Parents enabling my brother with suspected BPD

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Hi BPD family,

I would be grateful for any advice on my situation:
I am the youngest of two, my older brother has always been difficult going back to when we were babies. He is now almost 40, and most of his life has been riddled with unemployment, mental health issues, and drug and shopping addiction.

Any time Ive tried to talk to him he desperately uses all sorts of tactics to avoid facing the facts. He becomes manipulative and very emotional, and often will just start talking nonstop about how hard he's been working to better himself and 'how hard life is for him' so no one can even get a word in. He becomes apologetic and paints an elaborate story about how he'll change, which sadly my parents still buy into.

When I learned about borderline personality disorder I felt that he fit the symptomology perfectly (and a lot of the thought patterns ring true for me, too, much to my dismay).

Needless to say, he basically has no friends (save for the childhood friends who feel too guilty to cut him off completely), is unable to date, or keep a job for very long. He has "gone back to school" countless times now, on my parents' dime of course, and has always dropped out/never finished any programs.

Clearly my parents enable him, which means he never has to take responsibility for any of his actions, and they are constantly bailing him out of the debt he gets into from online shopping and buying exorbitant amounts of weed. They have allowed him to live at home rent and job free his whole life, they give him free use of their car, and he has taken over the entire basement (vs just living in his old room).

My brother is at his core a terrified man, and he appears to be very scared to seek any kind of real help (not just bullying my parents for money), or make any changes to his life. Because of his deep denial and avoidance, he does not have any official mental health diagnosis, and argues that he is fine and 'working through all this by himself'. Extremely frustrating, am I right.

My problem is this: my parents are basically on the road to blowing through all their retirement savings by constantly handing money over to my brother for him to spend on useless crap and drugs.
To try to counteract this, I have gained power of attorney over my parents, and have successfully "hidden" some of their retirement money from them, with their consent and they agree it is for their own good.
that being said, I can see that whatever money is liquid in their accounts is quickly disappearing in the form of cheques made out to my brother.
I would like to help them, but my issue is also self serving in that I DO NOT want to be supporting my mom dad and brother once they blow through all the money in their accounts, and do not want to feel the guilt of making the decision not to support them financially.

I previously made another post asking for resources in Japanese. My parents do not speak english well, are well into their seventies, and are simply not equipped to deal with my brother. They barely understand the concepts of mental illness, boundary setting, co-dependency, adductions, etc. They are old country Japanese immigrants, and are mainly concerned with themes such as keeping up with the Joneses, and comparing their children to others (and being upset about how badly they are failing at this). My mother and brother especially fit the bpd description of being completely empty inside and just flailing around trying to "do what everyone else is doing".

I am pretty much at my wits end and am all out of ideas on how to deal with my family. My counsellor has talked about 'accepting the unacceptable' and backing off so I can preserve my own mental health and just move on.

I would love to hear everyone's input on this.
It's nice to be able to talk to my friends and partner to vent, but they of course also have no idea how to help my family.

Anyway, I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart if you actually read this until the end of the this sentence!


a little more background because I can't stop rambling: I am not necessarily close with my family, and would prefer to distance myself from them, ideally. My mom appears to have many symptoms of BPD as well, which has clearly affected my brother and myself, with my brother inheriting many more of those traits.
I would not go as far as to say that I suffered 'abuse', but they were not nice to me growing up, and I am resentful of them and how they are now so helpless. My household was a typical asian immigrant family, where the female child was expected to help out and behave, while the male child was free to sit around and do as they pleased. It didn't help that my brother was always quite manipulative and always got out of doing anything he didn't want to do.

[forestpotato]

Hi BPD family,

I would be grateful for any advice on my situation:
I am the youngest of two, my older brother has always been difficult going back to when we were babies. He is now almost 40, and most of his life has been riddled with unemployment, mental health issues, and drug and shopping addiction.

Any time Ive tried to talk to him he desperately uses all sorts of tactics to avoid facing the facts. He becomes manipulative and very emotional, and often will just start talking nonstop about how hard he's been working to better himself and 'how hard life is for him' so no one can even get a word in. He becomes apologetic and paints an elaborate story about how he'll change, which sadly my parents still buy into.

