Need help dealing with older BPD sister

[PinkFloyd]

I am so grateful that this website and that the information on BPD exists today. I only wish that it existed years ago and I could have eased the suffering earlier!

After 37 years of struggling with the painful roller coaster relationship I’ve had with my sister (she is 5 years older), I have finally realized that she has BPD, thanks to books and websites like this one. My sister has done horrible things including verbal abuse (I’d be a millionaire if I had a dollar every time she called me white trash), ruining countless family holidays, not going to my wedding and not seeing my 5 month old daughter since she was born. No matter how horrible her actions have been, she has always found a way to turn it around making me or another family member the bad guy…to the point where I actually start to wonder if I did do something wrong or if there is something wrong with me.  I think that what has kept sucking me back in over the years has been the fact that she can be very endearing and charming when she wants me in her life (when I’m on the positive side of the splitting game). She also maintains an image of being a stable, well to do citizen. She has always been obsessed with being part of the wealthy upper class of society. When we’re on an upswing, I get excited because I think I’m finally going to have the wonderful sister relationship that I’ve idolized all these years. I always end up spending hours helping her with her issues (sacrificing things like school work, sleep or time with my family), while I get nothing in return and eventually I end up being painted black for something no matter how hard I try. Unfortunately, her husband enables her. He has made a lot of money in the past such that she hasn’t had to work for over 10 years (which is a good thing, because she probably would not be able to maintain a consistent job with her tempestuous people skills) and he actually gangs up with her against the family. After my sister had her daughter in 2004, I was sure she had post-partum depression as she had thoughts of throwing her and her baby in front of the subway. When I approached him with my concern for her via email (he was in Germany on business), he replied by copying my sister in on the email and commenting that I had made a funny joke. I was then painted black for some time.

After she didn’t attend my wedding we didn’t speak for several years, but I decided to let her back into my life and forgave her for what she had done (although in her mind she had done nothing wrong and it was all me, my husband or my parents depending on what day you talk to her about it). I was happy to learn that she was seeing a therapist and at first, I thought that she had changed. However, I have learned the hard way that she actually seems to be worse because her therapist seems to be enabling her.  It seems that he has not identified that she is BPD. All she does with him every week is talk about how everything is my mom’s fault (which is true to an extent because she was a verbal bully/abuser when we were growing up, probably a milder case of BPD). So now instead of focusing on changing her destructive behaviour, she continues to be destructive but now just blames it on my mom. Her weekly ruminations with her therapist seem to leave her primed for a fight with my mom to the point that she interprets my mom as being nasty or aggressive at the slightest sign of negativity.  What’s worse is that she can’t handle seeing me get along with my mother.  Every time she and I have an ‘issue’, she always ends up blaming it somehow on mom or me because I won’t gang up on my mom with her.  I have dealt with my mother’s wrongdoings years ago. It was a long road and I struggled for a long time, but I have forgiven her and we now have a pretty good relationship. 

Over the last few months, I have been researching BPD and am 99.9% sure that my sister has it. It explains and makes sense of so much.  Equipped with this knowledge, I thought that I could handle having my sister in my life. However, with the latest assault, I realize I can’t. My husband was the target of the assault and when I stood up for him, of course it was turned on me….with her ultimately saying that I haven’t dealt with the childhood abuse from my mom and I need to get help (oh…the irony).  What she really wants is for me to gang up with her against my mom.

It took me so many years to learn to love myself and that I deserve to happy.  I learned to trust my inner compass and my own morals and values. In doing so, I’ve built a wonderful life with a fantastic husband, family, friends and career. Although her assaults don’t affect me as deeply as they used to (I used to truly believe her assertions that I was no good), it does still hurt when she strikes.  Even though the logical side of me is able to keep everything straight, the emotional side does end up questioning…”maybe she is right…maybe there is something wrong with me”. 

