I wish I was told as well but she kept her medical information private from us. Also, the family unspoken rule was to not disclose that she had any issues and  that she was "normal". It felt like the Emperor Had No Clothes story and we'd be in trouble if we said anything.

One reason I wish I had know is- if she didn't have a disorder- then she behaved like this for some other reason. She would blame others, including us kids, and so somehow I wondered if it was my fault, and also that maybe she didn't like me.

But even as a young teen I could have understood mental illness. By high school I was looking in psychology books to see what might be going on with her as I suspected something was. BPD wasn't a main point in the books yet and no internet.

She told us her medicine was for "asthma". In college, I looked in her medicine cabinet and looked them up and realized they weren't for asthma. I naively tried to speak to one of her therapists but he wasn't willing or able to do that.

With the internet, I found BPD while looking up NPD as someone in our community was classic NPD and he was difficult to deal with. I looked this up for more information. On the page was a link to BPD and it sounded a lot like my mother.

It wasn't until BPD mother's elder years that she signed a consent for her nurse manager to speak to me. I still didn't see her actual records but the nurse carefully mentioned "PD" to me to see if I knew. I told her I thought she had BPD and the nurse agreed. By that time though, she wasn't in therapy and the medicine that helped her was for anxiety and that was the diagnosis they used.

I think a lot of confusion may have been avoided if someone had discussed BPD with me earlier- but it wasn't well known until later.

As for my own personal therapy- I haven't done it continuously. It's been more on an as needed basis. Some therapists have been more helpful than others, but a main benefit for all of them has been someone to talk to, in confidence, as these can be personal situations.

I work in tech and I've been watching the big data companies harvest our information more and more over the past decade.  It worries me and people will think I'm nuts for saying this, but I wouldn't be shocked if your phone didn't hear you say that a year ago and the information was stored to your digital profile.

Why do I think that?  Well, it's a guess.  But I've noticed dozens of times I'd have a conversation with my wife or my kid in the car, we'd talk about something and then the next day, I'd see ads for those things appear out of nowhere in my mail account, on Google, etc. 

For instance, we mentioned going to Orlando one time and I saw Disney ads and hotel specials for the next week.  I was going for a sick relative, not Mickey Mouse, but it still stood out to me.  Other times we mentioned joining a gym, getting a home security system, etc and sure enough, Google and Facebook somehow knew to show me those exact ads.  I never searched for any of that online...it was all spoken verbally in regular conversation.

Funnily enough Pete I did notice a couple of things that sounded like it was telling me things I wanted to hear, so i would call it out on it and it would re evaluate its response.

I’m aware it’s not got its own brain and isn’t thinking independently of itself. That is actually a good thing in my book. I actually said to it as a cynic are you telling me things just to be agreeable, to which it replied that it isn’t human, it has no emotions and it doesn’t need or isn’t trying to be my friend, just going on the logic of what I had written and that it has access to a data base of hundreds of thousands of accounts of similar situations.

Therefore it is not so far removed from a therapist that uses their knowledge from their client base, but taking the knowledge from a far far larger data base. Another good thing is therapists kind of have an unwritten rule that they won’t actually give you their own personal opinion. For example, they don’t, according to this rule, tell you if you are in a dangerous relationship get out for your own personal safety. They have to kind of steer you in that direction so you make that decision on your own, even if your life is at risk. Some go against that but it isn’t the norm.

That's pretty wild! 

This made me wonder how original a lot of BPD behavior is. 

I don't know if "impressed" is the right word, but sometimes BPDxw's seemingly instinctive behavior for dodging responsibility, deflecting blame, changing the subject, etc. would surprise me, and I would feel a little bit ashamed of myself for not having the same knack for navigating human interaction. 

If it's that easy to predict, then maybe it's more common and formulaic than we think. Like it's just typical learned behavior in a very negative, coercive society (which is very much like the situation she grew up in). 

I would just caution you all that:

1) AI is not actually "thinking" it's just regurgitating information based on prompts and information its programmers "collected" (some would say, stole) from other sources;

2) AI is still "hallucinating" and making up things at the same rate it always has.  Don't rely on it in critical situations;

3) AI has tendency to tell you what it thinks you want to hear (link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/24/sycophantic-ai-chatbots-tell-users-what-they-want-to-hear-study-shows).  This encourages you to keep using it!

AND...

4) nothing you type into an AI prompt is confidential, so be careful what you share.

