BPDFamily.com

Hello..

My sister was diagnosed with major depression around 7 years ago and she took Lexapro antidepressant for 1.5 years. Then, she told us her doctor says she is no longer has major depression and thus, stopped medication. However, 4 years back, she began exhibiting bizarre symptoms (i.e nice and then fluctuate to become very emotionally abusive/threatening  in behaviours and saying things like “I want to get people to beat you up”, “I want to use a gun on you”, threatening to sell my nephew and niece to be raped”) . These angry, sadistic and violent behaviours were unlike the sister that I know.

These symptoms confounded the family for many years until we stumbled upon the term “Borderline Personality Disorder”.

I suspect my sister has this because she acts normals at times but occasionally, will have angry/violent outbursts. During these episodes, I as her sibling is her target of blame. She blames me for not being there for her, for not doing enough for her, for not helping her to get a husband (her deepest wish). Somehow, during her tirade, it seems to me that she is super envious of me as I have a husband, kids and is a homemaker. She seems to be so overwhelmingly envious that she severely puts me down and emotionally abuses me because I have these things and she does not. However, when she is in a good mood, then, she acts like she did not utter those abuses. In fact, one time, she denies saying all those horrible abuses (via email and WhatsApp audio messages) to me and say that her email and WhatsApp had been hacked.

She keeps on saying that I am giving her pressure. I don’t understand, my father has been funding her lifestyle where she globe-trots around many countries staying at Airbnb for 4 years now (and not working). The only pressure I think I am giving her is that I am married with kids and she is not and she can’t take it.

I have been very accommodating to her verbal lashes (normally via email and WhatsApp audio messages) which have been happening almost on a weekly basis for 4 years.

I have tried many techniques to help her;
1) getting online therapy with a BPD specialist but she dropped now out as she doesn’t feel a need (I.e she has no problem)
2) indirectly asking her to seek treatment for her mood swings
3) directly saying I suspect she has Borderline Personality Disorder and need to seek treatment
4) asking her to do stress reducing techniques
5) sending her books on BPD
6) pointing out her splitting symptoms

However, whatever approach i use, I think there is no use because I think she does not remember her verbal abuses or dismiss her verbal abuses (even though the evidence is in front of her) due to anognosia.

So, i have a few queries:
1) Does she mean what she says especially the mean things ?
2) Why she is not seeking treatment?
3) How do I validate her when she is in the midst of putting me down and saying mean things about my character (i.e that I  am a hypocrite for not helping her, I am putting pressure on her, that I act superior to her, and many many verbal lashes and accusation and criticism  etc? Will validating her reinforce her negative thinking about me? In fact, I am the one that helped her after her relationship breakup (that triggered the major depression ), providing her a place to stay free of charge for 2 years, providing her emotional support etc.

I feel whatever I do, is not enough for her and she will make something up to put the blame on me and then go on a verbal lashing at me and even my husband. She even recruited negative advocates to tarnish my reputation via Facebook posts and directly messaging my friends to ruin my reputation.

I do not know whether should I endure these abusive behaviours any longer  to help her knowing this is a disorder or should I just cut her off from my life. Believe me, I have done all to help her but there is very little hope.

Hi Jhrh,

So you're already familiar with anosognosia and how hard it is to nudge anyone into therapy. 

https://bpdfamily.com/content/how-to-get-borderline-into-therapy

I found out in my 40s, that my mother was in therapy for PTSD when I was a child. I had only known about she going into therapy for depression when I was 17. Given all of that, I wonder how much more whacky my childhood would have been if she weren't in therapy. She didn't have a parent to support (enable?) her either like your dad. 

We typically don't recommend suggesting a Dx of BPD with the person we suspect may suffer from it, as it usually goes about as well as you've experienced, sometimes worse.

As for your questions,

1. She likely means those things at the time.  PwBPD experience dissociation.  She may be truthful in that she doesn't remember certain things.  She could also feel shame, and be lying to deal with that shame.  As Christine Ann Lawson stated in her book Understanding The Borderline Mother, "lying feels like survival." PwBPD feel core shame, and this goes to your 3rd point. I self-cured pwBPD described it like this (paraphrasing), "a person with BPD feels 'my feelings don't matter;  therefore,  I don't matter and am unworthy of love."

This is why validation is key to reducing conflict, and this is tough when on he receiving end of verbal abuse and accusations.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/ending-conflict

(See the Read More link at the end)

Your question 2? Anosognosia. Given BPD is a shame-based disorder, in addition to the emotional dysregulation, in short: no one likes to be told that they are crazy or defective. Would you? Would I?

My mother sent me to family therapy when I was 12, then abandoned me after one joint session. Decades later, my ex (mother of my children) did the same thing. I'm not BPD (I was cleared by professionals), yet it pissed me off.

Try the validation tools, we have more material here. There is a subtlety to it that can be missed.

Lastly, I'd say that your sister may be triggered by your stability and success in life because she doesn't have to emotional tools to find that herself.  Thus, it's easier to blame.

I’m new here and I don’t know the answer. But I just came to say that I am in a VERY similar relationship with my own sister. I suspect she has some degree of BPD with traits of martyr complex. Very similar issues that she wanted to marry and have kids and it didn’t happen for her. And it did for me. Also career related envy from her towards me. We are now estranged as she kept making scenes at various events throughout my life (fight at my grad school graduation with my parents,, refusal to shake my BILs hand when she first met him, refusal to walk down the aisle at my wedding without her cell phone in hand cause her then boyfriend might ring, refusal to meet my children). The last one was the last straw. I have not seen her in 5 years.
I’m lost for what to do. I have a full life and I don’t “need” this BS. But my elderly parents have recently moved close to her as she moved for a job and “she is alone. We are alone. And that’s all bad”.
Frankly. I’m worried about something happening to my parents and she will not even tell me. As she has no contact with me. For 5 years. But is their emergency contact for everything due to proximity.
Could go on and on.
I wish I knew the answer.
Just commiserating.