more than one BPD in the family

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Hi everyone,
I figured out a few months ago that I have a mother and a sister with BPD and I have been traumatized and bullied by them all my life. no longer talking to them and luckily living in a completely different country.
Their behavior was text book BPD. now (after 30 odd years) I know, but I'm having hard to coping with the idea that they ruined my life and got away with it.
How does one start recovering from this? what kind of therapy would help?

thanks in advance

[sigurros]

Hi everyone,
I figured out a few months ago that I have a mother and a sister with BPD and I have been traumatized and bullied by them all my life. no longer talking to them and luckily living in a completely different country.
Their behavior was text book BPD. now (after 30 odd years) I know, but I'm having hard to coping with the idea that they ruined my life and got away with it.
How does one start recovering from this? what kind of therapy would help?

thanks in advance

[once removed]

hi sigurros, and

its never too late to heal and to make big changes in our lives. im glad you reached out, and i hope youll stick around and make yourself at home here as part of the family.

reaching out to a support group who understands and has been there is a great step!

what (specifically) led to you no longer speaking to your mother and sister, and how long has it been since you spoke? is your dad in the picture?

[Harri]

Hi!  Welcome to the board. 

I am joining once removed in saying that it is never too late to begin to heal.  It can be done as you will see.   Many of us are healing and either have come to terms with all the lost time or are in the process of working through it so you are in good company.   

As you share more of your story and jump in and start posting and interacting with others you will find that you are not alone.  This is also a good way to build a support network.  We do work on healing too so you are in the right place.

[JNChell]

sigurross, welcome to bpdfamily. I’m sorry you had to find us, but very glad to have you with us. I’ll echo once removed and Harri in saying that it’s never too late to begin the healing process. I’m 42 now and just began to really dig my heals into healing about a year ago. I’ve made progress.

I’d like to go out on a limb here and tell you that you haven’t allowed them to ruin your life. You’re here with us. That doesn’t strike me as someone that has caved into the abuse. Everything is ok right now and we’re going to help you.

Recovery is a very personal and individual thing. It might help you to talk about some of your personal experiences with your mom and sister. Whenever you’re comfortable in doing so, of course. This community is peer based. We all help and support each other here. It can take a minute to find our comfort level, but in my experience, most members settle in just fine.

As for therapy, I can only give my testimony. I’ve been blessed with a seasoned trauma specialist. A PhD psychologist. She’s been a tremendous help. This community has been priceless. I’m curious if it has been hard for you to find people to talk to this about in your day to day life. This community is open 24/7 and we “get it”. We’re happy to have you on board.

[sigurros]

Thanks all.
the reasons for not being on talking terms with my BPD are along the lines of the straw that broke the camel's back. My dad was indifferent, never protected me.and didn't care.  i was also being constantly blackmailed for my chronic condition, being told that i will have to depend on them all my life, so better be on their good side.
i think i have had enough, and now reading "walking on eggshells" made all pieces come together. it is a hard realization, but at least now i know why some things turned out to be the way they are. over the years, i lost my self confidence, social support and humor. now looking back, i am amazed i made it this far.
but i wish to recover from this damage. hoping hearing others' stories will make me feel less crazy or paranoid.
I think growing up with two bps was extremely difficult. probably 5-6 years ago, i got fed up of talking about their behavior with my friends, and it was damaging my friendships, as if giving them ammunition to hurt me, so i shut up. demonstrates a trust issue i guess

[JNChell]

Hi again, sigurros. It sounds like your dad may have been an enabler. He wasn’t outwardly abusive to you, but he didn’t really do anything to stop it. He may have tried to get you to conform to keep the peace. To not upset your mom. Is that somewhat accurate?

What is your chronic condition? Are you keeping up on it?

over the years, i lost my self confidence, social support and humor. now looking back, i am amazed i made it this far.

I and many others here empathize with you here. The biggest aspect is making it this far. The thing is, you did. You’re with peers now. How do you feel about that?

It’s not easy to not be able to really talk about this stuff with our friends. If they haven’t experienced things like this for themselves, they have no real way of knowing. It’s understandable. We can’t force them to understand, and that’s ok. It’s completely understandable to us, but our desperation to be understood can be off putting to others. Does that make sense?