When I learned about borderline personality disorder I felt that he fit the symptomology perfectly (and a lot of the thought patterns ring true for me, too, much to my dismay).

Needless to say, he basically has no friends (save for the childhood friends who feel too guilty to cut him off completely), is unable to date, or keep a job for very long. He has "gone back to school" countless times now, on my parents' dime of course, and has always dropped out/never finished any programs.

Clearly my parents enable him, which means he never has to take responsibility for any of his actions, and they are constantly bailing him out of the debt he gets into from online shopping and buying exorbitant amounts of weed. They have allowed him to live at home rent and job free his whole life, they give him free use of their car, and he has taken over the entire basement (vs just living in his old room).

My brother is at his core a terrified man, and he appears to be very scared to seek any kind of real help (not just bullying my parents for money), or make any changes to his life. Because of his deep denial and avoidance, he does not have any official mental health diagnosis, and argues that he is fine and 'working through all this by himself'. Extremely frustrating, am I right.

My problem is this: my parents are basically on the road to blowing through all their retirement savings by constantly handing money over to my brother for him to spend on useless crap and drugs.
To try to counteract this, I have gained power of attorney over my parents, and have successfully "hidden" some of their retirement money from them, with their consent and they agree it is for their own good.
that being said, I can see that whatever money is liquid in their accounts is quickly disappearing in the form of cheques made out to my brother.
I would like to help them, but my issue is also self serving in that I DO NOT want to be supporting my mom dad and brother once they blow through all the money in their accounts, and do not want to feel the guilt of making the decision not to support them financially.

I previously made another post asking for resources in Japanese. My parents do not speak english well, are well into their seventies, and are simply not equipped to deal with my brother. They barely understand the concepts of mental illness, boundary setting, co-dependency, adductions, etc. They are old country Japanese immigrants, and are mainly concerned with themes such as keeping up with the Joneses, and comparing their children to others (and being upset about how badly they are failing at this). My mother and brother especially fit the bpd description of being completely empty inside and just flailing around trying to "do what everyone else is doing".

I am pretty much at my wits end and am all out of ideas on how to deal with my family. My counsellor has talked about 'accepting the unacceptable' and backing off so I can preserve my own mental health and just move on.

I would love to hear everyone's input on this.
It's nice to be able to talk to my friends and partner to vent, but they of course also have no idea how to help my family.

Anyway, I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart if you actually read this until the end of the this sentence!


a little more background because I can't stop rambling: I am not necessarily close with my family, and would prefer to distance myself from them, ideally. My mom appears to have many symptoms of BPD as well, which has clearly affected my brother and myself, with my brother inheriting many more of those traits.
I would not go as far as to say that I suffered 'abuse', but they were not nice to me growing up, and I am resentful of them and how they are now so helpless. My household was a typical asian immigrant family, where the female child was expected to help out and behave, while the male child was free to sit around and do as they pleased. It didn't help that my brother was always quite manipulative and always got out of doing anything he didn't want to do.

[wantmorepeace]

Acceptance of what is not in your control is always good -- hard but good!

So glad you have a counselor.  Does this person have expertise in BPD?  Some counselors don't.

[Cait]

I'm sorry to hear you are going through this. Your story sounds a lot like mine in the sense that my parents also enable my brother which only keeps him unwell.

For me, learning about Borderline and reading The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder (by Randi Kreger) really helped me to see what I can and can't control, regardless of whether the situation ever changes with the person. My main takeaway was that taking care of yourself and your mental wellbeing and having boundaries is the best thing you could do. An added benefit is that boundaries actually help the person with the disorder because they learn how to relate to you in a different way.

I also agree with your counselor about "accepting the unacceptable" or radical acceptance. I know it's hard, but I do think it's the healthiest thing you can do. Once you accept it, you can almost feel a weight lifted and you're able to focus on other areas of your life. Wishing you all the best.