I would keep the contact very short and end it immediately if your sister starts to act badly.

My BPD mother perceived people as "on her side" or "not her side".

Her BPD behaviors did escalate during times of stress, but for many of these, she was still receiving the enabling and emotional caretaking in the family. It's not advised to enable the pwBPD but this happens in families when they are trying to keep the peace. Some of BPD mother's escalations were quite intense. As a result, BPD mother expected this.

Do you live with your sister? After I moved out on my own, I didn't see these episodes. BPD mother could hold it together in social situations. There were still some issues but not the full blown events. Just because I didn't see them doesn't mean they didn't happen.

It is possible you didn't see all of your sister's behaviors recently if you were not living with her. Only our immediate family saw them. Even BPD mother's brother wasn't fully aware of them (or acted as if he wasn't). He is younger than she is, so she had gone to college as a young adult, about the time he may have been aware of them. Also, in many families the behaviors are "normalized".

In my situation, the stress of losing a spouse- which is extremely difficult even for people who don't have a disorder coincided with the shift of attention away from BPD mother and to my father. PwBPD have difficulty managing their difficult emotions, and so they project them. BPD mother acted out in an extreme way.

And yes, in my own grief and distress- there were times I did get upset with her. As CC43 noted, in a normal situation a person could understand that someone dealing with this isn't at their best. For BPD mother, she reacted as if it was a major transgression, and I was not on her side.

It was shocking and I felt dumbfounded. I understand that losing a spouse is extremely difficult but so is losing a father. One would imagine people would show some empathy, but instead, BPD mother rallied her people to "her side" and many family relationships were broken, not by my choice, but by them.

About a year later, BPD mother came around and was nice again as if nothing had happened. There wasn't an explanation, there would not be an apology. The attempts at repair with her family took a lot longer. Ironically they were angry at me, for things I didn't really do, but they also recognized that her behavior was a main part of it. I listened to their feelings, apologized for them, even though what they were angry about didn't happen the way they saw it. There wasn't any point in explaining.  I wondered if maybe they were a bit disordered too- albeit they are way more functional than BPD mother was. By that point, I knew to not expect more from people connected to her. We have reconciled, we aren't close, but I think that's the best it could be.

Hi there,

Wow, I get the sense that when most family members come here wondering about going No Contact, they aren't usually thinking about a protective order.  That a protective order already exists for your pwBPD indicates that her behavior has become extreme and harmful.

In my opinion, getting a protective order is typically a last resort, when other modes of going NC or LC haven't worked.  Getting a protective order implies that a third party needs to be involved to enforce boundaries, i.e. the legal system and/or police.  I guess that's not uncommon, because pwBPD do not like boundaries . . . when they're not getting therapy, they have trouble getting past the past.

In my own experience, it's the pwBPD who typically initiates NC.  That's because she feels she has reached an emotional limit; my guess is that she deems her entire family to be "toxic."  In addition, her personality is avoidant in nature--think of it as a trauma-based flight response.  To avoid feelings of anxiety, she'll generally avoid other people.  She'd avoid work and school if she could, as well as life's ordinary stressors--paying bills, maintaining her car, buying insurance, whatever.  Her typical response is to avoid things until she has no other choice.  And so she'll also avoid people, by going NC, probably to avoid negative feelings associated with them.  Right now the pwBPD in my life has no contact with any members of her immediate family, of varying duration (a few years for siblings, a couple of years for her mom, a few months for her dad and me).  That means not responding to any texts or calls, let alone making a visit or sharing a meal.  Nevertheless, we keep tabs on her through her therapist.  Also, she still gets some mail at my home, which her dad will forward onto her.  We know where she lives and works, too.  That's something.  Her dad will send an occasional short message from time to time, along the lines of, "Thinking of you, hope you are well, I just mailed you some things."  I'm pretty sure he regularly gives her money via a joint account, too.  While I don't love that, because it feels like "rewarding" her for ingnoring her dad, I'm sure he does it out of genuine concern.

Yet in your case, it sounds like you are considering initiating the NC.  Typically you'd do that to protect yourself, and to reduce the drama in your life.  You should absolutely do that if you feel you need a break and time to take care of yourself.  It wouldn't have to be forever, not necessarily.  My advice?  Don't announce what you're doing if you don't have to, and certainly don't blame it on her ("I'm blocking you because of what you did").  She would take that as a hostile form of abandonment, which is a top trigger for pwBPD.  She'd think you were blaming HER, when she's convinced that YOU are to blame.  So I think it's better not to say anything at all.  That way, you don't JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend or Explain).  You don't use logic when your sibling is dealing with overwhelming emotions . . . she can't process logic when she's upset.  Instead, you just stop calling.  You stop texting and emailing.  You stop visiting, and you stop inviting her over.  You make different plans.  Rather than aggressively avoid her, I think you get BUSY with your life.  You're so busy and happy that the time flies, you practically forgot about your sibling's dramas.  One author here recommended something like a "slow fade."  Get busy, reduce the frequency of texts/emails, and hope your sibling starts to direct her anger elsewhere, because she's not getting the attention she craves from you.

