Thank you for your responses! To clarify, I should have said that
in the past I always tried to be sensitive to pwBPD's jealousy... .but that was also before I had an inkling that BPD was what was going on and instead felt responsible/shameful for causing the distress. I'm definitely working on reframing things--I have just as much right to interact with my relatives as she does, and my relationships with those people in no way diminishes her relationships with them. Now the issue is more about how to step back into relationships I've been distant from for the past 20 years.
If she gets jealous, that is about her. If she then takes that out on you, that too is about her and you can protect yourself with boundaries. Does that make sense? Knowing how she behaves while knowing you are prepared emotionally and mentally (this comes over time with practice) is important.
Thanks, Harri! I can/should expect that she probably *will* react badly; but that's about her, not me. She's still not talking to me (we're 7 months of NC now), but I don't see that as a reason not to invest in other relationships.
I think as we heal and grow what our pwBPD thinks and believes of us or says about us becomes less and less toxic. It doesn't go as deeply to the core. I don't mean this as a pat answer at all. It's like a balance scale: as you take from the toxic/worry side and add to the personal confidence side, the scale begins to balance and eventually weigh more on the side of confidence. Just keep working on yourself as you already are, and you will gain the strength you need to transfer from the worry side to the confidence side.
I don't think that's a pat answer at all. I can't control what she's going to think, say, or do... .I can expect barbed comments, pouting, etc... .but it's on her. There are other areas of my life--most areas of my life, in fact--where I'm able to "try it on" when someone says something negative. Does it sound accurate, does it fit? No? Then let it go. Does it have a little truth? Glean something from that, and move forward.
For example with triangulation, if the BPD has a golden child, the second one is labled scapegoat before they are even born. Meaning a BPD will give you a hard time regardless of how compliant you are. Ironically, not rising to anything they say (there's an approach called medium chill), is the best way to reduce that behavior. If you were to try and negotiate or ask them to behave differently, you would encourage more of that behavior, because you've just told them its working really well, they want to wind you up.
Maybe what I'm worried about is... .am I inadvertently triangulating by interacting with my relatives? I mean, I know that's her game: call one child to complain about the other, call one of her siblings to complain about another. But I also believe that this dynamic exists throughout her extended family, not just with Mom. I feel pretty confident about my ability to set boundaries & keep mom drama separate/out of conversation with other family... .but if the triangulating dynamic affects everyone in my family, I'm probably guilty of it myself from time to time. So if I step back in, can I trust that I'm not subconsciously pulling the same shenanigans?
When my Dad died, I suddenly didn't care about these false accusations, and realised for the first time, this is because I only cared about his opinion not the BPD and NPD. Out of interest, which are the most important relationships within the family for you ?
My last living grandparent is in her nineties, and I don't want to regret not calling her more. My brother and I are on the same page regarding Mom, but after so many years of BPD mom splitting us as black/white (this has flipped back and forth over the years), we have never been close. I'd like to know him better, and I'd like for our relationship not to be solely focused on Mom drama. In the past week, I've given my grandmother and brother a call for no other reason than to say hello and catch up. I'd also like to know some of my cousins better, although BPD mom has "adopted"/idealized one of those cousins as her golden child, seeing as how she's unhappy with her own children; and I'm not really sure about how healthy proximity is there.
I'd like to be closer to my dad, but that's the relationship my mom is most protective/jealous about. And at least for the moment he's not willing to see her thought patterns or behavior as anything to be troubled about, and I'm more aware of his own shortcomings. My last conversation with him, about three months ago, included him saying that I've been trying to "drive a wedge" in my relationship with Mom since high school. When I said, "Are you sure I wasn't just trying to become my own independent adult person?", he said, "No, you were intentionally trying to drive a wedge in the relationship." Again with that same phrase. When I pressed for more information, or an example, he offered, "You didn't invite her to a choir concert one time in high school." What do you even say... .? I have no recollection of such an event, but I suppose as a teenager 20 years ago I could have forgotten to tell my parents about an event, or assumed they weren't interested. (They alternated between being annoyed at my involvement in performance activities, and wanting to boast about my accomplishments.) In any case, I'm not particularly hopeful about that relationship at this point.