Wow, I'm so sorry...that's brutally hard.  I was in that position a few times where I had to call the police and it was never easy.

You are 100% right though, she has to learn right from wrong.  The guy she was dating can't be a complete jerk if he called you to mediate.  It's a heartbreaking situation for everyone and I hope she figures some things out while she's in jail.  Depending on the state, it could be quite a long time or they could send her home due to overcrowding.

The numbness you feel is a blessing and a curse.  On one hand, you cope better because you're not completely stressed out.  But on the other hand, you're repressing emotions that will eventually resurface.  You have to deal with it, sooner or later, in order to actually move forward in a healthy way. 

And hopefully you can see that I'm saying that lovingly...no judgement here because I went through the exact same stuff.  Years later, it finally hit me like a ton of bricks and I had to process everything all over again.

My mother with BPD had a psychiatrist who was very well respected as a therapist. I think it helped that mom was going to him for medication and that the therapy was doable because she was there for her medication appointment. I doubt mom would ever have agreed to go to therapy. When I was a teenager, my father tried to get mom to see a mental health professional and she refused. I really don't think mom knew she was getting therapy with the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist eventually quit giving her therapy after several months. I think he knew she had a personality disorder. I called the psychiatrist once trying to convince him to schedule family therapy sessions. He said he could not do that. I would have liked to have known what mom was diagnosed with and what the psychiatrist thought about her mental illness. Mom did not want her children to know anything about her mental illness and the psychiatrist could not disclose anything without her permission. I figured some things out indirectly by googling a list of her medications which were all visibly in one place on a counter in her home. She was taking psychiatric medication for psychosis, depression, anxiety, restless leg syndrome, insomnia, etc.,

This post is about my initial search for couples counseling.  I specifically researched a local office for a female lettered psychologist in hopes my then-spouse would respond well to my efforts.  However, it turned out this professional wasn't a good fit.

I didn't know it then but my marriage was months away from a horrible separation and divorce.  I sought help for dealing with my ranting and raging spouse but during those three sessions all the counselor asked about was my FOO (family of origin).  I was disappointed to not hear even one suggestion or explanation for the distress I was experiencing in my increasingly high conflict marriage.

I later learned a clue - "sounds like a personality dysfunction" - from a hospital staffer, which led me to Stop Walking on Eggshells and hence here.  I have no idea why the counselor didn't mention the variety of Personality Disorders.  She was looking only into my childhood interactions but the immediate urgency at the time was the imploding marriage.

My daughter went over to her ex’s house and tried to give him a birthday present. He didn’t want to talk to her, so he rejected her and she doesn’t like rejection. He told her to leave she wouldn’t leave. He called me asked me to tell her to leave. I told her to leave, several times!!! I told her she should not be there. Well then he told her he would call the cops.  She was not deteured but when he actully did call she started breaking everything and throwing things through his window so vandalize his house.  Then of course she drove away.  I tracked her to see where she was going.  She went to her house then headed back to his house.  I alerted him that she was on her way back. We she saw the cops were there she drove away of course didn’t want to get caught.  To be honest I was watching where she was going because to be truthful I didn't want her coming to my house to deal with it again as I have forever.  I’m tired of her getting out of things, so I called the cops and told them when she was they went and picked her up. I went to meet the police to get her keys and so i had to see her, that was SOOOO hard.  She begged me to bell her out, and I told her I would not that she needed to learn responsibility for her actions. I held her head in my hands through the police window and told her I loved her but this time I can't help her. 

*back story, she just got home from rehab on June 1 and I'm pretty sure that she did this for me so she could stay in my good graces and continue to minuplate me and she did. 

The crazy thing is I'm numb about it.  It seams everytime another episode happens I get more numb and less reactive. 

Hi ch0p,

Wow, there's a lot going on with you, your sister and extended family.  You've come to the right place.

Much of what you write about your sister sounds like classic BPD.  What I see is some disordered thinking, such as rushing into intense relationships, thinking that a relationship will make her feel better.  Generally, I don't like it when young adults move in together early on in a relationship, as the relationship becomes all-consuming.  When it comes to BPD, your sister will likely become too reliant on the relationship for her "identity."  I think that's just too much pressure on one relationship and one person.  Why?  Because when there's a snag or disagreement, the pwBPD tends to "blow up" the relationship, and with it, her very identity.  I think that moving in together, early on in a romantic relationship, is basically setting herself up to fail.  You can't control whether your sister moves in with a new boyfriend, but my opinion is that your parents shouldn't allow it in their own home.

