Thank you! Yes, I've learned the hard way over many, many years - and it took a lot of work to recognize the situation for what it is - and then even more work to accept it for what it is even as others in my FOO do not. I appreciate the encouragement - there are times I find myself slipping back into old habits. It's important to acknowledge the small "wins".

There are a few points I am known for making and one of them is that we seldom find Closure from the person with BPD traits (pwBPD).  Yet most of us attempt it anyway since we find it incomprehensible to just walk away.  In these confounding relationships it is far better to simply Gift ourselves Closure.

Years ago I read that it was common for therapists with BPD patients to need their own therapists in order to remain grounded.

Notwendy,
I agree it is not an event I would want to attend. I have distanced myself from most of my large extended family because of the flying monkeys and I really no longer enjoy being around most of my relatives. They are too narcissistic, abusive, and superficial  for me. I have spent years in therapy and soul searching. The truth is I now have very little in common with them. I like to be around honest empathetic people who are interested in learning, willing to grow. It saddens me greatly to no longer really have a family. At the same time, I am very grateful to all the kind generous people who have supported and challenged me to become a better version of myself.

Still I keep pondering if waiting over 5 years to celebrate the life of a deceased family member would be considered abnormal and dysfunctional in most cases. I can't think of any real reason for this particular delay. I would have been able to grieve at a Celebration of Life for my aunt 5 years ago, but now it just feels weird. What do you think?

Yes, co-morbidity is often mentioned here and is present more than many people think. However, if it isn't diagnosed - and it often isn't - then we just have to reach our own informed conclusions.

Amateurs work for free, especially on their own ancestry.  When I started about 1980 all I knew were my parents' and grandparents' names.

One branch stumped me - g-g-g-gpa Joseph Peden and his wife Mary in New Richmond OH - until I found my great-grandmother's list of her parents and grandparents' names.  Still, Mary Elliot was dead end until I found a privately printed booklet with the history of the Quaker Elliot family in the Long Island Historical Society, a small library in Brooklyn Heights NY where I was living at the time.  At the very end of the booklet they were listed as lost.  One single line.  That's my big claim to fame, not that I'm famous.

Congratulations on staying out of the debate about co-occurring disorders! It's hard not to argue, I know.

ForeverDad
What do you mean by "unpaid"?

It really is annoying, and I'm good at avoiding her when I know she comes around. I have my lookouts. But I'm not all sad and feeling awful anymore. I just simply have no interest in having her be part of my life in any capacity, even in passing. I owe her nothing, not even to share the air we breathe. Some people just don't get it and act like I need to be her friend or something.

I'm not going to manufacture reasons to be around her. Our jobs do not overlap at all. Oh well.

No one really understands it until they've been on the receiving end of it. 

Even my mom, who saw first hand the insanity as she was "painted black" and made into this villain who was trying to ruin BPDxw's life and our marriage, will push me to get in pointless back-and-forth exchanges with her because she thinks me ignoring obvious argument bait is me "not standing up for myself" and crap like that. 

It is just how it is. 

It's unfortunate for you that you have that continuous connection at your workplace.  It's less burdensome than having a child together at least but sounds like more of a steady source of annoyance.

As an amateur family genealogist - that means unpaid - I've noticed some obituaries years after death, so those must have been "celebrations of life" too.  It all depends on who's doing the remembering.

As it says in the book of Ecclesiastes 7 "A good name is better than good oil, and the day of death is better than the day of birth."  That doesn't seem to make sense until you consider that at birth you don't know yet whether that baby will grow up to be a productive person or not.

Which reminds me of King David.  (I have a tendency to let my mind wander. Bear with me.)  He took another man's wife, Bath-sheba, but the resulting infant became ill and died.  While it was ill he was praying and fasting but once it died he stopped mourning and that perplexed his servants.  David explained, "While the child was alive, I fasted and kept weeping because I said to myself, 'Who knows whether Jehovah may show me favor and let the child live?' Now that he has died, why should I fast? Can I bring him back? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." - 2 Samuel 12