Hi!  I found NAMI to be very helpful (I refer to the very large handbook they gave me as my bible)!  I also recommend the book, "Stop Walking On Eggshells"; after MUCH research, I found a therapist who specializes in parents of children/young adults with BPD; she is helping me "learn" it is okay to have "joy" (I always feel guilty....how can I be happy when my daughter does not speak to me...)

Happy Spring

Tiny post....I knew to expect it (I did not check my phone all day this year!) (not seeking bday wishes, !  I had a fantastic bday) my bday was Saturday....I, again, hoped my daughter would text, she did not; AGAIN, I am losing sight of the end of light of this tunnel

I am so sorry for your loss and it's heart breaking that your nephew didn't reach out for help.  Sometimes those households can become so toxic and it's always the most heartbreaking for the children involved.  If only someone spoke up, if only a hundred different things happened, maybe it doesn't end this way.

Please understand that there was no way to know what was truly going on inside that home.  Both my ex-wife and my oldest daughter are BPD, and my youngest kid and I often talk about how "abnormal" our home was on a daily basis.  We truly had no idea how bad it was and we were living in it...and people outside the home couldn't begin to understand.  So from someone who has been in that environment, it's just so tough to talk to anyone about it.  Literally nobody believed me and nobody believed my youngest kid either.

I'll tell you what did help me a lot personally, and that was getting into therapy to talk this stuff out and realize that I'm not alone in all this.  It's what led me to this forum and helped me understand why my BPD ex-wife was the way she was, why there was always conflict and endless drama with my BPD kid, and why they ultimately both deserve compassion.  We can talk about that later though.

For now, is there anything we can talk out that's been weighing on you?  Please let us know since we're all here to help!

Learning about family dynamics and also relationship dynamics helped me to understand the behavior patterns in the family and roles people took on. One is the Karpman triangle. I can relate to your feeling you needed to save people in the family, but that expected role itself could be part of the family dysfunction. I learned that, due to the Karpman triangle dynamics, attempts to rescue would not be effective.

Still, it was possible for other family members to make a positive difference for us. We would spend time with my father's family when we were children and they were wonderful to us. My relationship with my BPD mother's family was influenced by her behavior but they eventually caught on to the dynamics and we have reconnected some. As an adult, I don't need the same kind of parenting a child does, but still, to have supportive family makes a difference - at any age. What may feel like a little to you, is huge to us, if we have not had that kind of "normal" relationship with a parent.

You can be a loving presence for the kids with emotionally healthy boundaries and this may require your own self examination of the roles that are assumed to be "normal" in your family dynamics. This may feel "wrong" to you and you may also experience some negative reactions in other family members when you do. Families configure themselves into a sort of balance. If one family member changes their behavior- the other members can feel a sense of discomfort and react to that. It seems you have felt a responsibility for your BPD sibling but possibly it's family dynamics that contribute to this too.

Having boundaries doesn't mean we don't ever help or care, but that we do so without crossing the line into enabling or co-dependent behavior. Self care is essential. Grief is difficult. There isn't one "right" way to go through it. You can and will feel what you feel. Other family members, and your BPD sibling are experiencing their own feelings too, they may not be capable of being emotionally supportive to you. It's good you have your spouse and friends. It's OK to take care of yourself. You can sort out how you choose to relate to your BPD sibling and other family members later.

Is that what the "bem" in your member name represents?


That's a timeline as old and predictable as time.  Stopped drinking... will restart eventually... it's your fault...

Thank you so much, Mutt, for your support and welcoming words. You are so right about the disorientation, that is a great way to describe it. I believe you are correct about pulling back, this feels like torture waiting for the next text or call. Although I do try to be low contact, I admit I could involve myself less with the chaos. I get wrapped up in my parent's reactions to everything also.

I try my best to feel the grief and anger when it comes & then let it pass, and enjoy the peaceful moments as they come also. I pray a lot, and do my best to take care of myself (eating well, sleeping enough, doing things I enjoy when I can). And I try to focus on the greater sense of gratitude that this has brought, I am much more grateful for my health, spouse, job, friends, etc. Gratitude helps realign my thoughts to positive things and accept the more negative things.

Thank you, Notwendy, for your kindness and support. I am sorry to hear of your losses as well. It really helps to hear from someone outside my circle that I am not doing "something wrong" in my grief and confusion. I appreciate your insights as well, they really make so much sense looking back. It gives me some comfort knowing I couldn't have "saved them" from their parents, though I will always wish I could save them the pain and chaos.

I will strongly consider going back into counseling, I had some poor luck finding a good match or they kept leaving the practice and passing me along to someone new. I will also look into those groups, I have not ever considered those programs before. But it makes sense.

Thank you for your kind words and support, CC43. What you said really hits the nail on the head, I believe I always got "a distorted, self-serving version of events, where she was perpetually the aggrieved victim." but never truly saw it until now. I do often feel like I am the eldest but I am the youngest child and the only who does not suffer from severe mental illness, so I have always felt the need to caretake, even after moving away years ago I tried so hard to do so from afar. Luckily, after years it has naturally diminished the need for my presence to caretake emotions in the family and is much less so now. That was a big hurdle for me though for about a decade.

Thank you for taking the time to empathize and make me feel less alone in this. It helps so much to read what others experience and be able to relate to them.

Thank you so much for your kindness and insights, these realizations are very new to me. I never noticed the guilt and fear in the relationship apart from fear of hurting my sibling or fear of losing them. It makes a lot of sense now. It helps a lot to hear that I did not "fail to do more" or "save them".

Thankfully the children are safe and away from the household now and children services is monitoring the situation on the one underage child. All are getting therapy and really focusing on taking care of themselves apart from one of the elder children who doesn't feel ready yet. I believe they are taking the right steps to heal and grieve and set boundaries now where they can. They are all working to resolve the grief and pain as well and navigate the relationship with their parent. I am very proud of them.

That “bizarro world” feeling you’re describing makes a lot of sense. When things shift this fast and this much, it can feel really disorienting even when part of you understands what’s going on.

When a relationship feels like it might actually end, it’s pretty common to see a surge of effort to try and pull things back together. More warmth, more attention, showing up in ways that haven’t been there in a long time. On the surface it can look like things are suddenly better, but a lot of the time it’s coming from the fear of losing the connection, especially when that connection still feels central.

At the same time, there can be a different version of the story happening with other people. Especially when there’s a lot of emotion tied to how things might look from the outside. As you probably already know, for a lot of pwBPD, feelings like shame and guilt can sit pretty close to the surface, so how things are seen by others can carry a lot of weight.

Holding both of those at once, what you’re experiencing directly and what’s being said around you, can really mess with your sense of what’s real.

What stands out is that you’re still clear in your read of things, even with everything suddenly looking “better” on the surface. That’s not easy to hold onto.

With the next step coming up, things may shift again once it becomes more real.

How are you doing with it today?