Hello and welcome to the family!  The dynamic sounds very stressful but at least they live several hours away and you don't have to deal with this daily.  Or are you planning on staying longer due to your sister's sickness?

Also, what would your "more serious talk" look like?  Talk that out a little bit so we can better understand your goals in that conversation.

With mental illness, your niece will only get help once she realizes that she needs it on her own.  Nobody can force her or convince her of anything, not even professionals.  She has to actually want to change and heal before signifigant progress can be made.

While it would be great to get your sister's house cleaned out and organized, it might not be possible.  And that's okay.  Do what you can, don't argue about any of it, and they'll decide what and how to maintain the home.

I'm so sorry about your sister as well, I will say a prayer for her now.

My sister let it slip that while hospitalized,  she'd been diagnosed with BPD. She later denied that she said it, but I have witnesses. Later, her 4th ex-husband and her middle daughter saw her medical records and said that was probably the mildest of what she was diagnosed with.  It's probably  why he got full custody of their then 8 year old daughter.  Now, that youngest daughter has access to the psychiatric records my sister somehow thought would help her get to live with that daughter.  No, it just made sure that my niece knows she's making the best decision to keep her mother at arm's length. 

Hi kind of Alone,

Who wouldnt begin to feel numb? I also began to feel numb after my udd,s endless dramas. I would literally just about get over one drama and be hopeful that udd had learnt from it and things had calmed down only to discover another with the expectation of me coming to the rescue everytime after previously being kept in the dark.
 
My lack of enthusiasm in rescuing her from all these dramas of course was interpreted by udd that I didnt care and that I had never cared and not that I was simply burnt out!!!

I think you did the right thing and that your udd is right where she needs to be right now and what you  have to consider now while you have some breathing space is how YOU move forward. YOUR health and wellbeing matters and it is time to focus on yourself.

You have helped your udd over and over again with no signs of change and as an adult it is time for her to take responsibility for her actions and learn from the consequences of her behaviour. Hopefully the reality of currently being where she is will a time of reflection for her and a turning point into the starting point for her to get her own life together.

I gradually went very low contact with my mother with BPD and other disordered family members. It only worked because I was ready to initiate lower contact after many years of therapy and working continuously on being a separate person in my own right, no longer so enmeshed in the toxic family dynamics.

This is my own experience with LC/NC and a family member. In some cases, it is necessary- and I don't judge anyone for doing it if it is the right thing for them. In my own experience though- it's not a solution when that family member is also connected closely to other family members and you still want contact with the other family- because the person you wish to avoid will be a part of that unit.

It also is abrupt, and sometimes this can cause a reaction from the pwBPD, who can also solicit other family members to "their side". Rarely in a family is the issue with just one person. Other members may be rescuers/enablers.

My only and short failed consideration of NC with my BPD mother was in college when a counselor suggested it- for good reason- issues were making it hard for me to focus on my studies and affecting me academically and emotionally. BPD was not really well known at the time. I'm sure that hearing about my mother's behavior was significant enough for the counselor to suggest it.

I tried but still wanted contact with my father, and they were a pair If I wanted contact with him it would have to include her.

It was many years later that I learned about BPD and the family dynamics. In your situation, going NC with your sister is likely to include other family members acting as rescuers, including possibly your parents. You don't want to cut contact with your entire family.

LC for me was not just less frequency of contact but the content of the contact. It meant not sharing personal or emotional information, avoiding circular and emotional discussions. I think a good approach is to not make a statement or anouncement, but a "slow fade" to both frequency and content of communications. She might call, and you can be busy. Or she starts with emotional content or accusation and you say "I need to go, someone is at the door, or you have an appointment, or whatever non emotional reason to get off the phone. You don't call as often or not at all.

One of my guides for content is- if it were on the evening news, would you care? So I might say "child's soccer team won today" "I saw this great movie" rather than to have a personal emotional topic. If she asks personal info- then say "I don't know or it's not important" or some deflection, or get off the phone. There still is contact, but the content is less emotional, less reactive, less drama. 

I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. What a combination of circumstances!  One piece of advice I have is to decide what you have to get involved with and what you don’t. What are he implications for you or your sister, for example, if those bottles of nail polish are there? (I’m not saying there aren’t but just want to point out that you should ask yourself if there are.  Pwbpd generally dont change so it’s not worth addressing things that affect only her.

Folks,

How have you moved from lots of contact to low contact or low contact to no contact?

Thanks!

Hi. Has anybody ever initiated a temporary period of separation from pwbpd to give you time to recover your emotional balance? How did that affect lay out?  Thank you!

Not as much with food but my BPD mother did this with objects. We weren't allowed to touch or use things that were hers. This went beyond personal items- which we wouldn't do that with anyway, but I avoided cooking anything in her kitchen because it would use her pots and pans. One time, I brought a carton of ice cream in and put it in the freezer and she got angry because I didn't ask permission. I could make a cup of tea in her kitchen without issues but I didn't attempt to do anything else.

I think underlying this behavior is needing a sense of control. This kind of behavior is often driven by anxiety. As to food- pwBPD also can have eating disorders, or your fiancee's behavior may also come from childhood if food was budgeted. Even if there was enough to eat, if one person ate more than their share, others would have less. So she may have some anxiety over her food and knowing it is there if she wants it. For my BPD mother, she felt a need to have control over objects in her house.

I'm the opposite when it comes to communal food and objects. Large family sizes are often less costly in the long run than smaller ones. So even in college, with room mates, we could have our own personal favorites but buy some items in bulk and share them, along with kitchen items as long as everyone cleans up their own mess. It usually worked out for everyone. That may be your thinking too but it doesn't work with your fiancee. She doesn't see it your way, so you would need to accommodate this preference if you choose to move forward with the relationship.

Hi and welcome to the forums. We've all been through the same thing so we know exactly where youre coming from.


A lot of BPD's won't ever admit they have any sort of problem, always playing 'the victim' and can react badly to any accusations of being the cause. Even when breakups happen a lot they can't make the logical connection that they are the common denominator in every incident. BPD is an illness of self-denial and if the sufferer believes they aren't the problem then they'll do nothing to try it fix it. In their mind it's 'the world' that needs fixing, never them.

If you keep contacting them they can become overwhelmed and this can make them withdraw further. We're often in a no-win situation where if we ignore them they think we dont care and if we make too much fuss we're 'controlling and demanding'.  BPD can turn our well-meaning acts into ones seen as hostile.

One thing applies to all versions of BPD; you can't make them do anything they don't want to. I'd be inclined to send her a simple and sincere message that you're there for her whenever she wants to talk and then you can do no more - the ball is firmly in her court.

I used to give my exBPD g/f space to cool off and she would eventually return to the place we used to go, but she could takes weeks - and in one case 9 months - to do it. Once I'd wrote though, I didn't keep contacting her.

Hope this helps, no doubt others will be along to give help and advice too.