BPDFamily.com

This is not technically a borderline post but the members here were so supportive when I was healing from the grief following the death of my BPD ex-husband, I am hoping you will have suggestions.

About two years after I took a job working as a personal assistant to a very wealthy woman, she told me she had been to see a psychiatrist at the insistence of her husband. I had been pretty sure that she had some sort of mental problem and it turns out I was correct. She is bipolar. I had seen wild mood swings and weird paranoid delusions. I thought I would be okay if I was kind and supportive but she became much worse. I finally had to get a temporary job when she stopped scheduling me for enough hours for me to live on. She called and asked me to come in one day for half an hour to take her son to the orthodontist. I told her I was unavailable that day. But I continued to perform my other job duties. She was fine with that and said she would take him herself. Of course she was too late for the appointment. The next time I heard from her she was calling to threaten me that she would call the police and say I used her credit card to buy something for myself if I did not call her immediately. The next morning I received an email from the payroll service saying she had fired me. I dropped off my key with her housekeeper. The next thing I knew she was fighting me application for unemployment, lying right and left to the judge, insisting she had called, emailed and texted me every day for 6 weeks and I had never answered her. Fortunately I had the emails and text messages we had exchanged showing I had been doing my job during this time.

The problem is that she got her husband to call the police and file theft charges against me. He is a very successful and well known computer game developer. Multimillionaire. Cover of Fortune magazine while still in his twenties. She had previously accused the former housekeeper of stealing her wedding ring, not to the police but in a note to me. The truth was that she had hidden it in a coffee can in the refrigerator, told no one and a year later realized it was gone. During that year the refrigerator had been cleaned out weekly and even replaced with a new machine. But it had to be some one else's fault. She also forced the current housekeeper to sign a "confession" that I had picked up my paycheck at the house keeper's house one payday since I was not going to be anywhere near their place that weekend.

Unfortunately her husband will do anything she asks just so she does not cut off his access to sex. I know this because they would actually write notes to each other about it on the bathroom mirrors. She also got him to take out a restraining order against her ex-husband so he could not see their son without permission. I am not sure how that happened since her ex-husband lives in Germany and she and the son and new husband live in Oakland, California. Her ex-husband has not even been in the country in five years.

Anyone know if this behavior is usual for bipolar and how best to handle it. It brings back many bad memories from my interactions with my BPD ex. But with him I did not hesitate to set boundaries. I never had to deal with someone willing to use their wealth to try to destroy me.

This is a tough situation to be in.  I would suggest staying as far away from this woman as possible.  In the meantime gather up your defenses (CYA) in the event she continues to harass you.   I think if you refuse to engage with this woman her attention will eventually turn to someone else.

Thank you. Is was good of you to read and comment. I think it was exactly the advice I needed to hear. When I look back on my relationship with my borderline ex-husband, I realize that one of the hardest things was his false accusations and his dragging someone else into the dynamic so they could criticize me. To be on the receiving end of this in a work situation and with an entirely different mental illness is bizarre and unsettling.  The situation was made worse because I lost the close relationship I had with her other son, whom I had come to really like. But I have just read one of the pieces on this site that has given me greater insight into setting even stronger boundaries in my life. One excellent understanding I have gained from this experience is the realization that too often our society allows those with money and fame to excuse behavior we would not accept from those without them. I will no longer give automatic respect to someone based on their accomplishments; I will save my respect for those whose character I admire. Also, I learned the mentally ill can be extremely vindictive when you insist on boundaries. I shall take greater care in future work and personal situations to document what is happening each day so that I am better protected from false accusations.

Again, thank you to everyone who read and for the helpful advice.

Hi snowwhite,

It's pretty rough to get dragged into court, especially when there are false allegations. And I'm so sorry you lost relationships because of this experience.  :'(

In my experience, courts do not deal with mental illness well, if at all.

She sounds like someone who has a lot of drama of her own making. And your solutions to assert strong boundaries sound very wise.