I guess what I need help with is learning how to go forward. I’m pretty sure that I need to keep her out of my life. How do I go about doing that? How do I prevent her from weaseling her way back in when the irrational side of my mind says “sure, I can handle it this time”. What about my niece? I don’t want her to be punished because her mother and aunt can’t get along. But by the same token, I’d rather her not be a part of my children’s lives because I know that she’ll target and hurt them in some way eventually (she has already gone out of her way to make sure she hasn’t seen my  5 month old daughter since her visit the day she was born).  Or should I let her back in and learn some way to keep her at arm’s length (which is what I thought I was doing until she found a way to hurt me yet again). I also feel really sad. Sad to know that she’ll probably never change and never appreciate how deeply hurtful she has been. How do I convince the irrational side of my mind that wants to believe that I can still get through to her and help her? How can I make myself learn to accept that I will never have a storybook relationship with my sister and the she isn’t the wonderful person she likes to pretend that she is? Also, what do I say to the extended family? I know that many of them wonder what’s going on. Some of them my sister has campaigned to believe her perfect image, I don’t know if they do. While she has painted others black and cut off their relationships, so I’m sure they have some sort of appreciation for the fact that something isn’t right with her. 

Thank you to all of you who take the time to read and/or respond.  It is nice to know that there are others out there facing the same challenges and are willing to help.

[forgottenarm]

 

Hello PinkFloyd, and welcome!

Wow, it sounds like you've had a long, difficult road with your sister.  I'm sorry.  When a family member has a mental illness, it really affects everyone---as you said, your children are involved, her husband, your husband.  And for you especially, I'm sure this situation is very painful and confusing.   It's really good that you reached out for some support with this.  I'm glad you posted.

I'm sure discovering BPD and recognizing those traits in your sister has been somewhat of a revelation.  You raised a lot of important questions in your post about whether to maintain contact, how to handle this, etc., and these are issues you will undoubtedly want to confront.  But it might be okay, for now, to just give yourself time to learn more about BPD and process your feelings.  The big decisions can wait awhile.

It sounds like you've already found some helpful things to read about BPD traits, but here's a link to an outstanding book.  I highly recommend it:

Essential Family Guide

Will your family be getting together over the holidays?  Do you have any immediate plans involving your sister? 

[PinkFloyd]

Thank you forgottenarm. I actually already have that book and am almost finished reading it. It is amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't finish it in time because I got sucked in to my sisters latest assault and now I'm sure we won't be talking for quite some time.

We don't have any plans to spend the holidays together. We are 'sharing' my parents over Christmas eve and Christmas day. My father left my mother last year after 42 years of marriage (I have sent him the information on BPD and he can't believe how well is describes my mother). I do think my mom could be a mild BPD, but nothing in comparison to my sister. Last Christmas eve my sister kicked my mom out of her house (she was supposed to stay over for Christmas morning) after they all had had several drinks. My sister called me first and told me my mom was being rude. I told her to take a few minutes and then to go back downstairs and to ask my mom to 'tone it down' and to call me back. I never heard back so I called and spoke to her husband who said that my sister kicked my mom out. After she spoke to me, she didn't talk to my mom, she just kicked her out. My father had just left my mother for another woman 2 months before. So I had to leave my husband and family-in-law (who were at my house) to look for my mom. I was worried about what she might do and also worried that she would have a car accident since she was driving with booze on board. I drove to her house and found her there just beside herself. It was indeed one of the lowest points in her life. I tried to convince her to come back to my place, but she wouldn't. So she woke up Christmas morning all alone in her apartment. Freshly left by her husband. I was so worried that she would do something drastic. We spent Christmas dinner crying. It was the worst Christmas ever. Afterwards, my sister wouldn't even admit to having kicked my mother out, which she did. And she definitely had no thoughts as to how my Christmas and my in-laws Christmas had been affected by this incident. From what I can tell that happened that night, my sister had a friend over, a single older lady whose sister had just passed. My sisters cat was dying and she was very upset about it (her attachment to this cat was almost unhealthy, it was as if her husband or child was dying).  So my sister kept pouring over her dying cat and apparently my mom was trying to tell her to tone it down so as to be sensitive to her friend who had just lost her sister. I'll never know exactly what happened, but I know that my mom definitely didn't deserve to be kicked out on Christmas eve. I told my sister that I empathised with her feeling that mom was not being nice, but that kicking mom out was going to far. My sister has never forgiven my for this.