[sigurros]

yep. that sounds about right. always keep the peace, be understanding and so on
i became type 1 diabetic when i was 6, and i am still diabetic but am coping well. years ago you had to depend on parents to give you the injections, save you from severe hypos etc.

am looking forward learning from the community.

[JNChell]

It's good that you’re taking care of yourself. What would you like to gather from this community? Say the first thing that comes to mind. 

[sigurros]

understanding how others dealt with similar situations and learning from those.
up until recently, i didn't think that this was a common problem with a diagnosis and i thought that i had an extremely unpleasant/unstable mother and an evil sister. and that there was nothing i could do to change this.
now time to start healing myself, so trying to get as much info as possible on how to

[Harri]

   It can be quite surprising to find out there is a name for all of this and you are not alone in your experiences right?

now time to start healing myself, so trying to get as much info as possible on how to

You can do a lot of the work right here.  I did as have many others.  Some of us have also gone though or are still going through counseling.

Building a support network is important and we can be that for you too.   You mentioned in a previous post that you stopped talking to friends about your family issues. 

i got fed up of talking about their behavior with my friends, and it was damaging my friendships, as if giving them ammunition to hurt me, so i shut up. demonstrates a trust issue i guess

Sometimes it is a matter of your friends not having the experience and so they can't relate and other times it may be us oversharing.  I know I did for a while.  Yet another possibility is that your friends are just not capable of giving you the support you need.  A lot of us have found that as we heal we have to re-think and re-assess relationships including friendships.  We often hang out with those who are similar to what we know even if what we know is unpleasant and abusive or emotionally dismissive.

Do you think some of that may be in play here?

[sigurros]

yes, I think part of it was oversharing hoping someone would tell me that this was not okay and my feelings would be justified. but at some point, this took over my chats with friends and i also grew tired of complaining with nothing resolved. i was not able to understand the root cause and was frustrated.

and you are right, Harri. now in hindsight, i see that normalizing the BPD behavior at home also forced me to tolerate this kind of behavior in some friendships. might be good riddance
i feel like now i have to "reset" all my priors and build a new life. scary in some sense, but also liberating

[Harri]

i feel like now i have to "reset" all my priors and build a new life. scary in some sense, but also liberating

    It is scary and liberating and exciting and painful and joyous... .a whole bunch of conflicting things.

The good news is that you have support in that now.  Some of our experiences may be different but the overall process is the same in terms of healing.

Have you see our Survivor's Guide?  Take a look at the steps and see if you can figure out where you are in terms of the healing process:  Remembering, Mourning or Healing.  If you click you will get a popup that gives more information.  It is a great thing to have and to gauge where we are and sort of get an idea of where we will go.  Having said that, healing does not necessarily happen in discrete steps.  You might be at more than one stage at a time.


We also have a book you can download for free listed on the same page.  The Survivor to Thriver Manual : The transformative journey from victim, to survivor, to thriver  I have found both very helpful.

Look through them and let me know what you think.  We can talk about it here.

[Pina colada]

sigguros, I am sorry for your pain but as you can see, many of us have been in similar situations.  My sister, whom is much older, tortured me my whole life.  She was mean and abusive to my entire family, especially our mom and dad.  My dad, whom had his own issues put up with it but was completely on to her.  My mom refused to let her manipulate her as she got older and had minimal contact.  I tried to maintain a relationship with my disordered sister, but disordered people don't play fair and her abuse and pathological lying go against all that I am.  I have been turning inward to my childhood trauma and healing from inside out.  I can honestly say I the more I heal, the less I even think or remember her as a part of my life.  She has done so many unspeakable acts to myself, my mom, brother, dad, uncle etc. that I realized she is just evil and will never change.  She cut me off a year ago had to have the last word etc. and I haven't looked back.  I don't come here as much because healing my inner trauma (as I heal) I don't think about her.  I can't change her and she will never change so the best gift one can do for oneself is work on our own inner trauma.  Once you start healing from the inside, the people no longer have control over you.  BPD is no joke and it is serious and these people do serious damage to us.  Keep posting... .

[JNChell]

Hi again, sigurros. I’m happy to hear that you’re seeking. It’s a wild ride my friend. Sticking with this group will help you during your journey. I don’t usually make promises, but I am now. I promise you that you will benefit from being here.

You have access to a lot of info on what you desire. Have you navigated the site much yet? Looking forward to hearing back from you.