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My BPD sister is again  targeting my mother during the holidays. Every 3-4 years she gets angry over something small and sends my mom disrespectful and nasty emails about how she has been wronged and needs to meet to discuss the "issue' only to bring up old issues from her teenage years that they have discussed over and over. This time she is angry that my mother asked to change plans last March as my mom needed to reschedule a medical appointment. My mom is 76 and my sister is 56. When my mother calls or emails her to attempt to set up a time to meet, my sister ignores her and drags it out for months. We have all walked on eggshells for years as she becomes livid over the smallest of issues. We stopped traveling with her years ago as she would ruin the shortest of trips if anything minor happened that didn't go her way. I own a small business and unfortunately my sister works  part-time in a key role in my office which is the only time I can stand to spend with her.  Her disrespectful and aggressive behavior towards my mother is heartbreaking. My mom is the kind of person that you dream about having as a mother-unconditional love, funny, supportive and we are extremely close. I am gay and having no kids of my own, my sisters 3 kids have been the focus of our family for the past 28 years. Both my mom and I have given unconditional support and love as they have grown up and left my sister's house. The youngest is a sophomore in college. Still, my sister insists that we mom get her "permission" to plan or contact her children. My mom drove 6 hours for Thanksgiving only to be essentially ignored for 2 hours by my sister or small one word conversations as my mom tried to engage her during lunch. My mom and stepfather are having major health issues, but when I try to discuss these concerns with my sister she has no empathy at all-I just get one word responses from her. I am so frustrated with the disrespectful way she treats my loving mom at a time that we both need to be supportive as my mom deals with both her and our stepfathers declining health. I have been using "medium chill" for years without knowing it as I read more and more about how to deal with BPD. If anyone has any suggestions to assist my mom with dealing with her during another conflict I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks for reading.

Hi and welcome to the board.  You are in the right place for support and understanding.  It can be very painful to have a relative with BPD or BPD traits like your sister has especially when it affects those we love, like you love for your mom. 

I think it is great that you want to support your mom but there are limits as to what you can do regarding how your sister interacts with her.  How is does your mother deal with this situation?  Is she able to set limits and boundaries with her?  She would probably benefit by posting on our Son/Daughter board where there are many parents dealing with the same sort of behaviors.  Do you think she would be receptive to that?

How do you see your role between your mom and your sister?  Are you able to set boundaries for yourself?  Knowing what is yours to try to help and take care of can get blurred in these situations.  Sometimes the only and/or best thing we can do is to let our loved ones work things out on their own while being supportive of their efforts.

Thoughts?

Your sister's children are adults.  Their mom shouldn't have a say in the contact and with whom they choose to interact . Do you think that they are following their mother's lead in order to keep the peace with her?