Ever since then, our relationship has been off. She's been really rude to me, has spoken to me less and less. She has cancelled holidays that we usually spend together (Thanksgiving). If she decides to communicate with me it's only by email.  I asked her to call me when she cancelled Thanksgiving (she wouldn't pick up when I called). She said she would and never did. She did come to see my daughter when she was born July 8th and brought presents and cake and pretended like everything was wonderful, but aside from that she has made no effort to try to see my baby girl. When she emails she puts on this over the top happy tone pretending like everything is so perfect and wonderful. It's so over the top it's to the point where I don't know if she actually thinks everything is perfect or if she's just being extremely sarcastic. It's insulting.

I didn't put it all together until the last few months, but I'm pretty sure it all started going downhill when I told her she was wrong to kick mom out on Christmas eve. She's told me that she hates my mom. When my grandmother was dying earlier this year (my Mom didn't get along well with her) my sister actually said "wouldn't it be great if she died on mom's birthday". Yet she'll go out of her way to plan a big birthday party for my mom at her house. I was supposed to be part of the planning, but my sister took over everything and wouldn't take my input. One thing I had control of was having a cake made. I was trying to decide what theme to make it and passing it by my sister. I was suggesting themes that reflected interests my mom has (e.g. gardening, bridge, tennis). My sister responded that she wanted the theme to be tennis because she plays tennis with her. I said that I don't play tennis with mom so maybe we could also include a theme that involves me as well and she got mad. I also wanted to make a photo book of pictures of my mom and my sister and I from all through our childhood. My sister said she would do it. Even though I really wanted to do it because it was my idea and I had a vision, I let her take over (I had over 100 pictures scanned and put on a memory stick and gave it to her). She then didn't do it. When I realized she wasn't doing it I tried to come up with other suggestions to at least have something in time for the party (e.g. putting the original pictures in a photo album or an electronic picture frame that displays each photo for a few seconds). She shot all the ideas down. I asked her if we could talk on the phone because we were weren't seeing eye to eye and needed to figure some things out. She couldn't talk to me on the phone so I tried to explain via email the frustrations I was having. She kept dismissing everything I was saying, so I had to keep trying to say the same thing reworded in order to try to get through to her. Eventually, one of my attempts offended her. She said that I was way harsh and brutal (I had other people read it and it really wasn't). We had the party and she pretended like everything was OK, so I thought we had worked through the turbulence, but then afterwards she didn't speak to me for 3 months. When she decided to speak to me again, she said that she had to step off because I had been way harsh with that email.

I've tried to summarize the things that have gone on over the last year. When my father first left my mother, my sister and I were communicating a lot. It was the first time I actually felt like we were really getting along and leaning on each other. We said that finding each other was the silver lining in the whole divorce. So I thought that everything was OK. She never approached me to tell me that she was upset with me (which is what I'm used to doing). Things just started being off and unfolding like I've described above (sorry for the disjointedness... .just trying to get this all down while taking care of a 3 year old and 5 month old).  I didn't understand what was happening and was just left missing the new shoulder I had come to lean on. I could have used her to help me through my hard time (having a difficult pregnancy with newly divorced parents, 2 deaths in the family, a stressful new job and losing the support from my sister pushed me into a pre-partum depression). It turned out to be the same old, same old. I was there for my sister in her time of need (I was there for her through her cats death, which was the end of the world, a domestic with her husband and major financial difficulties)... .but of course, she when I needed her, she was nowhere to be found.

When I look back, it all makes sense that she's been mad at me all along and just hasn't been telling me. Instead she's just been pushing me away and bombarding me with passive aggression.

Again, thank you so much to all who read and help!

