me. im singled out as the black sheep. can someone explain why? sometimes i wonder if my mother is orchestrating this.

Sorry you are going through such difficulties, Kharma. It sounds like the crisis of your mom's health issues shifts the family dynamics around a bit.

Are you familiar with the Karpman drama triangle or the Bowen theory of family systems? It's possible that your mom's health crisis creates a change in your family system of behaviors and roles. When your mom is sick, your dad and sister change how they act toward you. When your mom's health stabilizes, all the family roles go back to "normal" or baseline.

If you imagine our families like a baby mobile in a nursery, when you pull on one of the mobile figures (aka family members), the whole mobile starts swinging and wobbling all over the place until equilibrium is re-established. Your mom probably isn't consciously or purposely orchestrating anything, but her health crisis is what causes the change in the dynamics.

The good news is that we can be aware of our roles or the "baby mobile dynamics," so we can at least sort of "see" what is happening with more understanding.

I hope you are doing okay. I'm sorry your dad and sister are being so confusing and cruel to you.

Hi kharma


Pilate has raised some very good points in her insightful reply to you. I would like to add that a factor could also be that your father and sister are afraid of your mother. By turning on you they may hope to prevent your mother directing her rage at them. Do you think this might be what's going on here?

Another thing that comes to mind is that the realization that you're mother might not be around anymore causes them a lot of stress and anxiety and they then turn to you to make them feel better. Perhaps they even realize that you're actually the most sane one who would be able to keep the family together and take care of everyone if you're mother wasn't around. In spite of how bad they treat you, deep down they might be aware that their lives would look a lot worse without you. My youngest sister for instance was treated like the all-bad child by my uBPD mom and uBPD oldest sis. I myself was alternately treated all-good or all-bad. However, the reality is that if I and my youngest sister wouldn't have been there for them, their lives would have totally come crashing down hard a long time ago.

Sounds like you may be the scapegoat. BPD parents often triangulate their children. Kind of like having a dog to kick and when anything goes wrong. If your mom is the BPD then others know the drill when she around. Just easier to all kick the dog. When she's not around, maybe they treat you as they should. But if you realise you are the scapgoat, never forget that's not reality. It not your fault, you would be the scapegoat regardless of your behavior.

Your did say you felt like the black sheep and your mother is ochestrating this. So that does fit the triangulation/scapegoat model.

Hi Kharma,

Think it is a combination of them being afraid of her but also she is toxic.   

Her way or the highway!

I find with people who are BPD it is all about "sides".  Maybe your not as afraid of her as the rest of them.

Sorry you go thru this and it is hard to say don't take it personally - but the more you see the patterns of behavior you may be able to identify them and take yourself out of the emotional spin of them.

Good luck!

I work from home and BPDMom has been coming into my room during calls and instigating arguments/fights. it go so bad that i had to leave work early. I could lose my job if this keeps happening. she also tried to sabotage my computer and began throwing stuff at me. i told my sister about the abuse and the first thing she does when she came by was tell mom that i called her about what happened. BPDMom downplayed what happened and they both laughed about it. i have NO ONE on my side. my whole family is against me and i dont know why. i have no one to help me. i could go to a homeless shelter but im scared. it seems that they all want to see me suffer for some reason

Hi again kharma,

The situation you're in isn't easy at all and I understand how hard it is living in a hostile and constantly negative environment. I like many of our members was raised in an unhealthy environment too by an uBPD mom and also several other problematic family members around. This isn't easy to deal with at all.

Whether you're able to move out of there are not, the reality is that you're in this situation right now. Perhaps you can explore some small things you can do that might make life a little bit easier for you. Like not confiding in your sister anymore since it's likely that she'll tell your mother about it. Instead you might come online here if you have the chance and talk about what's going on in your life. Is it perhaps possible for you to lock the door of your room? If so and if you've tried this before, how did your parents respond to this action of yours?

Do you use a laptop? If so can you perhaps lock it away in a safe place so you're mother won't have easy access to it anymore?


I can definitely relate to the pain and frustration you express here. Since you're on this site I do have a question for you though. Are you sure that you don't know why they treat you this way? It isn't an easy reality to accept that your parents and quite possibly you're siblings are disordered, but since you're on this website I'd say you are already pretty aware that there's something seriously wrong with them. So the answer to your question of why your whole family seems to be against you, lies in the reality of BPD and what this means for the family dynamics. This isn't a pleasant reality and I understand why it hurts you so. But considering that there are personality disorders in play here, the unfortunate truth is that it's highly likely that some people will get treated the way you are in families. I've been through this myself at times and have also seen this happen to my youngest sister who was treated as the all-bad child by my uBPD mom and oldest sis. This doesn't make it right of course, but it is what it is and we can't change this reality. However we can change our own behavior and how we deal with this reality. Do you feel like you've been able to really accept that your parents have a personality disorder and what that means for the family dynamics?

Take care and I hope you feel better today