Now, there are repercussions, especially with the extended family.  If there's a large family gathering, you might not be able to control whether you see her.  If you are committed to NC, then you might have to miss a family gathering where your sibling would be present.  That could hurt the feelings of innocent family members.  Not everyone would understand why siblings aren't talking to each other, and it might make you look bad, if they didn't know the whole story.  As for your sibling, surely she'll blame you for treating her badly, ignoring her, casting her out, alienating her or treating her like garbage.  But my guess is she already thinks you're awful; otherwise you wouldn't feel the need to get some distance from her, to protect your own well-being.

Nevertheless, I think many people here try "hybrid" approaches.  Maybe they go Low Contact, for example only engaging when the sibling is acting civilly.  The moment she acts out or broaches a negative topic, you make your exit (or disengage from any text or email chain).  Maybe you attend the major family events (weddings, Christmas), provided that there's a "buffer" of other people.  You are civil, but you don't share any personal or emotionally charged information which could be triggering.  You keep visits very brief, so your sibling isn't overwhelmed.  You never stay at her place or vice versa--you don't want to impose--you stay at a hotel, to give her space to wind down.  Your written correspondence is what you'd send to a distant cousin--Happy holidays!--nothing too personal, emotionally charged or revealing, and certainly no advice, either.  It's almost like a business relationship:  friendly but superficial, often transactional, so you can stay out of the drama.  Maybe you mourn the loss of a "normal" relationship with your sibling, as seems typical here.  But if your sibling is abusive to you and compromising your well-being, then the relationship won't be "normal" until she gets some help.  You can't change her; only she can do that.

All of the modes are contact are designed around YOU.  You can't control how your sister will act, but you can control how you relate to her.  Hope that perspective helps a little, in a very difficult situation.

I could have written this. It is exactly, exactly the dynamic.

Hello. I have posted here about my sister, who had been basically normal (or at least not clinical, and able to maintain relationships without aggression) but began aggressively exhibiting BPD symptoms in her late 30s following a family tragedy.

My question is about going NC. I notice that this seems less common on this site than I would expect and would be interested in thoughts from this group.

In our situation, the whole immediate family has gone NC over the past 8 months or so.  After about 10 months of trying, with no success, to find resolution or convince her to get help or to just stop, everyone got exhausted by the abuse and also observed that it seemed like any type of feedback just added fuel to the fire.  So collectively, the immediate family stopped responding or contacting her, except on a few occasions when she expressed suicidal ideation and managed to get a reaction from her terrified family.  (Her spouse is the only one still standing - depending on the day, he totally denies anything is wrong or blames the family for destroying her.)

This was so painful, but in some ways, the break may have been cleaner than most. She has no kids and lives a few hours away from the family. She is healthy and generally high functioning.  In more recent weeks, she lashed out at people outside the immediate family or made good on repeated threats to smear immediate family members to extended family and friends, so immediate family have reached out to tell others what is going on with her. (Of course she views herself as the victim of that and believes the family is intentionally turning everyone against her.) So everyone is basically on one side - angry, sad, wishing she were better, but not interested in interacting with her until/unless she is. 

This might have been less complicated because her behavior was a new development, so there was no ingrained dynamic that involved people managing her. Also, because of how this was tied to a tragedy, it was very clear what the priorities were, and that she was undermining efforts to stabilize the affected children and hurting innocent people who were already dealing with a crisis. She doesn't look good to anyone, going after widows, older people, and children.

The most affected family member also got a protective order against her due to fear of continuing escalation, and after she made good on threats to smear that person to family and colleagues, and tried to contact the children against the parent's wishes.

While there is real concern for her physical safety, I think part of the thinking here was that funneling all this blame and aggression towards others was allowing her to avoid a breakdown, resulting from trauma and guilt from the tragedy, which needed to happen in order to get her treatment and so she could rebuild. Without anywhere for the abuse to "land," the hope (sadly) was that she would turn it inward or on her spouse, resulting in things falling apart so that there was nothing to do except get help.  And while the protective order was very much needed for protection, it also seemed like she needed a reason to stop escalating and taking destructive action. It has only been a few weeks, but so far, the legal and career repercussions of the order seem to have made an impact, and she has generally complied.

My questions for others are, what do you think about the assumptions in the prior paragraph? Have you seen going NC lead to any change in the BPD person or is it simply a way to shield and cushion others? 

If you did not go NC or were less able to "cleanly" go NC and take advantage of legal protections because doing so would jeopardize other family relationships or alienate children or an old or ill person, despite their BPD - if you could have go NC without these concerns, would you have? Or do you see a benefit in continuing to try even if it exposes you and others to abuse, fear, stress, etc.?

This group is a comfort. I have found the responses and the posts to be so thoughtful and information. Thank you.