[rehtorb70]

I am so grateful that this website and that the information on BPD exists today. I only wish that it existed years ago and I could have eased the suffering earlier!

After 37 years of struggling with the painful roller coaster relationship I’ve had with my sister (she is 5 years older), I have finally realized that she has BPD, thanks to books and websites like this one. My sister has done horrible things including verbal abuse (I’d be a millionaire if I had a dollar every time she called me white trash), ruining countless family holidays, not going to my wedding and not seeing my 5 month old daughter since she was born.

Yes, that's similar to my experiences.  My oldest child is 14 and my BPDSis has seen her exactly once.

No matter how horrible her actions have been, she has always found a way to turn it around making me or another family member the bad guy…

Yes, same here.  pwBPD get a lot practice manipulating and twisting things around.

while I get nothing in return

Same here . . . my BPDSis never does anything nice for anyone.  I've reached out to her many times on the theory that it would make our parents happy.  Inevitably she spits in my face.

but I decided to let her back into my life and forgave her for what she had done

I think part of the key is to forgive in a limited way.  You forgive in the sense that you let the incident go. But you don't pretend that going forward, things will be normal.  You keep in mind that the person is mentally ill and will always be so and you need to take steps to protect yourself.  Not to punish or retaliate, but simply to protect yourself.

I was happy to learn that she was seeing a therapist and at first, I thought that she had changed. However, I have learned the hard way that she actually seems to be worse because her therapist seems to be enabling her. 

Yes, this is a classic behavior pattern for pwBPD.  If they see a therapist, it's generally for manipulative reasons and not out of a genuine desire to improve themselves.  Probably this therapist is the 3rd or 4th she has seen.  Probably she shopped around until she found someone willing to take her money and help her play the blame game.

Over the last few months, I have been researching BPD and am 99.9% sure that my sister has it. It explains and makes sense of so much. 

Yes, I had a similar revelation about my BPDSis about a year ago.  Everything fell into place. 

I guess what I need help with is learning how to go forward. I’m pretty sure that I need to keep her out of my life. How do I go about doing that?

Try doing it in such a way that she won't suspect that's what you are doing.  Move as far away from her as you practically can so that you will not be seeing her regularly.  Take up some activity which will ensure that you are busy when she tries to call.  Arrange things so that you see her at most a few times a year and you can mentally prepare for those encounters.  When you do see her, mentally prepare in advance.  Among the most important things, make sure that she doesn't get any information about you or your life.  Make sure that you never justify, argue, defend, or explain.  Prepare some white lies to allow you to disengage, for example plan with a friend in advance to call your cell phone a few times so that you will have a ready excuse to exit from conversations.  Most importantly, keep in mind that, in effect, your sister is possessed by evil demons and that she will try to trick you into thinking everything is okay.

[BPDSis]

Hi PinkFloyd,

You haven't posted in a while, but when I found this topic online, it was the first time I was able to consider that I was not alone in having lived with a sister all my life who has BPD. My sister is 4 years older than me, and she has totally dominated my life, in much the same fashion as you describe with yours. Our mother was most likely bi-polar, and she died, at 86 years, just last week. With the death of our mother, the only enabler who kept my sister in business for her 56 years is gone, and I will not be taking my mother's place in enabling my sister's out-of-control behavior.  My mother would never have any discussion that there was anything, ever, wrong with my sister, and our mother dismissed my concerns when we found out five years ago that my sister was going around telling certain friends of my mother's that she had Alzheimer's and not to contact her, when absolutely nothing could be further than the truth. Our mother kept her mental faculties right up until the end last week. I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your story. It's honestly the very first time in my 52 years that I don't feel I'm the only one having suffered through a childhood, and then adulthood with a BPD sister.

[ABCD1234]

Hey BPDsis,

I just posted about my BPDsis a few hours ago. It explains so much!  If she didn't get sick I would be NC. It's too much stress and I don't have room for all that drama in my life. But I must carefully consider my actions as I don't want to cause her further anguish. How do you handle communication with your BPD sis?