I'm going to be blunt here and give you my perspective.  If your sister is threatening suicide or making suicidal gestures, she is NOT in a good place.  In my opinion, it's typical for suicidal gestures to occur when someone else close to her is getting attention, such as with a sickness or an event, like a sibling's graduation, wedding, vacation or trip.  Now, maybe your sister didn't want to go to the hospital after she ingested some pills, and maybe the family didn't want to see her suffer by spending yet more time in the hospital getting therapy.  But I think that dynamic is part enablement, part denial and part clouded judgment as a result of living in a FOG of fear, obligation and guilt.  Let me guess:  after swallowing some pills, your sister didn't want to go to the hospital, but she wanted something else--to change her living situation, to get away for a while, or maybe just be left alone in her room to do whatever she wants.  I've seen that several times with the pwBPD in my life.  But here's the thing:  if she's enabled to avoid facing the natural consequences of her own behavior--a suicide attempt lands her in the hospital--her family is enabling dysfunction.  My guess is she'll want to go back to college (not really to study, but to get away from her current situation and to have some fun).  But right now, I think she's not ready.  Sending her back to college would be setting her up to fail, because her life looks too dysfunctional right now.  If she's not able to stick to her doctor's orders (e.g. taking meds as prescribed), and she can't fulfill her commitments (e.g. the internship), and she's not helping out around the house but rotting in bed instead, then guess what?  That's exactly what she'll do in college.  Sure, she'll SAY she wants to go back.  Her parents will want her to graduate.  But reality is, she'll be set up to fail.  And you know what?  Your sister doesn't take setbacks in stride.  She doesn't learn from mistakes.  She doesn't stick it out when the going gets tough.  No, what she has learned is to self-destruct.  Every time she self-destructs, her family rescues her.  Basically, your sister makes all the decisions, but other members of the family face the consequences.  Do I have that about right?

And now about you.  I totally get all the stress BPD dysfunction causes.  I also understand the sacrifices that you make, in the name of saving or protecting your sister.  Here we talk about walking on eggshells, doing everything in our power not to destabilize a loved one with BPD, out of a combination of love and fear.  But here's the thing.  A pwBPD has endless needs, while you do not have endless resources.  You could sacrifice your time, finances, hobbies, relationships and very health, and yet it wouldn't make any difference to your sister.  Let me guess:  you've been bending over backwards for your sister for YEARS, but has she gotten any better?  My guess is she has not.  In fact, she's gotten worse.  Why?  Because she's facing an adult's world with adult-sized pressures and stresses, but she has the emotional skills of a young teen at best.  She's finding out she's not functioning very well as an adult, and she's distressed and ashamed because of that.  She doesn't really know who she is and what she wants, let alone how to make her life happen.  She can't figure it out and feels intense shame.  But rather than take responsiblity, what does she do?  She embraces a victim mindset.  She blames everyone else for her troubles, and in the process, she abdicates responsibility for her life.  She expects others, including YOU, to take care of her, to over-function for her, to make her the center of your life.  But even if you do that, it won't be enough.

I'd say, you need to focus on YOU.  You deserve to have a life that doesn't revolve around your BPD sister.  I know, even just thinking about her consumes a ton of your mental bandwidth.  It's not fair that you think about her, probably more than you think about yourself!  So my advice to you would be to get busy.  You are not responsible for your sister.  She's 24, she's an adult.  If your parents want to take care of her, then great.  But it's not your job.  You get busy with your life--studies, work, friends, hobbies, self-care.  I think you need to have a talk with your parents about boundaries.  You can't continue to take care of your sis, as it means she avoids getting the help she needs.  You are NOT a therapist, and you're not trained to deal with BPD . . so don't!  You are not a babysitter of a 24-year-old sibling.  You are not supposed to be on suicide watch.  (Trust me, I was on suicide watch for something like three years . . . and it makes zero difference.)  My frank advice would be for you to leave your parents' home ASAP.   Sure, you can help out from time to time, but you need your own place.  Find some roommates, house-sit--do what you need to do to reclaim your own time and space.  My guess is, once you have your own time and space, your whole life won't be about your sister anymore.  She'll still be in your thoughts, but much less.  OK?