My BPD kid has always taken deaths brutually hard, ever since she was a little kid.  We wouldn't let her go to funerals because she'd be absolutely inconsolable (did I spell that right?  I don't know, LOL).  As an adult, she's been admitted multiple times shortly after a semi-close family member passed.

I think it's part guilt (of not being better to that person), part disordered thinking, part of feeling abandoned like you said.  It's always a whole thing for us though- don't tell our kid or post anything on social until we tell her!  We need to be the ones to talk to her so we can assess how bad it's going to be.

Absolutely, and almost guaranteed when the pwBPD is riled up.  Deflection, rejection, sarcasm (Oh right, you're sorry), bossing around (Shut the * up, I'm not finished yet, don't interrupt me!).  I think those are signs that nothing you say will make things better.  In fact, that's one of my go-to refrains, "There's nothing I can say to make it better."  That's my cue that I'm exiting the conversation and will gray rock instead.  For me, being as still and boring as a gray rock tends to work better than an apology.  Why?  I don't think they're ready for an apology when they're all riled up.  They're MAD and need to let it out in my opinion.  They don't want a dialogue, they want an outlet.

Indeed, I've seen a similar sort of thing play out, where the pwBPD in my life had unrealistic expectations of control / decision-making / attention / catering to, and when she didn't get the consideration she thought she was accorded, not only did she blow up in the moment, but she held a grudge forever.  The "crazy" thing is that a "normal" person wouldn't have had such unreasonable expectations in the first place.  Further, even if they were hurt in the moment, a "normal" person probably wouldn't have taken it personally; they would have thought, well, the situation was stressful for everyone, they probably were just focussed on getting through it and didn't intend to do anyone any harm.  But worst of all, even if she was insulted or aggrieved, she couldn't keep it to herself in the name of keeping the peace / friendship / family together.  No, she has a conniption fit, surprising everyone, and typically blowing things way, way out of proportion.  Not only that, she's indignant that people don't immediately take "her side."  Rather than a standard apology, she usually seeks to "punish" others for the supposed wrongs, because an apology won't suffice.  You used the word "retribution," which is a word that often comes to my mind when I think about the pwBPD in my life.  It's like she's constantly seeking retribution for perceived slights and wrongs.  Yet she typically doesn't get it.  Her response?  Typically she'll initiate a period of estrangement, thinking she'll "punish" others with her absence.  Perhaps ironically, I think many people are relieved not to have to deal with her. 

That's a long-winded way of saying that for the pwBPD in my life, I suspect that half the time she's not even really sure what she's upset about, not really.  It's like she's constantantly misattributing the source of her distress.  Either that, or she's just projecting her internal distress outwardly in any stressful situation, and her brain "invents" an external cause for her malaise, when really what she's feeling is generic inferiority / alienation / jealousy / sadness.  It's almost as if she intentionally picks a fight, so that she can release her pent up anger, and then initiate a period of estrangement to get relief.  Alas, this has been a recurring cycle, almost bizarrely predictable.

Now, I'm not saying that a death in the family isn't traumatic.  It typically is for everyone involved.  I just think that big life events which are emotionally charged--a death in the family, moving homes, a marriage, the birth of a baby, a family reunion, holiday gatherings, birthdays, break-ups, a big vacation--are a tinderbox for pwBPD.  That's another theme you might encounter on these boards.  I think the pwBPD build up these impossible expectations for these moments and then act out when they don't play out as expected.

Just know that this is BPD, and it's best not to take her anger personally.

Well, God bless you for that.  There's no telling where she might have ended up if you didn't adopt her.  I was adopted at birth so I know what that means- my entire life is something different if my parents didn't do what they did.

What you're describing is disordered thinking and it means she's unstable (which I'm sure you could have already guessed).  When she's in that mindset, it is not the time for heart to heart conversations because everything is going to be twisted into something else.  It's a truly heartbreaking disease and you can't take any of this personaly, even when it is deeply personal.

My BPD kid said something about me to a family member a few months back that ripped my heart out- I couldn't believe she'd make up something that sinister about me.  I didn't confront her though and I reached out to my ex wife (who's also BPD) and our other daughter.  They told family members that it was an outright lie, which was the main thing I was worried about.  But still, it stung and my BPD kid basically cut me off for being a horrible father (for correcting her massive lie to others about myself).

We have texted a bit recently though and my BPD daughter mentioned it to several other family members.  So I know she still cares about me and she probably regrets what she said.  I'll never get an apology though and I know that I'll have to live with that.  So again, I completely understand, because this lie alienated me from family for a time and I didn't even know about it for months.

Things will inevitably change in time though and you'll have more chances to reconnect.  I hope that somehow helps and I'm so sorry for what's going on with your mom.

This happened to me too. It broke up family relationships. It seemed so confusing and so unfair, and at a difficult time for me.

I still don't know exactly how it all happened this way or what the family members had heard or were thinking. It sadly resulted in long lasting confusion and divisions. Later on, some of BPD mother's family reached out to me and we were able to reconcile and begin to repair.