Oh yes, my pwBPD would do the exact same thing.  In fact, going no-contact with a parent was the purported excuse to avoid a family event like a birthday, holiday, wedding or graduation.  But I think that going no-contact with a parent was merely a "cover" for a deeper, fundamental issue of intense feelings of shame, inferiority and jealousy.  My pwBPD will practically fall apart if anyone asks, "How are you?/What's new with you?How's school/work?" which are typical questions from well-meaning family and friends at this sort of event.

I actually think that the no-contact excuse potentially makes things easier for you.  If your graduating daughter asks about her sister, you might reply, "I'm afraid I don't know about her plans because she hasn't told me."  Or, "Your sister doesn't mean to hurt you by not coming--she's just mad at me right now.  Don't you worry about that, this day is about YOU, not your sister."

It's the never-ending battle mode for me - and the expectation that with each new battle, everyone comes running with unconditional, unquestioning loyalty - and the anger when you fail to respond unquestioningly. And, the ways your hesitation to blindly accept is met by others as a character flaw. On repeat. Couple that with the fact that you want to be supportive in the moment from battle to battle, but recognize that this exacerbates pattern that is harmful to all involved. So you get to be the bad guy. On repeat. Yuck.

Thank you Pook for your words of encouragement.
After the crash out he had I did speak to him a few days later expressing to him to the conditions we are leaving in his hands, get help or he has to find a place to live that is not with me.
He has to follow through to the best of his ability, which is very minimal but he has to try. I love him and forgive him, and I will always love him and

I think when I say resentment, I don’t necessarily mean unforgiveness persay. I think I mean it festers and leaves me feeling drained and not wanting to ever give of myself to them the way I once did. Time, energy, thoughts, nothing. I just want to react by flight and not looking back.
As I write this that is probably for the best. We are not meant to like everyone, I guess I just hate that this is with my son whom I love.
I have no desire to put myself in the line of fire over and over. Maybe that isn’t what it is but it sure feels like it.

Notwendy, I am unsure what ACA is, can you let me know.
I am religious person
I will definitely consider journaling about that as well, that is a great idea, thank you!!

Here's the thing, you're still focused on the words she's saying.  That's not the real problem.

For instance, last year I was weed whacking around trees and got too close to a wasp nest.  They absolutely lit me up on the ear, the forehead, the nose, the back of my neck.  And immediately, involuntarily, I drop the weed whacker and start to flee while I'm saying God knows what out of my mouth.  I was cussing and yelling and panicking all at once.  I have zero clue what I actually said though...but my neightbor did.

Maybe 30 minutes later, a neighbor came to check on me because she said it looked like I was having a nervous breakdown.  She saw all the welts on my face and we both laughed, and then she told me a few of the choice cuss words and other things I shouted out to the world.  That's not me at all, I generally don't cuss.

In this example, whatever I said was not the problem- the 20+ wasp stings were the problem. 

Mental pain works the exact same way- you can't see it, you don't know what brought it on, and your first reaction is to "fix things", even though the communication makes it hard to find the actual problem.  Don't get pulled in by the words, they're misleading and just emotional babble most of the time.  Focus on the emotions instead.

Again, this is IMPOSSIBLY HARD and there's no easy answers or methods.  But it can be accomplished over time if you have the patience to learn and grow.

So, I have been off this board for a while. I have a sibling who I suspect has uBPD and uNCD - or at least has behavioral patterns that reflect these disorders. I have personally worked through all the things with her and with my family (who enable her), and a big part of that was establishing clear boundaries with her and her family and developing independent relationships with other family members. There are so many things, but the gist is that she is always in a battle - and the battles are always huge. She is at the center as a hero fighting for the morally just. She has been victimized and then comes out fighting like hell. The pattern has repeated itself the last forty years, with increasingly high stakes. She involves and sometimes centers her kids in these battles, to the point that they see her as their savior. And I have to say, they have been through some really tough stuff. And there are times she's perfectly pleasant. So there are times, not as many as there used to be, that I wonder if my boundaries are appropriate and I question if I am just being cold-hearted by not running to her aid when the next battle comes up. That's where I'm at now. She just got done with one major battle last year, had a couple smaller ones pop up, iced another sibling out of family gatherings (like she did me), and is starting up a whole new battle that everyone in the family is gearing up to run to support her in it again. And once again, I feel like a jerk. This battle (and most of hers) has always had some merit, so of course I want to support where I can, but like all things, it is taken to the absolute extreme. But, then I'm reminded of all the manipulation, narrative re-structuring, idealizing and devaluing of me in particular, insistence that I said and did things I never did, extreme claims, memories of her emotional responses to facts rather than facts themselves, telling me I deserve to suffer, and all the grandiose claims. I have worked through all of the past hurts, have established and maintained strong boundaries despite the fact that the rest of the family does not acknowledge her behavior as problematic. I think I've come to realize that I am responding to the behavioral pattern and the rest of my siblings are responding to each battle as they come up. I've always said I want her to have peace in her life. I don't know. Feeling gross because here we go again.

Hello and welcome to the family!  And great question!

