I lived with my sister - I think she has BPD (bit of a rant)

[Our abuse recovery guide]

My half-sister is 8 years older than me and has always kind of bullied me, says she wishes I had never been born and so on - I always thought this was normal (we never know how other families behave, right?) but over time I've come to think she has BPD. I'm hoping you guys can tell me whether all this is BPD behaviour.

We shared a house from around when I was 17 to 23. She would do things like make me cry for days over trivial arguments, e.g. if I said I knew more about video games than her (remember she was about 28 at the time, we weren't little kids having a sibling rivalry! I'm 25 now and I can't imagine WANTING to make my family members cry!), would say/do hurtful things and then act as if she didn't remember them and they never happened, would do nice things for me but then use them to guilt me for YEARS afterwards ('I do everything for you and you're so horrible to me... .' and tell me what a burden I am. In arguments she will come out with bizarre, totally out of the blue, paranoid insults like that I'm jealous of her job or that my parents deliberately lie to her about having too much work scheduled to see her, which can completely take you aback and leave you aghast with what she secretly thinks of you.

She ALWAYS says I am loved more by our parents, our parents don't love her and are trying to hurt her financially and emotionally by 'ripping her off' and only care about my happiness. This isn't true but she really believes it and has really paranoid beliefs about our intentions that she demands we admit to being true.

One minute you will be her favourite person, the only one who really understands her, the smartest, funniest, most successful person she knows - the next she's saying nobody could possibly put up with you, you're the rudest, dirtiest, weirdest, most childish person in the world and everything is your fault because you're too weird to live with anyone. Crying in arguments was forbidden (you're so sensitive, such a crybaby!) but not crying was also forbidden (you're a sociopath, you're a robot, look at you, you're smiling, you LIKE arguing with me!). If you managed to get through to her that she'd done something hurtful she would make a huge deal over how guilty she felt but never changed her behaviour.

Unfortunately her girlfriend shares some of the same traits, backs her up on everything no matter how deluded because she's 'on her side', joins in telling me it's all my fault and I cause all the problems and our family spoils me and doesn't love my sister and is harming her. She treats everyone in our family very badly and tries to force them to order me to do things, insults them and pretends the insults are jokes, and so on. The same behaviour really. And they had explosive arguments nearly every day.

I ended up severely depressed, would avoid coming downstairs to eat because of the raging arguments between her and the girlfriend that would happen every night and to avoid being criticised nonstop, had heart palpitations and shaking, would spend weekends crying and wanting to die because I felt so trapped and awful about myself. I still get extremely upset over the things she said about me during that time.

While we don't live together now we are still financially entangled over the house and its driving everyone to their breaking point. We are all so sick of it and I've only recently come to realise that how she treated me wasn't normal, while I was there she made me feel like I was the oversensitive, intolerable, insane one. Of course the worse she behaves the more we DO avoid her and isolate her from the family because she causes such terrible conflict, which in her mind is proof that she's right. I really feel like she ruined my self esteem and my trust in my family, which I guess is a little how she feels too but we can't cope with it much longer... .

Sorry for venting, but I figure if anyone can empathise it's you guys :/

[Peregrine]

My half-sister is 8 years older than me and has always kind of bullied me, says she wishes I had never been born and so on - I always thought this was normal (we never know how other families behave, right?) but over time I've come to think she has BPD. I'm hoping you guys can tell me whether all this is BPD behaviour.

We shared a house from around when I was 17 to 23. She would do things like make me cry for days over trivial arguments, e.g. if I said I knew more about video games than her (remember she was about 28 at the time, we weren't little kids having a sibling rivalry! I'm 25 now and I can't imagine WANTING to make my family members cry!), would say/do hurtful things and then act as if she didn't remember them and they never happened, would do nice things for me but then use them to guilt me for YEARS afterwards ('I do everything for you and you're so horrible to me... .' and tell me what a burden I am. In arguments she will come out with bizarre, totally out of the blue, paranoid insults like that I'm jealous of her job or that my parents deliberately lie to her about having too much work scheduled to see her, which can completely take you aback and leave you aghast with what she secretly thinks of you.

She ALWAYS says I am loved more by our parents, our parents don't love her and are trying to hurt her financially and emotionally by 'ripping her off' and only care about my happiness. This isn't true but she really believes it and has really paranoid beliefs about our intentions that she demands we admit to being true.

One minute you will be her favourite person, the only one who really understands her, the smartest, funniest, most successful person she knows - the next she's saying nobody could possibly put up with you, you're the rudest, dirtiest, weirdest, most childish person in the world and everything is your fault because you're too weird to live with anyone. Crying in arguments was forbidden (you're so sensitive, such a crybaby!) but not crying was also forbidden (you're a sociopath, you're a robot, look at you, you're smiling, you LIKE arguing with me!). If you managed to get through to her that she'd done something hurtful she would make a huge deal over how guilty she felt but never changed her behaviour.

Unfortunately her girlfriend shares some of the same traits, backs her up on everything no matter how deluded because she's 'on her side', joins in telling me it's all my fault and I cause all the problems and our family spoils me and doesn't love my sister and is harming her. She treats everyone in our family very badly and tries to force them to order me to do things, insults them and pretends the insults are jokes, and so on. The same behaviour really. And they had explosive arguments nearly every day.

I ended up severely depressed, would avoid coming downstairs to eat because of the raging arguments between her and the girlfriend that would happen every night and to avoid being criticised nonstop, had heart palpitations and shaking, would spend weekends crying and wanting to die because I felt so trapped and awful about myself. I still get extremely upset over the things she said about me during that time.

While we don't live together now we are still financially entangled over the house and its driving everyone to their breaking point. We are all so sick of it and I've only recently come to realise that how she treated me wasn't normal, while I was there she made me feel like I was the oversensitive, intolerable, insane one. Of course the worse she behaves the more we DO avoid her and isolate her from the family because she causes such terrible conflict, which in her mind is proof that she's right. I really feel like she ruined my self esteem and my trust in my family, which I guess is a little how she feels too but we can't cope with it much longer... .

Sorry for venting, but I figure if anyone can empathise it's you guys :/

[deux soeurs]

Hi.  It does appear that she has issues, however, only a doctor could diagnose.  The important thing is that you and she are having difficulties.  Unfortunately you entangled because of financial reasons.  Have you very little contact?  Are you able to talk to a therapist or do you have a support network?  BPD is a mental illness.  My sister has it BAD... .No one in our family has contact with her except our dad.  I am blessed with a great brother, aunts, cousins etc.  Are there other family members you can reach out to?