Unfortunately, the experiences tend to be mixed when it comes to reconnecting.  Many here have done it successfully, myself included, but not all of those stories have happy endings.  In some of them, everything was wonderful for a period of time, then everything blew up.  In others, there was lots of bitterness in the reconnection and it quickly brought up old patterns and memories.

I think to give you a better answer, we'd have to talk about your motives.  I mean, you've already laid them out nicely- mom's getting old, she doesn't necessarily need you with the big family, but it would be nice to smooth things over. 

Are there any other reasons?  What about grandkids?

A common "theme" here seems to have been around major life events, holidays, etc.  Do you get together with your siblings at all for July 4th, Thanksgiving, or Christmas?  That would be the easiest way to "test the waters" without actually diving in.

Thanks Pook. It seems like I can't do anything to calm her down at all, but I've seen that if I remain calm, that at least won't make things worse. But it's so hard to be reassuring and calming when they tell me "you're just lying", "you're only trying to make me feel better, you actually don't believe what you're saying". By now I've learned to avoid using the actual word "calm" because that enrages them.

I'm not sure what to do -- when I try letting them know that I empathize with how the feel about their distrust in me and the relationship, I only get vague demands to "get" them back and to "convince" them that I care, while refusing to actually say what would make them regain their trust.

Just seems like I'm incapable of calming them down no matter what I do.

I talk about 12 steps a lot but it's really helped me. Sitting in meetings is an important part of it but if that is all someone does, it's like glossing over the program. What helped me a lot was going over the steps, one on one with a sponsor- one who turned the mirror on me, and helped me to do the hard work of self reflection.

One of the steps involves a worksheet that includes resentment. My sponsor asked me to go home and write down all the people who I felt resentful of, and why. I came back with my list and we went over each of them, and it showed me what my personal cost for holding on to them- letting these people "live rent free" in my thoughts was, and that it didn't really have an effect on them at all. Once I could see that, I could also see that it wasn't really worth having them.

Some people don't feel they can relate to the spiritual aspect of 12 steps but I have met people in my groups from many different religions, and atheists. Each person decides for themselves on what they call their "higher power". An aspect of this is to recognize that we aren't in control of everything, and other people, and not feel so responsible for other people's behavior and decisions. Another one is expectations. Sometimes we resent people because they don't meet our expectations of who we think they should be, but they are who they are.

The best fit program for me was ACA and I think it would be for you also. It goes into our childhood experiences, not to blame or resent, but to gain understanding. I didn't have a "method" for letting go of resentment but this program showed me one. It makes absolute sense that you have these feelings towards your father, as you wished he could be the father you saw when he was sober. Also your sister. I had a list too.

This doesn't mean being indifferent to BPD abuse or abuse from any one. We are not expected to tolerate that. It helps to let go of resentments from things that happened in the past, and refocus on the present and also to examine new feelings.

Abuse is abuse, and the only people who reach indifference to it are clear victims.  As you said, you're not interested in being a victim so that's not your path forward.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is one of the hardest things to do and one of the easiest at the same time.  I too carried grudges from bad treatment from my BPD kid, and it got so bad at one point that I'd almost obsess over it.  Can you believe what she said?  What type of person does that to someone else?  It was always in the back of my mind as I tried to solve the equation that we call Borderline Personality Disorder.

My breakthrough came similar to yours where my daughter apologized sincerely around 23 years of age.  It shocked me at first because an apology takes the realization that you're doing something wrong.  And over the next few days, it sort of ate at me- why was I always so mad at my kid when she's clearly sick?  Eventually, I was able to accept the apology and literally let all that frustration go.

Today, I don't have an active role in my daughter's life.  If she needs me, she can call anytime and I'll do what I can to help.  But at the same time, I'm not caught up in her drama or sucked into that daily cycle of abusive comments and blame.  For me personally, it's the best of both worlds and I no longer carry any kind of ill-will towards her.  She's sick and doing exactly what mentally ill people with BPD do.  I don't let that bother me anymore, even when I do occasionally get told off on a call.

Do you think it would help the conversation to keep things focused?  So for example, he brings up something like the potato salad incident.  Ask him why he brought that up, and redirect the conversation on the discussion at hand.  He complains about the church.  Leave it up to him: "okay, we're not going to Church we're going to a birthday party.  What is your point here?  If you feel they're inconsiderate of you because they attend the church you don't like, you don't have to go.  I don't feel the same way because I know [insert: whatever nice things they've said about him].  If I really felt like they were inconsiderate to my husband, I would not want to go see them."  Or something like that?

You have to keep in mind the bigger picture when you have these conversations, like a mental roadmap, to keep them on track.  Maybe consider some mental trigger to remind you, "Oh, we're talking about family. Better go to my mental checklist of how to handle this."  Otherwise they successfully drag you into the mire, and derail everything with a bunch of petty arguments and nonsense.  

If you do it right, they shouldn't feel attacked; they should feel ridiculous with some of the stuff they say (like bringing up the potato salad in a discussion about attending a family birthday party), and drop it.  

Of course, it never ends, but might reduce the amount of time these painful discussions take.